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Oh drat I'm a bit late to the party, no way I'm gonna make it to 31 this time  Last year I did manage to complete the 31 years challenge, which was pretty awesome experience. I noticed I haven't seen most of the staff picks so I'll just start with some of those, and perhaps with a few Scream Stream flicks I might get there.
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Oct 2, 2018 18:22
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^^^ In the Mouth of Madness. Also gently caress you 1994 goddamn. Here's a handy table I made last time for 31 years in 31 days, with the top IMDB horror movies per year (sorry anyone older than me):  Franchescanado posted:
 That would be kind of normal for movies set in the present day, but this one explicitly has two time periods. 1. Night of the Creeps (1986)  This movie makes the same mistake in the opening that Commando does, that is revealing the space nature of the threat in the opening shot and scene. (Sadly that's the only thing they have in common) Here we get to see a shootout between some ugly aliens, one of whom then bails out from the main spaceship and lands on earth in the 50s. Coincidentally, a literal ax murderer mental patient escapes the nuthouse at the same time and murders the girlfriend of a guy investigating the alien crash, who in turn gets infected somehow. The rest of the movie takes place in '86 as our collage bros try to score during pledge week. They're supposed to dump a corpse from a hospital in front of a frat house, but instead stumble into a secret lab and re-animate the corpse of the infected guy from the 50s. The rest is basically a zombie movie. The film really has everything you'd ever want from a cheesy sci-fi horror flick, but sadly I thought it was held down by the execution. There's weird dialog, the acting is pretty bad, direction is boring and the editing sabotages some potentially great scenes. None of it is bad enough to be funny, but sufficiently bad to be detracting. In once case the guy gives his new girlfriend a shotgun, but in the next she's wearing a flamethrower that he had. Another time a guy tries to set the creatures on fire for seemingly no reason, as nothing was set up previously. There's a lawnmower scene, but it's nothing like Dead Alive and cuts immediately before you can see anything. It's not bad but I honestly expected something much more fun. It definitely had the potential.  .5 / 5
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Oct 4, 2018 00:20
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2. Creep 2 (2017) This is a sequel to the original found-footage film from about four years ago. The setup is very simple, an actual serial killer posts a craigslist ad for someone to film a documentary for a day for a thousand bucks (neglecting to mention the murderer part). A struggling author of a webseries about interviewing lonely people responds, seeking to take the series further. It goes about as you'd expect from this description. Almost the entire movie is filmed first-person on her camera. It seems like this film flew under the radar but the few reviews that exist seem to be very positive and even prefer it to the original. Personally I thought the first one was more effective, perhaps because it felt more original at the time. From what I remember, this one takes it closer and more personal and I didn't think the acting really allowed them to pull it off that well, especially since the first 2/3 of the movie is them two just talking and there isn't much tension. Things do get a bit more interesting in the last act though. Everything seems to be filmed on location, handheld on a camcorder so it doesn't look very good. /5
mobby_6kl fucked around with this message at 19:33 on Oct 7, 2018 |
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Oct 5, 2018 00:26
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Hot Dog Day #89 posted:
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Oct 6, 2018 09:37
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^^^ I haven't seen Blade 2 since it was new but I thought it was pretty fun if not amazing back then. Of course I was a dumb teenager so who knows how it'd hold up. 3. A Nightmare on Elm Street  At least one or two goons watched this one before and I realized I've never actually seen any of these movies from beginning to the end, always only catching a small part on TV here or there. Everybody knows what it's about of course so I won't waste any time on that. There's a good reason it's a classic of course, and one of them I think is how it immediately jumps into action. No time wasted setting up the victims, or explaining the tragic background, just right into the poo poo. The teenagers are pretty disposable of course but Freddy's Freddy and if anything, I think it would help to give him a bit more time. There are only three kills and I thought two of them weren't that spectacular one is a hanging and the other one you just see some blood flying from the bed or I'm a bit too jaded so it didn't feel as scary as I thought it could be, but nevertheless a goof flick. I'll definitely watch parts 2 and 3 as well though maybe next year. /5
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Oct 7, 2018 19:32
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4. Maximum Overdrive (1986)  So you know it's gonna be gud! No seriously Who Made Who is pretty great so this could've been 90 minutes of black screen just as well. Well, the movie itself is not good, exactly, but pretty fun. This is another movie I might have seen pieces of before, the bridge scene definitely felt extremely familiar, but not beginning to end. There's a comet and/or UFO near the Earth that causes all machines to go nuts and try to kill the humans, who in our case are stuck in a truck stop. So it's kind of Assault on Precinct 13 and Terminator and Christine. All of which are admittedly better movies. There are a few appliances involved but mainly it's trucks. I don't think we've even seen cars try to kill anyone. I probably should've liked Night of the Creeps better than this but I honestly thought this was more fun. Kids get ran over with a steamroller, a gas station owner happens to have a rocket launcher, people communicate with cars using morse code, waitress freaking the gently caress out, etc. .5/5
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Oct 8, 2018 11:17
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Dr.Caligari posted:
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Oct 9, 2018 15:52
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5. Creepshow (1982) This film is 5 different stories based on a comic book I've never heard of, so it's a bit over the place but overall I thought it was fun. The first segment tries to be scary but doesn't really work for me, while the second one feels like something I've seen in a 50s B-movie (not necessary a bad thing). My favorite though is probably the one with the monster in a box, though seeing Leslie Nielsen in his "serious badass" was fun too. /56. Viy / Вий (1967)  I watched it for the Hometown Horror challenge but didn't read the rules close enough because it was filmed 100 miles from where I was born and lived, but don't currently live This does make it much easier to find something else though.Not going to repeat the summary which's been posted, but I also liked this one. It's really a bit hammy and comes off as a regular soviet fairy tale at first, with some jokey dialog (with bonus points for fun russian/ukrainian dialect) and over-theatrical acting. It's also pretty tame until the last 15 minutes or so and I would've probably subtracted a pumpkin if it didn't step it up, but the ending was legitimately pretty creepy. The limited effects are pretty good for 60s  though some of the monsters do look a bit papier-m�ch� in closeups but that doesn't really detract too much./5E:  So there's a 2014 movie Viy which, if not a remake, is based on the same Gogol story. It now has a sequel coming out in 2019:quote:The English traveler Jonathan Green receives from Peter the Great an order to map the Russian Far East. Once again he sets out for a long journey full of incredible adventures that will eventually lead him to China. The cartographer will unexpectedly face a lot of breathtaking discoveries, encounter bizarre creatures, meet with Chinese princesses, and confront deadly martial arts masters and even the king of all dragons - the Dragon King. What could be more dangerous than meeting eye to eye with Viy, except doing it again? What would be stronger this time - a staunch skepticism of the scientist or the old black magic that has seized power of Eastern lands?  Starring Jackie Chan  and Arnold Schwarzenegger https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6218010/?ref_=nv_sr_1 mobby_6kl fucked around with this message at 12:40 on Oct 10, 2018 |
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Oct 10, 2018 11:13
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Franchescanado posted:
  I've kept this one in mind since somebody wrote about it last year and it was all I ever wanted from a low budget Cat-III HK horror flick. The synopsis on imdb describes it as such: quote:A group of friends went on a hedonistic trip to Thailand. Accidentally, they rape and kill a sorcerer's sister. Now, upon arriving back home to Hong Kong, they find themselves cursed by the sorcerer. The movie opens with a wizard getting one of the friends to commit a gruesomely over the top murder-suicide with some voodoo poo poo and then goes one by one until he has his revenge on the three friends and their families. All the background stuff isn't actually explained until later on, when there's an extensive flashback to the trip. Eventually they figure out what's going on and get help from a girlfriend's Thai friend who happens to be a good wizard. It's all delightfully schlocky, violent and fun. Lots of boobies too, as well as uncomfortably long sex scenes, but it's all so excessive it's just funny. I thought it was overall very well paced, only around the end it kind of drags on a bit but maybe it was just me being tired that made it feel that way. As long as you're in the right mindset for a cheesy exploitation movie, I can confidently recommend this. .5 / 5E: Fran challenges: 1 2 3 4 mobby_6kl fucked around with this message at 15:13 on Oct 11, 2018 |
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Oct 11, 2018 14:47
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8. Friday the 13th (1980) I thought I'd watch this for the Video Nasties challenge but it's only on the supplemental list and not among the 72 prosecuted+non-prosecuted films. Would this still count? In any case, I've actually never seen any this or any other Friday movies so this was a good opportunity to get with the program. It's pretty obvious this came out just two years after Halloween but I'm sure it also contributed a lot to the "teenagers getting murdered, especially for sex" genre. For anyone still living under a rock, like myself, the said teenagers are camp counselors at Camp Crystal Lake aka Camp Blood, according to the locals. They're just setting up camp for the locals when they start getting murdered one by one. The film actually opens with a flashback to a murder in the 50s which doesn't seem to add much at first, but makes more sense by the end of the movie. I'm not a huge slasher fan but I thought this was a fine example of one IMO, if definitely a grade below Halloween. The kills are pretty tame by today's standards and I think somewhat harmed by the victims having no idea what's coming so there's little tension over if and how they're going to die, it just happens. At least until the end. I liked the reveal of the killer, since I've never seen it before I always assumed based on later films that it was Jason doing all the murders, so having his mom do it was a great twist for me, but also a female serial killer is pretty unexpected anyway #feminism. /5Hot Dog Day #89 posted:
 
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Oct 12, 2018 09:46
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Lumbermouth posted:Also Maximum Overdrive is the only movie that Stephen King directed. Just saying.  I've also seen Carnival of Souls outside of the October challenge and don't want to re-watch it either. Anyway, I dung out my IMDB database from last year and made myself a list of top horrors by one-shot directors. Not going to share it just yet to keep it more interesting for everyone (unless Fran you think otherwise) but here's a hint for one: infamous movie with a goon involved in its restoration. If you're not looking to watch an actually good (or even decent) movie, there are plenty of other candidates. Some that are very (in)famous as well.
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Oct 13, 2018 00:30
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Franchescanado posted:
9. Hostel (2005)  So this takes place in Bratislava which is pretty close but is actually filmed at least partially in Prague (main train station for sure, made to look like Austrian/German one) and the surrounding area. Blade 2 would've been an obvious choice but I've seen it already, and there are some local movies but it's hard to tell how "horror" they really are. The film's been on my radar since its release but I always avoided it due to the torture-porn allegations, but ended up being pleasantly (if that's the word) surprised. Though dumb as hell, I thought the setup was pretty good for this kind of movie: three friends are backpacking through europe with a big focus on getting high and loving, and after a small fight in an "Amsterdam" club are told there are hot girls in Odessa, Ukraine, or closer in Bratislava who will jump on any foreign cock. So of course our bros immediately head out there. If this sound like I'm describing Eurotrip, yeah it's very similar up to this point to the point where I had to double check I'm watching the right movie. There are a few problematic elements to this movie, like few somewhat homophobic remarks, obviously its attitude to women, and worst of all, its treatment of Slovakia. I'm sure some nationalists or other patriots would find it offensive but frankly after Eurotrip it's just hilarious how the country keeps getting represented as a complete shithole, with roving gangs of kids, corrupt, SS-uniformed police, and of course hostels that look like 4-star hotels because everything is so cheap. Oh and mass murder factories. Anyway, our gang arrives to the hostel and spend the first night partying with the three gorgeous ladies. Everything is so amazing, that their Icelandic friend decides to check out and disappears the next morning apparently, and MMSs them a strange looking photo with a Japanese girl with whom he supposedly left. At this point I was a bit concerned, because this was like 30-40 minutes into the movie and 1 of our 3 characters was already dead. Are they just going to torture the remaining 2 guys for one hour straight? Turns out that's not really the case, after a few unpleasant but short scenes where we don't really see anything, the movie turns into a more of a revenge flick. /5E: Fran challenges: 1 2 mobby_6kl fucked around with this message at 09:17 on Oct 13, 2018 |
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Oct 13, 2018 08:28
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Random Stranger posted:The worst part about the October Horror Challenge is that I have negative free time so I don't watch anything unless I actively carve out a chunk of time for it (most of the films I've watched this month have been accompanying writing long reports or doing homework that consists of twenty pages of calculations). So as I'm shuffling through films to watch I keep going, "Oh! I've been meaning to watch that! No. It has to be a horror movie. But there's a great horror movie that I'd enjoy rewatching... No! Horror movies I haven't seen only!"
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Oct 13, 2018 20:07
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Franchescanado posted:
10. The Gestapo's Last Orgy / L'ultima orgia del III Reich (1977)  Friday the 13th didn't really qualify for this so I had to look for another Video Nasty (what a great British name) and this one had "Orgy" in the title so it was an easy choice. In the aftermath of WW2, we get to hear proceedings from a Nuremberg-like trial where a Nazi is questioned about what they did to the women in one of the camps. He describes a pretty horrible scene where a prisoner's leg tendons were cut so that she wouldn't try escaping and could be repeatedly raped. Eventually she managed to crawl out and get herself ran over by a truck. Sounds exactly like what you'd expect to seen in an Nazisploitation film but for the most part, the movie doesn't actually go there. We then flash back to the running camp and get to witness the processing of new arrivals, medical examination and eventual rape by Nazi soldiers. There' also a dinner scene which is mostly remarkable because of a crazy speech given by one of the Nazis about how literally eating the Jews was a good thing for the Reich. They then get some cannibalism going. Most of the movie is really about the relationship between one of the prisoners, Alma, and one of the high-ranking officers (not sure what his position is, exactly). I'm probably not going to do it justice trying to describe what the film was trying to do, as getting too deep into analyzing this schlock isn't really worth it, but there's an almost Martyrs-like situation going on with the officer wanting to torture her so much that she goes crazy. But she refuses to engage with him and he chickens out from going full out. They develop something that looks like a relationship, yada yada she shoots him in the present time. I'm by no means a nazisploitation connoisseur so my only frame of reference is the first Ilsa movie. Compared to it, which was way more campy and over the top, this one actually tried to be somewhat more serious. It doesn't fail entirely, but it's not that great either and considering all the Nazi stuff I'd prefer it it were more obviously ridiculous. Still, you could probably do a lot worse than this too. /5Franchescanado posted:
11. Student Bodies (1981)  This wasn't my first choice for the challenge but procuring obscure horror movies from the 70s made by one-time directors turned out to be a bit more difficult than I expected. Still this ended up being much more interesting than I anticipated. During the intro scenes, the movie claims it's based on a true story. "Last year, 26(?) horror films were released. None of them lost money." Well I have bad news for you Mickey Rose! You don't get to make any more movies! Which is a shame, because while not great, this film was way ahead of its time, as the opening also makes it very clear this film will be heavy on parody (which I had no idea it was going to be). The plot is generic high school slasher stuff but with a heavy dose of ZAZ-like gags. I realize of course that Scream wasn't the first horror parody/deconstruction, but this is pretty impressive for being just a few years after Halloween and just a year after Airplane. Still, it's just not good enough to be anywhere near the same level. Many jokes simply fall flat or are repeated until they're no longer funny and fail to loop back to funny again. The killer is a heavy breather and we get to hear that every time we see a POV shot. I really appreciate what it was trying to do but sadly it just didn't work for me most of the time. It could be that it was more fresh back in the day, but it seems like the reaction at the time wasn't that great either. .5/512. Into the Dark / The Body (2018)  I don't see anything that would disqualify an episode of a miniseries anthology since this one is over 80 minutes long, making it longer than many other movies I've seen for the challenge, plus it's very thematically appropriate. It's halloween night and a hitman is just finishing a job. He just needs to deliver the body to the customer but his SUV's tires got slashed by some rear end in a top hat so he stops on the street with a body wrapped in shrinkwrap to ponder his next moves. A group of a strangers are very impressed by his realistic looking costume and want to invite him to their party. He agrees to go for a drink on the condition that they'll drive him wherever. At the party he meets a woman who seems to be on the same scale of weirdness that he is and they get along well, but when it's time to go, the rest of the crew try to get him to stay and party more, eventually locking themselves in a secret room in order to do shots, and this is where things start to go wrong, as he has a limited amount of time to deliver the body and no patience for their bullshit. One thing leads to another and he killed one of their friends and they're on the run with the body. I had no idea what to expect as this was a recommendation but I ended up quite liking it. It's really a black comedy horror on the wavelength of the Evil Dead show (Ray Santiago is in it too) that makes its 80 minutes fly by. It can be predictable at times for any horror nerd but I didn't mind that too much. 5/5Fran Challenges: 1 2 mobby_6kl fucked around with this message at 00:27 on Oct 16, 2018 |
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Oct 16, 2018 00:23
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Franchescanado posted:
Choco1980 posted:#71. Singapore Sling (1990) A detective of sorts is losing his mind searching for a lover that went missing 3 years ago, and suffering from injury he collapses at the door to a house she was seen at. This house is home to an insane mother daughter (?) pair that spend their days in rough bdsm sexual incest, and killing their servants and others that come into their circle. They take the man in, calling him Singapore Sling after a recipe for the cocktail in his pocket as he will not speak, and take him captive, slowly training him through lots of sexual torture and degradation into becoming a part of their games. 13. The Neon Demon  A young girl named Jesse goes to LA to find fame and fortune in modeling/movies, and goes through the typical process of interviews castings and shoots. She has a very friendly makeup artist who invites her to a party, where she meets two other girls, one of whom brags about having so much work done, her doctor calls her Bionic Woman during an uncomfortable conversation in the bathroom. She lives in a motel ran by sleazy Keanu and one night he, or someone else, attempts to break into her room but fails and seems to attack a girl next door. She runs to her make artist's house in the hills where it doesn't really get better for her. Like Singapore Sling, it has this dreamy, surreal ambiance throughout the whole movie and is generally just beautifully shot in the fake 80s post-Drive style, as is obvious from the poster. There isn't much of a plot and the characters are paper-thin, which is a determent to some degree, but the film works an experience in spite of it. At fist I thought it would be a #metoo thing but it subverted my expectations by having all men be pretty nice if a bit weird (except maybe Keanu) and going into a different, if also somewhat predictable direction. Everything goes very easy for Jesse and the other women notice that. For a while I was concerned that this wouldn't qualify for Queer Horror, or even Horror at all, but then BAM! LESBIAN NECROPHILIA out of nowhere! And it goes downhill from there, or uphill, depending on how you look at it, and the third act is pretty bonkers. This is also where the LGBT stuff kicks in, though they're motivated throughout the whole film. This is spoilery: there's obvious sexual tension between the makeup girl (Ruby) and Jesse from the very first scenes, though it's clearly mainly Ruby who's super horny for her. This escalates in the last act when Ruby tries to bang her while she's in a vulnerable state and without getting enthusiastic consent. After getting clearly rejected, she goes to her makeup artist job at a funeral home and fucks a sexy corpse instead. Upon returning home, Ruby and the other two girls from before chase Jesse around and push her into an empty pool. This seems like a "I can't have her so I have to kill her" deal, but also in a larger picture seems to be motivated by the vanity, jealousy and cutthroat competition in the business. Also they literally eat her to try to absorb some of her magic good luck/charm/charisma but that doesn't work out that great. It could be trimmed down a bit from two hours and would benefit from more filled out characters, but I liked it as-is as well. /5Fran Challenges: 1
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Oct 17, 2018 09:42
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Franchescanado posted:I'm gonna vote for Raw or Eyes Without A Face, but Let the Right One In is just as good. In shocking news, it seems that the new Halloween movie isn't garbage!
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Oct 17, 2018 16:17
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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.
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Oct 18, 2018 13:30
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14. Psycho (1960) I was looking for something to watch and realized I've never seen Psycho from the beginning to end, either. I must've caught it on TV starting from around the first murder, because everything up to that point felt completely unfamiliar. It must've been absolutely terrifying compared to the schlocky monster movies at the time but it's still shockingly effective to this day. Yesterday I didn't watch anything so I'm one more day behind /5
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Oct 19, 2018 08:22
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15. The Wicker Man (1973) A police officer from mainland UK goes to a remote island community to investigate a case of possible missing girl, after being tipped off personally by an anonymous letter. The community is weird religious cult that seems to obstruct him at every step but he continues on doing the regular detective stuff. Progressively he gets more and more turned off by the behavior of the locals, who don't worship Jesus and dance around naked in the streets. By the end he's ready to just leave and report everything to his commanders but his plane doesn't start and he has to stay for their annual festival, where he finally manages to track down the girl. So that's the other wicker Man, with much less Nic Cage and woman punching but way more boobies. I seem to recall the remake being a bit more entertaining, though this one has a nicely escalating set of bizarre activities from the locals and a bit more to say about our protagonist's character. On the downside it didn't feel very scary at all and knowing the twist probably further detracted from the experience. Overall it's a better movie for sure but if I had to watch one of them again, I'd probably go for the remake. And maybe regret it  /5Double feature last night: 16. The Loved Ones (2009)  The movie opens with what feels like a classic zombie setup: someone is driving along, gets distracted for a moment and looks back only to see a strange figure in the middle of the road just seconds before hitting it. But instead of being swarmed by zombies, we flash forward six month and learn that it was a high school kid driving and his father died when he hit a tree. Nevertheless life continues and it's the day before prom, our guy Brent already has a sweetheart and has to reject another girl, while his fat stoner friend scores a date with a goth/metal chick. The next day the stoner guy picks up his girl Mia, and Brent goes for a walk to either meet up with his girl or just to clear his head. The poster kind of gives it away anyway, the girl he rejected is a psycho and has her equally psycho daddy kidnap the poor kid for her to play with. While the beginning might feel like a typical teen comedy/drama, it gets pretty loving dark and disturbing quickly, it really doesn't waste much time. The b-plot with his buddy's date night doesn't connect in any way with the main story, but works as a funny contrast of what typical teenage debauchery looks like. There's a decent amount of gore and body horror, and all the effects look pretty nice and practical. There isn't really much more to say, but it's definitely one of the most fun movies so far. /517. Suspiria (1977)  A young dancer travels from NY to Germany to study ballet at a famous school. The night she arrives, she's not let inside the school where she's supposed to stay, but sees another woman run outside into pouring rain and into the woods. She doesn't see what happens to her next, but we do Eventually she settles down and strange but explainable things start happening, such as maggots falling from the ceiling into the dorms. I'll probably need to rewatch at least part of this one, it was getting pretty late and I feel like i might've fallen asleep during parts of the third act. Still, what I do remember was a bit disappointing. The first two kills take place pretty early on and on very interesting sets, and then there's long period of pretty mundane stuff. The aforementioned maggots are a great way to step up the weirdness but then everything is explained away soon after. It was probably building up to something but I sadly don't remember how it ended :d Anyway, I'll hold off with the rating until I can see the second half again. Also there's a remake coming out any day now that seems to have pretty decent reviews: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1034415/?ref_=nv_sr_1 Franchescanado posted:
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Oct 21, 2018 17:37
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^^^ Watch Night of the Demon now and you'll still have until Nov. 1st to complete the Fran challenge. Speaking of which, Franchescanado posted:
18. Chopping Mall (1986)  Robocop, which was released a year later, clearly owes a lot to this movie, as it establishes the "security robot gone mad" trope so perfectly. The said security bots work in the mall, obviously, and go mad after multiple lightnings strike outside on an otherwise clear and dry night. Coincidentally, a bunch of teenagers working at different places around the mall decide to have an orgy at the furniture store after closing time, because why not. They end up being locked in for the night and have to fight for their lives. I should probably get right out of the way the fact that this being Jim Wynorski's best movie isn't quite enough to make it actually good, but the good news is that it does mostly work as a "so bad it's good" film, which many terrible flicks fail to do. The plot is complete nonsense but it doesn't really matter as it wastes little time on the setup and goes straight into it. It's competently filmed and acted, and the effects are ok for the time with pew-pew lasers and some giant explosions. What prevents this from being a better, more fun movie is that it doesn't go quite over the top enough with most kills (the headshot and the molotov scenes were great though) and better writing could've gotten a few more jokes out of it. Like I'm not a native speaker, but is "Do you hear anything unusual? No, just my heartbeat" work as a joke? Wouldn't it be better with "irregular", a word actually used to describe pulse? Anyway, not great but fun enough. Would've been better watching it with more people and alcohol. I updated my sheet with some more BotW ideas that I used to track this one down, in case somebody still needs it. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1oTvEG2Cb6MNsU7qZxOsbjxEgvJj-b-u8Hb-fwM0V0cU/ /5Franchescanado posted:
19. Mandy  Nic Cage is a lumberjack and lives in a secluded house with his metal wife Mandy. She is seen walking on the street by some cult nutjob who kidanps and kills her, then Cage goes nuts and kills loving everyone. Opening the film with Starless is definitely a pro-move. I've heard from reviews that this movie is a bit out there but it's impressive just how much more bizarre it is than anything else I've seen of this month so far. However, this has mostly to do with the visuals, in terms of plot it's actually a perfectly coherent revenge story. If anything, it's kind of a bit disappointing that it doesn't do something more experimental, although the final act does change up a bit more into what feel like a distinct set of set-pieces, rather than a clear path through the different bad guys. I wish the fights were a bit more easy to see though and the final guy took a bit longer to resolve, but eh. It's drat good as it is. .5/5Fran Challenges: 1 mobby_6kl fucked around with this message at 08:49 on Oct 22, 2018 |
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Oct 22, 2018 08:43
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It was never in the theaters here in the first place and if I told you, I'd have to kill you  Seriously though it's available on all kinds of VOD
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Oct 22, 2018 09:50
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graventy posted:...
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Oct 22, 2018 20:51
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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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21. Cronos (1994) An antique dealer comes across a device that promises eternal life and accidentally uses it on himself. At the same time, a dying industrial tycoon seeks to get the the same device with the help of bilingual Ron Perlman and shenanigans ensue. This... was ok, I know it's pretty well regarded and I did appreciate the filmmaking but it didn't really to much for me, I thought it could do something much more interesting with what is essentially the fountain of youth concept. The vampire stuff was also weird and didn't really go anywhere interesting either. /5
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Oct 24, 2018 13:43
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Guy Goodbody posted:Are there any movies on Netflix that would qualify for Challenge #4: Worst of the Best or Best of The Worst? I'm not a big movie guy so I don't know enough about directors or reputations to come up with one. You can check out my spreadsheet (  ) for some BotW ideas. It shows the director's average rating and their top-rated horror film. Though you'd need to cross-check it with Netflix yourself. Could also work for WotB if they only made one horror movie.
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Oct 25, 2018 14:02
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Fist Man (2018) Some people want to go to the moon but things don't go as planned! It's legitimately more tense and scary than many of the horror films I've seen this year, even though you know exactly what's going to happen. As usual, I think it's all the work the movie does to establish the characters that pays off, even though some people thought it didn't to enough. I didn't plan on seeing this now due to the challenge but some friends were going so I decided to go see it now as well. Obviously not counted towards the challenge, but definitely recommended if you can sacrifice watching 2 average horror movies because it's so long. 22. Wild Zero (1999)  Alien scum invades earth and causes some of the people to turn into zombies, so it's up to a rock band (played by themselves) and their roadie to save the day. I think I liked the idea slightly better than the result, but it's pretty fun nevertheless. It probably mostly suffers from some late-90s directing gimmicks and somewhat loose editing, but despite that it works as a cheesy zombie rock & roll fest. The CGI is serviceable at least on my lovely copy except the ridiculously crappy flying saucers with stock photos of cities in the background, but that had to be deliberate. /523. Summer of '84  A teenage  is convinced his nice cop neighbor is actually a local serial killer, and gets his friends to take part in a number of operations to investigate him. All the "evidence" is super sketchy though (like "bought a shovel") and doesn't convince their parents when they try to turn him in. It doesn't hit you over the head with the THE 80s too much and perhaps with the exception of the Bush '84 yard signs (would any contemporary movie show an Obama or Trump sign? Seems like a pretty lazy way to fix the timeframe) and faux-80s synth music, mostly feels like a teenage adventure from the era. Kids riding around on bicycles, walkie talkeies, etc. Up until the last 30 minutes or so though I was wishing that the killer turned out to be someone else because they had gently caress-all evidence to suggest it was the cop and it would be very coincidental and predictable. But the last 15 or so minutes went super dark and I thought were a nice change from the happy or at least "final girl" endings. There's some voiceover at the beginning and end which, as is often the case, I thought was unnecessary and it tries to say something about how the "suburbs are hosed up" but it's not particularly original, and it's not like there aren't serial killers in rural or urban areas. .5/524. The Babysitter  A young teen (or doesn't he say he's 12?) boy still has a babysitter for when his parents go away to gently caress in fancy hotels because he's a giant pussy and is afraid of everything. The babysitter is ridiculously hot and extremely friendly with the kid in an almost embarrassing wish-fulfillment fantasy way, but seems to genuinely care for him and protects him from some bullies and gives valuable life tips. One night when the parents go to stay at a Hyatt somewhere, he stays up to see if his babysitter is going to have a boyfriend over and have an orgy after he's asleep, and she does in fact invite some friends for a game of bottle, but things do get a bit worse from there. Who knew McG wasn't completely hopeless! Though he couldn't help himself and there are a few unnecessary gimmicks like on-screen labels for stuff and names, but it doesn't detract too much. I didn't want to spoil anything too much in the description, but knowing that the babysitter is part of a cult that does human sacrifices and things get very violent is kind of necessary to understand why it is so fun to watch. Because unlike some of the other cheesy b-movies I've seen, it knows that it needs to be ridiculously over the top with the kills and gore (looking at you, Chopping Mall) to work in that way. /5
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Oct 27, 2018 09:38
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Yesterday was... a productive day.Franchescanado posted:
 Seems like this is horror enough (more like horrific enough amirite) to count so why not. My non-goon friend suggested that we go see it before Halloween for a double-feature. Some space alien goo crash-lands in a shuttle type spacecraft and takes over the body of an EMT at the search and rescue scene, which seems to give her super-human strengths and abilities. We learn that this was an effort by an Elon Musky type to create alien-human hybrids and gently caress off into space. At the same time our main character blows up his life when he's interviewing him and asks about poo poo he wasn't supposed to. Eventually he also gets to meet the alien goo during an effort to uncover the secret plan, but thankfully this is the good goo and not evil goo and they form a team to fight the bad goo which by now took over ol' Musky and wants to, of course, destroy the earth. This seems to get poo poo on by critics but frankly didn't seem any better or worse than all the other comic book films, there's the same poo poo with the origin, jokes, and endless nonsensical action sequences. The venom creature is pretty disturbing looking and it bites off some heads that we don't really see, so eh. .5/5Franchescanado posted:
 I don't recall seeing any Halloween movies other than the first and this seems to be a direct follow-up, likely ignoring everything else that happened in the sequels. Two podcasters try to interview Michael before he is transferred to another mental facility, but fail to get a response from him and go to interview Laurie about her "story", who now lives in a house in the middle of nowhere, full of surveillance equipment, locks and guns. She kicks them out soon for asking stupid questions, after taking 3 grand for the privilege. Unfortunately for everyone involved, the bus transferring Michael and other patients crashes and he shows up at the same gas station where the podcaster is taking a dump in the loo. This felt like a proper old-school slasher, the first act was a bit slow with the setup but once things got going it was very effective at building tension. The few comedic bits, particularly the little kid, were great, and the kills suitably shocking - there aren't buckets of blood flying everywhere but it's all more disturbing because it's so grounded. The movie also touches on the topic of what effect such a crime has on the surviving victim, without going all up its rear end like the podcasters trying to do. The answer is like Sarah Connor, they go full prepper nutjob and alienate everyone with their obsession. But they're right, the stories aren't over and everything turns out to be worth it. Still, the long-term trauma this causes isn't ignored and I thought it was time well spent. If I had any issues, it would be the doctor character whose motivations are made pretty clear but sill comes off as a bit too much. And Michael seems to teleport between a few of the kill locations without reason or feel for geography - were some of first victims in town just on the way? Was the grand-daughter's babysitter friend just a coincidence, or was he trying to find something? Perhaps this would've been more clear in the original cut as I just learned. The ending was fine IMO, though I'm also curious what it was supposed to be initially. I regret not timing to see this one on the 31st but I'm not sure I'd be able to make it as I have to take our dog to the vet that day. /5Franchescanado posted:
27. The Invisible Man (1933)  Four hours of movies in the theater wasn't enough so I also watched this after getting back home. I'm sure everyone has seen clips from this movie countless times by now, but at least I never watched it in its full 70-minute glory. And unsurprisingly it's very good. The invisibility effect is incredibly well done and though it's of course pretty tame after watching Halloween, there are multiple bloodless kills on screen and the mad rantings about world dominatioare pretty disturbing. Must've been pretty hardcore back in the day. It doesn't waste a lot of time on the "origin story" and is pretty fast paced and never boring. Surprisingly many quick cuts and camera movements, which make it feel way more modern than it is. If there was one thing that bothered me, it's The Lion's Head lady that's acting way too much. /5Fran Challenges: 1 mobby_6kl fucked around with this message at 10:33 on Oct 28, 2018 |
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Oct 28, 2018 10:28
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M_Sinistrari posted:200- The Night Stalker 1972 - DVD drat dude do you work in a video store or something? Franchescanado posted:
28. Diabolique (1955)  Directed by H.G. Clouzot (1907–1977) who also did Wags of Fear, this was the result of my search for the best horror film by a now dead director. There are of course some great movies in this category (that I've mostly already seen) but not as many as I thought there would be. Much like the fact that Roger Corman is still alive and kicking, the relatively young nature of the medium means surprisingly many of the prolific directors are still around. This feels very Hitchcockian and more of a crime thriller but I'd say it just barely qualifies as horror too. A husband and wife run a boarding school in post-war France with his mistress also employed as a principal. The husband is a dick and frequently abuses his wife and apparently the mistress as well, both verbally and physically. As a result the two women are pretty open about their situation and eventually agree that something needs to be done after a particularly unpleasant series of events. So the mistress helps kick off a full-proof plan of getting rid of him. Everything seems to go as planned despite a few scares, but not everything is what it seems! The setup takes a while and could probably be trimmed down a bit but once things get going it's a pretty thrilling ride. The acting and cinematography are on point and the Clouzot clearly knows what he's doing when it comes to building tension. There isn't really much else I could say without spoiling the conclusion, which the film even warns you not to do. Overall this is great and you should all see it. .5/5Fran Challenges: 1 mobby_6kl fucked around with this message at 19:18 on Oct 29, 2018 |
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Oct 29, 2018 19:16
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Grizzled Patriarch posted:
Glad you liked Diabolique, didn't think someone else would be watching it was well. I also felt like there was some tension building between the women but it's kind of undermined by the fact that Nicole was using Christina there, doesn't mean it couldn't have been one-sided. Also glad I'm not the only one who thought it could benefit from cutting out some fluff from the fist half
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Oct 30, 2018 15:45
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I think I've made a huge mistake by leaving challenge #1 until last, so I now have to watch something I know I likely wouldn't like to finish off the challenge 29. Serial Mom (1994)  This is my first John Waters film, I've been always meaning to check him out so this was a great opportunity. The movie itself is exactly what you'd expect when you hear "Serial Mom" so I wouldn't waste time describing it. This is kind of American Psycho but with a suburban mom instead of an urban yuppie. Overall I think American Psycho works a bit better in terms of its satire and over-the-top violence but this was pretty fun at all. .5:/530. Slither (2006)  A meteorite crashes outside a small town and drops an egg containing an alien worm that infects a local guy with a parasite. The parasite eventually causes the host to feed on raw meat and infect others, culminating in (probably literal) tons of little disgusting worms to pour out into the streets and infect others. The wife of this guy, together with her beefcake sheriff buddy has to save the world. It's a classic B-movie horror/comedy setup and I was really looking forward to it but didn't quite enjoy it as much as I would. It's well made and has decent (and appropriately gross) effects but somehow just didn't just mesh the elements together to my full satisfaction. Still it's a decent and fun flick and worth checking out. .5/5
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Oct 31, 2018 21:50
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Random Stranger posted:Serial Mom and Hairspray are probably the easiest John Waters movies to get into since they're the among the most traditional movies he's made. When you're ready to move up to the hard stuff, Pink Flamingos is pure distilled Waters. Franchescanado posted:Eh, I'd say Female Trouble before Pink Flamingos. It's themes and ideas are similar to Serial Mom, it's schlocky and gross, but in a more approachable way than Pink Flamingos, which comes with a few asterisks for a new viewer.
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Nov 1, 2018 00:20
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Franchescanado posted:
31. V/H/S 2 (2013)  In before it's too late! And what movie could be better for this challenge than essentially a found footage anthology? Some PIs break into a house while looking for a missing person and watch his tapes to learn what happened while watching a lot of messed up stuff. Giant boobs on screen within the first minute so it gets points early on for this at least. The framing device with the detectives is a pretty good idea though I didn't think it added that much in the end. Each of the tapes they watch preset a different story with its own excuse for the footage - a bionic eye recorded for diagnostics, a gopro on a bicyclist's helmet, etc. As is often the case though some of the segments are way better than others, and you just end up wishing they focused on the good parts. The bionic eye one had potential but turned out to be kind of a dud ghost thing, zombie POV one was a bit more fun, though the third tape was probably the best of them. This still didn't convince me that giving up all that control over cinematography, lighting and other aspects of filmmaking is worth it for the few gimmicks, but I think they made the most of the concept they could and it's all right as a result. /5
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Nov 1, 2018 14:49
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1. Night of the Creeps 2.5/5 FC 5 2. Creep 2 3/5 3. A Nightmare on Elm Street 4/5 4. Maximum Overdrive 3.5/5 5. Creepshow 3/5 6. Viy 4/5 7. The Eternal Evil of Asia 4.5/5 FC78. Friday the 13th 3/5 9. Hostel 3/5 FC310. The Gestapo's Last Orgy 2/5 FC611. Student Bodies 2.5/5 FC812. Into the Dark / The Body 3.5/5 13. The Neon Demon 4/5 FC2 14. Psycho 5/5 15. The Wicker Man 3/5 16. Loved Ones 4/5 17. Suspiria (1977) 3/5 18. Chopping Mall 3/5 FC419. Mandy 4.5/5 FC1020. Ebola Syndrome 4/5 21. Cronos 3/5 22. Wild Zero 3/5 23. Summer of 84 3.5/5 24. The Babysitter 4/5 25. Venom 2.5/5 FC926. Halloween (2018) 4/5 FC1327. The Invisible Man (1933) 4/5 FC1228. Diabolique 4.5/5 FC1129. Serial Mom 3.5/5 30. Slither 3.5/5 31. V/H/S 2 3/5 FC1 Another October is over, and all I have to show for it is another 31 horror movies watched and 13 Fran Challenges completed. No rewatches. Which is a pretty good result all things considered! I generally tried my best to pick the best possible movies as I have no desire to knowingly spend two hours on something lovely so there weren't any real stinkers this year either. A few were somewhat disappointing due to high expectations or just a wrong mood, but plenty of good stuff as well. The reviews and scores probably aren't particularly good or consistent as I tended to write them while half asleep or during lunch break the next day, but hopefully they were somehow useful. Thanks everyone for the fun thread, it's always great to experience something new and get inspired by others' ideas. Especially you crazy mothterfuckers who watched over a hundred movies 
mobby_6kl fucked around with this message at 20:02 on Nov 1, 2018 |
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Nov 1, 2018 19:58
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Guy Goodbody posted:I got a question for y'all. I never really watched slasher movies before this month, but one thing I'd heard a lot is that you end up rooting for the killer instead of the disposable teens. That never happened to me. aside from the occasional designated rear end in a top hat character, I always rooted for the dumb teens. I always wanted to see the last girl kick the poo poo out of Jason. The only time I rooted for Jason was when he was fighting Freddy.
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Nov 2, 2018 00:24
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