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gey muckle mowser posted:I also appreciated how the killer seems like a regular dude who can be hurt Did... you miss the part where there's a power surge and then the guy gets up from being dead from a gunshot wound through the eye? Terrifier occupies this weird space where it's not a movie I totally "hated" but it's still kind of a piece of poo poo. You don't care about the main characters, the kills are extremely gory but there's no gravity or build-up to them and they just kind of happen. I kind of feel like the director should just be a special effects guy who works on other people's better written and better edited/directed movies. He's talented for sure, and the clown's design and the actor playing him are good, but overall I thought it was a waste and pretty forgettable. King Vidiot fucked around with this message at 14:33 on Sep 17, 2018 |
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Sep 17, 2018 14:30
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To contribute, the movies I saw this weekend: 1. Terrifier  Not much more to say about this movie that I haven't already said. The gore effects are fantastic (save for the the eaten-off face which I thought looked silly), but that's about all this movie has going for it apart from the excellent performance and design of Art the clown. Just-barely-competently written, direction was... just fine. My biggest complaint was that it didn't go full camp or full stupid. It's "better" than any entry in the Saw series but that just makes it kind of boring, in my opinion. 2. Mandy  I went in with high expectations despite totally tuning out of the director's previous effort, Beyond the Black Rainbow (which I may now have to revisit). It does not disappoint. It's a modern-era fable set in the 80's, it's a common man who has to become Death incarnate to avenge his girlfriend after she's taken by a drugged-out hippie cult. The druggy, dream logic of the story is amazing, as are the visuals but the story is a lot more grounded than BtBR. It seems bleak from the outset, but the tone shifts into a fast-paced revenge blood orgy where you're rooting for Nicolas Cage the Absolute Maniac as he steamrolls towards the conclusion. Andrea Riseborough is also great in her brief role, and you get just enough time with the couple to feel their connection before poo poo goes down. It's loving awesome, as many have said already. Watch it however you can. 3. Creep  This is a really short one, and mostly serves as a lead-in to the much better and fully-realized Creep 2. Ostensibly it's a found footage movie where a videographer responds to an ad for a day of shooting in a remote cabin, but his subject's behavior starts getting stranger and stranger until he goes full-on stalker. Does a pretty decent job of keeping you just off your guard enough to get taken for a ride by the titular "creep", and Mark Duplass is amazing in the role, but ultimately you figure out where it's going by the halfway point of its just-over-an-hour runtime. Recommended just so you have some background for the real movie... 4. Creep 2  I'm glad I finally got around to watching this, it's really drat good for what it is which is a kind of "mumblecore indie horror". The creep from the first movie returns, this time the subject of a down-on-her-luck web series director, and holy poo poo what a ride. It's best to go into this one totally blind, so I won't really go into any more details on the plot. Mark Duplass is even better this time around, just goofy and disarming enough to draw you in while giving off just enough of an unhinged vibe to make you (and the protagonist) wary. Both movies are perfect early fall September horror movies. They're not "scary" in the traditional sense but Creep 2 is really tense, especially the climax. Highly recommended!
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Sep 17, 2018 16:00
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5.  The First Purge Well it took them three sequels but they finally did it, they finally justified The Purge's existence as a franchise with this, the real first movie in the series. Yes, seriously. Forget that the original even existed, this is the first movie and it's by far the best of the lot. There are a lot of obvious potshots at our current political climate, as you'd expect, but I was surprised by how tightly written and directed it was. The final setpiece is like Die Hard meets The Raid and it's awesome, and "Skeletor" was great as Chekhov's Psychopath, he's just absolutely creepy and steals every scene he pops up in. There are a few moments that don't land, like the crazy hobos that just randomly attack people who come through their sewer lair, one of whom delivers a cheap "grab her by the pussy" gag because of course they had to go there, but overall it was really good. The trailer gives away basically everything, so if you haven't seen the movie or the trailer and are looking for a good place to start with the Purge franchise, here you go. I thought it was good enough that it retroactively made the other sequels better, even the incredibly underwhelming Election Year. e: Also  at all the extremely obvious trollbots (and actual alt-righters) on the imdb page who drove the rating down.
King Vidiot fucked around with this message at 02:10 on Sep 22, 2018 |
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Sep 22, 2018 02:04
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Cheddar Goblin really needs his own spin-off. Like he needs to be the wraparound for a horror anthology TV series produced by Cosmatos.
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Sep 22, 2018 02:39
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Drunkboxer posted:What a title. Seriously, that sounds like a title someone would make up to make fun of Kvlt in the horror thread.
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Sep 22, 2018 13:18
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6. I Am Not a Serial Killer Maybe it was Max Records, maybe it was the desaturated colors or low-key cinematography but this movie might've been a little too indie for my tastes, and this is coming from somebody who loved Creep 2 not that long ago. This one is more core and less mumble, and it felt like a long episode of Eerie, Indiana mixed with Let the Right One In so I'll give it points for that. Put simply, it's the story of a sociopathic and socially stunted high school kid who investigates a series of murders a little too closely and uncovers something even more horrific and weird than a serial killing. It doesn't waste a lot of time with the "is he or isn't he", you know before the halfway point who's responsible, so most of the movie is a battle of wills between a good kid who feels nothing and a homicidal creature who feels more human than the protagonist. It's... pretty good? I wouldn't necessarily recommend it but you can do worse.
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Sep 23, 2018 01:02
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Hollismason posted:That monkey attacked Jennifer Connelly and bit off part of her finger IRL. In all fairness to the chimp, if I were a chimp and had to star in a Dario Argento movie I'd probably lose my poo poo too.
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Sep 23, 2018 17:10
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 VHS If you're around my age, and a horror fan, there's a good chance you used to rent horror movies on VHS by the quarter-dozen from your local mom and pop store. It was probably the start of your obsession, it was certainly the start of mine. But how does VHS hold up in the age of the boutique label blu-ray rerelease? In the age of Shudder? In the age of Amazon's octopus tentacles of Literally Every loving Movie Ever Made On Streaming? Well, thanks to my library's connections to a treasure trove of old obscure horror VHS tapes I'm about to find out. 7.  A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors Nostalgia Rating: out of 5A/V Rating: out of 5Trailers: 0 out of 5 (Seriously, no loving trailers? Why am I even bothering?) Almost immediately after I started watching this I began to regret my decision. The picture was muddied and looked like blurry diarrhea. I've only ever seen Dream Warriors in VHS form but this looked worse than I remembered. I mean, I'm pretty sure the Freddy worm that swallows Patricia Arquette actually looked good and not like a faceless, sweaty blue-black meatball. The sound was fine, but that's to be expected from my beefy-rear end Sony VCR with RCA stereo out. As for the movie itself, I guess it's just like I remembered it and still pretty good after all this time. I'm planning on giving this a proper rewatch in HD next month, I feel like this movie deserves better than a 4:3 cropped image and blown-out, muddy colors.  Dead & Buried Nostalgia Rating: 0 out of 5 (Only watched for the first time last year) A/V Rating: out of 5Trailers: 0 out of 5 (Come the gently caress on, Vestron. I expect better from you!) This was a slight step up picture-wise from Dream Warriors, probably due to the fact that it's not as well-known of a movie and likely hasn't been watched as often. But it still looks like poo poo, and I watched it just last year in HD so I have a mental comparison. As I was drinking during what should've been a triple-feature marathon, I sort of fell asleep at the halfway point, but the movie is still really good and creepy. I'm going to go ahead and not count this for my 31 since I missed like 40 minutes of it. I'm probably not going to give this a proper rewatch since I have so much other poo poo on the docket, but someday I'll revisit it because I really enjoyed it last Halloween season. All in all I'm disappointed in VHS's quality now. Maybe I've been spoiled, maybe it's my Panasonic flat-screen CRT, whatever the case the image is awful and it actually kind of takes me out of the experience. Maybe it's time to move on?
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Sep 23, 2018 23:48
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Lumbermouth posted:...did you watch the Dokken music video? Sadly, I don't think this release has it. There's certainly no mention of it or any sticker on the outside of the box, and it's distributed by "Video Treasures" which I guess means it's a rerelease or special rental-only copy. But you better believe I was fist-pumping and headbanging during the credits. e: V Okay that'd make sense, they probably added the music video later. King Vidiot fucked around with this message at 01:06 on Sep 24, 2018 |
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Sep 24, 2018 00:47
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8. Lake Bodom This one occupies that weird space for me, where I didn't totally "hate it" and actually think it was well-done and competently-paced, directed and acted, but I see the potential for a much better movie. The movie's biggest problem is that it not once, but twice commits the sin of telling and not showing. First it has an extended flashback sequence narrated by one of the main characters where an entire convoluted plot thread is revealed, and this after the main story of the first 2/3rds of the movie is concluded. So the movie is "over", except we already know what's coming next since it's been beating us over the head with little moments of foreshadowing throughout. Then in the wrap-up to the second plot, we have more narration explaining what happened after the climax along with a montage. Essentially the movie is a high school drama/thriller that unfolds in the middle of a slasher movie, except the slasher movie doesn't even get started until the last 1/3rd of the movie. It could've really used some editing and reshoots, like the high school drama part is fine except maybe cut out the 5-minute flashback montage. Overall... not bad? The last act of the movie is pretty tense, particularly the... "reverse car chase" for lack of a better way to describe it. tl;dr - It's a solidly-atmospheric thriller that ramps up into a full-blown slasher-in-the-woods. There's blood, there's breasts, there's (a) beast (okay, a dog)... wrench fu, winch fu, knife fu, tree branch fu... I'd give it a solid 1/2 out of 5 
King Vidiot fucked around with this message at 22:07 on Sep 24, 2018 |
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Sep 24, 2018 22:04
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Franchescanado posted:
poo poo, that'll be easy for me considering what's coming to theaters next month and I live in Illinois 
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Sep 26, 2018 16:26
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FRAN CHALLENGE #3: Hometown Horror
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LORD OF BOOTY posted:While he does die, he's not the first one to, and his death is completely mundane. My favorite Chucky kills are the ones where Chucky doesn't even kill them directly, the person just has a totally rational reaction to seeing a living doll and then they die after freaking out.
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Sep 30, 2018 04:21
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VHS Double-Feature Part 2! 9.  Dolls So it occurred to me after three VHS tapes in a row without trailers, that this is the way VHS rental copies are supposed to be. Maybe somebody can correct me, but I guess it'd make sense for real VHS rental-only copies to be trailer-free since the establishment owner already paid the distributor a premium for a special copy. All I know is that my local mom-and-pop's VHS tapes always had trailers, and Dolls was no exception. Tracking issues aside, this was a better quality copy than either of my previous tapes, or maybe that was just Stuart Gordon's cinematography with its high contrasts and bright colors. Yes, this is a Gordon/Yuzna production and if you haven't somehow seen it already then get on that poo poo. It's probably my favorite Stuart Gordon movie, the creature effects on the little dolls are great and the movie is like a dark modern-day Grimm's fairy tale. I appreciate that it's a tale of totally irredeemable assholes getting their comeuppance, even if it's at the hands of creepy dolls and a dubiously "kindly" old couple. This was just as much of a delight to watch on VHS as it was the first time, though obviously the blu-ray is leagues better. Seriously do check it out, there's decent gore and blood with the trademark Stuart Gordon dark humor, but it's also probably family-friendly enough to put non-horror fans at ease. 10.  Maniac Cop 2 Oh holy poo poo, I heard that Maniac Cop 2 was leagues better than the first but I didn't expect this. And I really enjoyed the first, this one just had way more balls-out action and elevated Matt Cordell to legendary status as "Literally Jason Voorhees But Also a Cop". It clears up the ambiguity from the first movie, namely is he or isn't he a goddamn zombie... yeah he totally is. The few kills there are are great, but mainly it's just fun to see Robert Z'dar tearassing around and terrifying everybody. Watching this now just makes me want to see a Maniac Cop franchise reboot, I mean if any franchise needs a modern take it's this one. Especially with its themes of police corruption that it mostly just glosses over and uses as a backdrop to the carnage, a modern reboot could delve into that deeper. I'd seriously put Robert Z'dar right next to Kane Hodder for his Iconic Hulking Monster Walk alone, he absolutely steals every scene he's in and it's a shame he's mostly known for his speaking roles where he does a... less-than-stellar job. He needed more stunt roles and Silent Force of Nature roles, he could've been huge. Also that loving Maniac Cop rap out of nowhere https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDpzGiP-PrU
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Sep 30, 2018 22:40
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Franchescanado posted:
11. "Best" of the Worst  Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers This challenge was a hard one (also my first), and my first gut instinct was to go with John Carpenter's worst. But then I did some research into Ghosts of Mars and... well no, I'm not going to track down a copy of Ghosts of Mars and sit through an early-2000's sci-fi horror starring Ice Cube. Not today, the first day of MOTHERFUCKING OCTOBER!!   Ahem... so I decided to use this challenge as an excuse to finally watch Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers, the most noteworthy/notorious movie from director Fred Olen Ray, a director mostly known for directing movies with the word "bikini" in the title. I've had the blu ray sitting around for a while, and this was a movie I'd heard of since I was a little horror VHS-obsessed kid and I can still remember the movie box and how sleazy I felt just looking at it even then. So where do I begin? Do you like Blood Feast? Do you wish Blood Feast had a ton of boobs and chainsaws in it? Well you're in luck! The main reason to watch this movie is Michelle Bauer*, she totally steals every scene she's in even if it's just standing in the background of an ancient Egyptian ceremony bugging her eyes out and staring around the room. The movie opens with a guy who's a dead ringer for 80's Donald Trump getting disemboweled and dismembered by a topless Michelle Bauer in a shower cap with a chainsaw. Sadly it never really gets any better than that, but the final chainsaw fight between Linnea Quigley and Michelle Bauer comes close. I'm not going to lie and say this was a "good" movie, but it has a lot of charm and I can see why it has a cult following. Recommended if you have a stomach for schlocky sleaze. *and by total coincidence that I really didn't plan for, happy birthday Michelle Bauer!
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Oct 1, 2018 21:31
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Franchescanado posted:
12. The Night HE Came Home(town Horror)  Halloween So I got lucky for this challenge, I live in Illinois and two of my favorite classic horror movies are set there. But I've seen Child's Play so many times, I figured I'd return to one of my criminally under-rewatched movies and watch Halloween again. It only seemed appropriate for October 1st. So right off the bat, one of the first things I noticed was that Donald Pleasance doesn't make a good first impression as Dr. Loomis. In the car ride scene, he seems to be trying to hide his accent and he's coming across really flat. He makes up for it later with his infamous stalking-around-in-a-bush-for-a-whole-night bit. Seriously, I think he's creepier than Michael Myers in this. I also noticed a detail or two that I missed the first couple of times, and how I missed this first one I don't know. The marathon that the kids are watching on TV features the original The Thing, and John Carpenter himself is apparently the horror host in VO. The second detail was that on Laurie's bedroom wall there's a portrait of James Ensor, the Belgian painter most well-known for his paintings of disembodied, creepy masks. No way was that unintentional. Also I admired John Carpenter's framing and lighting a whole lot more this time, particularly one scene where Laurie has just stabbed Michael with a knitting needle and then we see an overhead, skewed shot where she's spotlighted with the hallway light through the archway. Movie's still fantastic, and I can't wait for the new one. I haven't even seen Halloween II so I guess I get to go into the new retcon without the baggage of all the ridiculous sequels. Except III, but that doesn't count.
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Oct 2, 2018 00:14
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SMP posted:17. The Lost Boys - 3.5/5 (HBOGo) Wait wait, which one of those is it? I mean, it's your opinion and you're entitled to it but I really want to know if you think Joel Schumacher is terrible and it's his best film or if Schumacher is good but it's his worst film. I mean I could see the former, but I don't think Schumacher's work is that bad.
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Oct 2, 2018 01:56
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Basebf555 posted:She says "totally" a lot, what more do you need? Dammit Fright Rags, you'd better pull through and make a reprint of this shirt in time for the new Halloween this month: https://www.fright-rags.com/products/halloween-totally?variant=329440395273
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Oct 2, 2018 02:29
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Franchescanado posted:
Oh holky gently caress, so many good options for 1983  I'm just going to have to try and resist the temptation to do a cop out and watch Sleepaway Camp for the umpteenth time, and pick something I haven't seen or haven't seen in a while. I'm leaning towards Psycho II since I haven't watched the Psycho sequels in over 20 years.
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Oct 3, 2018 14:19
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Lester Shy posted:It's nice, light, and fun, but I don't understand the universal praise it's gotten. ...because it's nice, light and fun? The charm carries the movie, in my opinion, and the two leads are great. It's the kind of splatter comedy I could recommend to a kid just getting into horror, like there's some really gnarly gore but it flies by and is played entirely for laughs. It's not "hilarious", and I don't think most people who praised it really thought it was. It's kinda chuckleworthy, and I think that's good enough. It's leagues loving better than other attempts I've seen at modern slasher parody comedy, like Final Girls or Happy Death Day.
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Oct 5, 2018 02:53
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Bruteman posted:Linnea Quigley does the virgin dance of the double chainsaws! I don't think it beats her Return of the Living Dead dance scene, but it's still funny. While I'm glad they were concerned for Linnea's safety, it was hilarious watching her dance daintily around with two chainsaws that weren't even on while they ADR'd some chainsaw revving noises. Franchescanado posted:
Fine, I'll buy Anthropophagous on blu ray. This Halloween season's gonna get real expensive if you keep this up. ...nah just kidding I'll be watching Bloody Moon because it was literally on-deck to be watched this month anyways
King Vidiot fucked around with this message at 22:23 on Oct 5, 2018 |
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Oct 5, 2018 22:17
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Is there some rule that we can't watch movies we've already seen? Or is that just some personal thing that some posters are abiding by? Because I already kinda broke that rule, several times.
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Oct 6, 2018 01:26
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Franchescanado posted:
13.  Bloody Moon So I have a confession. I've never seen a Jess Franco movie before this. At least, I'm 99% sure I've never seen a Jess Franco movie before this. I'm sure this is a "lesser" Jess Franco movie, but it sure was disjointed, weird and kind of boring. There was plenty of decent low-budget gore, but in-between that there was a woman wandering around trying to uncover The Truth, and The Truth was even stupider and more convoluted than you think. Maybe I've just seen this kind of movie so many times by now that I'm jaded, but basically it's "murders start happening, someone's to blame, it's not entirely who you think". There's like 10 minutes worth of plot, 15 minutes worth of gore and an hour of giggling young topless or seethru-top-wearing women and their boy toys and shots of the Spanish countryside and one clueless protagonist who's scared of her own shadow. Can we talk about the toplessness? Is it that hot in the Mediterranean to where everybody has to go around in sheer blouses or fishnet tanktops? I really don't know what else to say, I'd put this squarely in the "lesser giallo" category alongside Torso or whatever. Completely forgettable, apart from a decapitation by rocksaw, followed by a kid getting killed. Not really recommended unless you simply have to see every giallo and/or Jess Franco movie. Me, I don't know if I'll ever bother watching another one
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Oct 7, 2018 00:06
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I knew that was Sybil Danning the instant I saw her. I'm not sure she's ever done a role where she wasn't wearing a plunging top with her cleavage out and/or some kind of goofy sunglasses. And she was in loving everything seemingly. She was like Robert Z'dar, with boobs and shades instead of a massive chin.
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Oct 7, 2018 18:59
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14. The Blob (1988) So I guess my "theme" for today was "horror movies I'd seen and liked as a kid but haven't seen in over 20 years". I remember this being on HBO, possibly, or renting it or something. I can't really recall where or how I watched it, or if I've seen the whole thing. It's really drat good, and watching it with a fresh set of eyes I can appreciate how well they captured the essence of a 1950's "alien thing devours the town" monster movie, but with the kind of effects you could only achieve and get away with in the 80's. The small town feels like one of those Generic Anytown USA towns you'd see in a monster movie, and there's a great build-up where you learn just enough about the people of the town to care when they're fighting for their lives against a thing without reason or form. The movie has a few great "hey it's that guy" moments, like brief appearances from Bill Moseley and Frank Collison (look him up, I guarantee you've seen him before). The creature effects, I don't feel it needs to be said, are top-notch as is the gore and there are some truly horrifying scenes of people mid-blobbing that are painful to watch. It's the kind of stuff the 1958 original wouldn't have even dared to attempt if they could. It's a movie that pays perfect homage to its namesake, released 30 years after the original. And speaking of... Franchescanado posted:
15.  Psycho II (1983) I hit upon a second theme as I started watching this, which was "horror movies that pay homage to and capture the feel of older classic horror films". Psycho II is more than an homage though, it's the best sequel one could possibly hope for to a true genre classic. The movie didn't really need to be made, but I'm glad it was because it's really drat good. It manages to strike the perfect balance of being just similar enough to the original that it flows organically from it, but it builds its own universe and adds its own elements to the mythos. Anthony Perkins steals it yet again, but everybody else does phenomenal work as well. The pacing and direction feels close enough to Hitchcock's own without aping it, and I appreciated one particularly silly nod to Hitchcock where the Hitchcock silhouette from Alfred Hitchcock presents is seen against Norma's old dresser. Also it's fun to contrast the moral sensibilities of the slasher-era early 80's with the early 60's. This movie has some straight-up Jason kills and a moment of full nudity, and comparatively speaking Psycho II doesn't really push the envelope the way the original did because by the time Psycho II came out the envelope had already been pushed. At any rate, it's a really good movie and if you haven't seen it yet I'd highly recommend it.
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Oct 7, 2018 23:29
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Basebf555 posted:Yea I think The Burning is the superior movie, and it's not close. The Burning is a far better movie, yes, but there's a reason I have Sleepaway Camp on blu ray and not The Burning. Charm and weirdness go a long way, but that's just me
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Oct 9, 2018 13:46
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Since I forgot to state a goal, I'm just going to do the 20 by 20 Challenge. The 20th's my birthday, and I have a limited time to watch movies (and/or I just prefer to watch them on the weekends when I'm mostly free all day), so I'm just going to try and get five more in between now and then. I'll probably do more than 20 but that's all I'm shooting for, because this is about having fun and enjoying horror movies.
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Oct 10, 2018 01:22
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Franchescanado posted:The worst zombie movie I've ever seen is Die You Zombie Bastards! That movie filled me with hatred for everyone involved. I bought that movie because I kinda liked the short movie the director previously made, called "Red's Breakfast 2: Dawn of the Red". It was the same character from DYZB, except it was just a day in the life of a serial killer or something. I don't remember much about it honestly, it was part of some Tromadance DVD of shorts from the Tromadance festival. The same DVD also had the early short film that was made by the Jesus Christ: Vampire Hunter guys. And in that case too, the short was way better than the feature-length movie.
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Oct 10, 2018 15:41
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M_Sinistrari posted:
It's basically just a rip-off of Wizard of Gore, but I actually kind of liked Bloodsucking Freaks better just for taking HG Lewis's idea and running hogwild with it. But holy poo poo is it gross and sleazy and more than a little misogynist. I'd definitely, eh, just not mention you ever saw this to anybody unless you're absolutely sure they'll still talk to you afterwards.
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Oct 10, 2018 18:41
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Franchescanado posted:
16.  Unfriended: Ḍ̬͎̬̺͙͓͌̒̃̓̋̈̀͘͟a͖̥͉͖̬̍͋́̊̃́̓̚͡͠ȓ̸̠̞͔̞̹̪̮͕̦̆̿̇͂̔̀k̨̧͔̫͙̟͇̺͛͊̆̋̇̾̌̕͜ͅ W̧̯̠̳͔̠͉̆̃̽̿̇͆e̸̢̟̼̫̰͉̼̗͌̀̐͘͡b̛̟̱̩͔̬̳͇̙̭̱̑̈́͑̔ I completely skipped over the first Unfriended, it looked really dumb and even if it might've been the funny kind of dumb... it's a loving ghost movie about the internet, I mean come on. I also have a low tolerance for Modern Teen Horror. Well imagine my surprise when the sequel to Unfriended comes out, it's not about loving CyberGhosts and it's actually good. Or so I hear. There are many ways to gently caress up a movie like Dark Web, like you could make it into the new Hackers and cram it with techno-jargon and have people using computers and apps that nobody has ever had. It mostly doesn't do that. Or you could turn it into a torture porn sleazy voyeur movie where you just watch young people getting mutilated on camera. It doesn't do that at all, in fact I was surprised by how little blood or gore or violence it had. And while I was initially annoyed by the fact that I had to move closer to my small flatscreen to read the chat boxes on the screen, I quickly adjusted and the movie sucked me in. There's no "cinematography" to speak of, it is after all just the desktop of the main character's laptop, but the manipulation of the windows and cutting in and out of video feed and chat windows and so on felt natural and it was done really well. I guess you could call that "editing". The actors are all decent, particularly when poo poo really starts hitting the fan, and the plot is a well-done slow burn suspense horror. I actually cared about these one-dimensional characters, which is rare for a movie like this. All in all, not too bad, I might even like it better than The Den which covered much of the same ground with a slightly different focus.
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Oct 11, 2018 02:20
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STAC Goat posted:Yeah, there's definitely a "bubblegum" lightness that isn't there in more sardonic atuff like Zombieland or Shaun of the Dead or whatever. The girls feel like they just got left home alone for the weekend or something. I totally agree I can't think of anything that treats it quite as light as Night of the Comet, which is why it was just so weird. But I guess I was trying to figure out why it made such an impact and I just figured predating all that stuff probably made it more unique. But it's super light tone continues to make it unique 35 years later and that weirdness probably really appeals to some people or stands out as ballsy or different. I haven't even seen it, but from what I've gleaned of Career Opportunities I'd say it's pretty close tonally to Night of the Comet. Young people aimlessly wandering around in a commercialized wasteland in the 80's, except in Night of the Comet it's a literal wasteland. Now I'm gonna have to do a back-to-back viewing of those two movies.
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Oct 11, 2018 02:27
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Yeah the remake is definitely worth seeing, I might even go so far as to call it better than the original. The one-two punch of the father burning alive while the daughter is raped made me never want to see it again though.
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Oct 11, 2018 02:55
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Franchescanado posted:
I was afraid of this one at first, but now I have an excuse to rewatch Near Dark... as if I needed one
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Oct 12, 2018 22:11
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17.  The Houses October Built I like the idea of a real documentary being combined with an element of faux documentary. It's been done to great effect, the movie S&Man comes to mind. But what happens if you shop around your pseudo-real-documentary and it makes it big, so big you feel compelled to totally re-shoot and re-edit your original effort into something a little more polished and way less real and charming? Well, you get The Houses October Built. What started as a unique concept, namely a documentary about real Halloween haunts gives way to a haunt that's a little too real, turned into a streamlined horror movie where characters we barely know are immediately besieged by haunt actors who lead them into a deadly situation with barely any breathing room and barely any pretense of this being a "documentary" in any traditional sense. What I'll give the movie credit for is that they do use footage from real haunts, that lends at least some authenticity to the whole proceeding. But these characters really play up their own fear. They're ostensibly in search of the most extreme haunt but they seem to barely be able to handle even the most bog-standard off-the-beaten-path haunt. And there are two ways they could've handled the climax, they could've gone the Saw route and made some elaborate trickhouse where everybody dies in stupid ways, or they could've gone for verisimilitude where we don't really "see" much but the murders feel more real for how mundane they are. They went for the latter, and I'm kind of divided on that. The movie's so mediocre that by the time the ending comes around, I was kind of hoping they'd go whole hog and just make it bloody, while at the same time it's kind of a relief that they didn't because in a movie like this you don't want to go too Hollywood Torture Horror. In all, kind of disappointing but not as bad as other people have said. Also I was curious about the original cut of the movie, the one that took off and led to the slicker version. Luckily it's on the blu ray and... Now this is more like it. Right out of the gate, they even spend more time with the protagonists and we get a better sense of who they are and what their roles are in the documentary. There's a lot more emphasis on Brandy, she basically serves as the host now and is actually given poo poo to do and she interviews haunt actors in-character. The real interviews and real haunt footage is way more interesting here than the glossed-over footage in the remake. That being said, the Blue Skeleton build up is really transparent here, even moreso than in the remake. And anything that isn't them just filming real haunts feels kind of amateurish, which I guess you'd expect from such a low-budget production. It's interesting to see the original, unedited footage from the real interviews that they re-used in the remake though, it kind of loses something when it's relegated to quick-cut interludes. But anyway this is way too many words about The Houses October Built. The remake is just okay, the original documentary/pseudo-documentary is really interesting, but you need both to really get the whole experience. I guess the thing to take away from it all is that these people would've been better off just making a loose documentary where they interview the people who run professional haunts. They didn't need the "real dead bodies and real murder" angle at all, it just kind of distracts from the actual interesting poo poo.
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Oct 13, 2018 23:23
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Franchescanado posted:
18.  I don't know what I expected going in to this movie, but I certainly didn't expect the best use of Silverchair in a film soundtrack I've seen all year. I'd guess the closest thing to compare this movie to would be something like The Stepfather. The basic conceit is roughly the same, except instead of, you know, a stepfather it's a lesbian wife taking her wife out for a nice getaway at a lakeside cabin. It's a cabin, it's in the woods, maybe you're expecting some slasher action but while there is some really painful moments of bodily harm this is all more in line with something like The Good Son. It's a Psycho Thriller more than traditional horror, the "horror" comes more from the horrible things some people can do to other people. The queer element of the film is just the fact that the two mains are a lesbian couple. Their relationship isn't propped up to be titillating which I appreciated, they just happen to be gay and you believe that they have a history together, even if it turns out that their history was entirely a sham and one of them is a psycho killer. The two leads are really good, and I liked the cat-and-mouse element with each (well, it's mostly one-sided in favor of the killer) trying to outwit and outlast the other. There's a few kind-of-stupid moments where the would-be victim makes a few silly decisions but mostly it's all reasonable and grounded. All in all, preeeetty good, I just kind of wish I watched it last month because it really doesn't feel Halloween-y and that's what I need right now.
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Oct 14, 2018 22:57
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I bought a DVD of it for like $3 at a flea market so
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Oct 15, 2018 00:33
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Franchescanado posted:
19.  Cremator While this might get some people to split hairs and say "That isn't really horror because (technical nitpick here)", I say what's more horrible than real human atrocity? Ostensibly it's a movie about a mild-mannered, Buddhist-philosophizing cremator who quickly and easily becomes a tool of the fascist regime knocking at the door of his country of Czechoslovakia during WWII. He believes in "freeing souls" through cremation, and he has a half-Jewish wife and two quarter-Jewish kids and... I think you see where this is all going. The horror of Cremator comes with the readiness of Karl to throw away everything he loves and turn over his will to the Reich, and it's framed like a slow-burn horror movie of an already unstable man gradually growing madder until the inevitable conclusion. It's sort of The Shining meets Schindler's List, which is really a bad comparison but I have to leave to go to work in like 10 minutes and one could really spend loving hours unpacking this movie. It's a loving great movie, if you haven't seen it just watch it. Even if it's not October, it's really an any time movie and it's fantastic... like not to poo poo on the stuff I usually enjoy this time of year but this was an actual "movie-movie" and not, you know, Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers.
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Oct 16, 2018 19:45
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STAC Goat posted:Heh, that's funny. It's at the very least a testament to Rob Zombie's potential that a loving "jam session" is him calling up his buddy Malcolm Goddamn McDowell to shoot a movie with a Hitler Dwarf. Not to mention Meg Foster and Richard Brake, both giving amazing performances. I mean yeah it doesn't gel, but given the story of how it got made it was never really meant to gel.
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Oct 17, 2018 01:54
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gey muckle mowser posted:I liked the security guard at a carnival who has multiple guns, one of which is just loose in an unlocked desk drawer Sounds completely believable and accurate to me
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Oct 17, 2018 15:12
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mobby_6kl posted:Is there a lot of gay stuff in Sleepaway Camp? It was on my shortlist list for the Fran challenge though I ended up watching Neon Demon instead. I wouldn't say "a lot" but there's a flashback scene with a gay couple, and there are some gender identity issues as you'd expect given the twist that everybody probably knows by now. It could definitely fit an LGBTQ+ horror challenge.
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Oct 18, 2018 13:56
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Random Stranger posted:I can't help but feel that Wes Craven missed his double feature opportunity when he just titled his movie Scream 2... Would've made an even better triple-feature if that were the case... Tonight, One Night Only! Scream and Scream Again and Scream and Scream Again
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Oct 19, 2018 01:46
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