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 5) Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering - 1996 - Prime If the last film wasn't the one to have me give up on the franchise, this one would've been it. This one diverges so much from the basic concept, it could easily have been its own film instead of being labeled a Children of the Corn film. Again they go with the unaging child idea from the last film, and I had to laugh at mercury being what kills him since mercury's toxic to everyone. While it's not actively horrible, it's pretty generic for a killer kids film and just not a Children of the Corn film if that makes sense.  6) Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror - 1998 - Prime I'm really not sure what to make of this one. It's like it's trying to both reconnect with the original concept while continuing on with the divergences from the previous films and ends up making for a sloppy final result. It did have some interesting points such as having a 'front' to throw outsiders off, but that's about it. While not a horrible film, there's better things to watch than this.
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Sep 28, 2019 12:57
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M_Sinistrari posted:[A lot of corny movies] I'm surprised that this year we have two posters watching the entire Children of the Corn franchise. Will someone take up the challenge of the thread title and watch all of the Sometimes They Come Back franchise to complete the set of surprisingly long movie series based on very short Stephen King stories? blood_dot_biz posted:Jumping right in with the horror movie that's been on my amazon watchlist for the longest.  Takahashi Miike movies like Gozu often have me walk away from them going, "This was wild and I enjoyed it but I don't think I could recommend it to anybody." They're so idiosyncratic...
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Sep 28, 2019 13:44
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Gozu is about a guy who is in love with his boss who is having a mental breakdown, and doesn't know what to do about it
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Sep 28, 2019 13:46
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1. Jacob's Ladder (1990) Vietnam veteran Jacob Singer has problems readjusting to his life in New York after his tour in 'Nam. These problems include flashbacks to a near-death experience, paranoia, and seeing demonic creatures everywhere he goes and people trying to kill him. With his sanity quickly crumbling, Jacob tried to work out whether what he is experiencing is all in his mind, or if it is really happening and he has somehow ended up in hell. Jacob's Ladder is one of those films that has probably lost a little of its impact 28 years after its release because by now everyone knows the film's third act revelation and how the movie ends. I wouldn't say that affected my first-time watching of it too much, however, because I think I would have been strongly suspecting it from pretty early on, and also because this is a film where the path to the revelation is perhaps more important than the revelation itself. I certainly thought so anyway. The confusion and hallucinations that Jacob suffers throughout the movie are very effective in how disturbing they are, and it's clear that they've influenced horror media that came after the film (the sped-up shaking heads, the hospital/asylum/descent into hell scene and the look of the "demons" as examples). It's engaging and manages to pull off an ending I usually hate with a passion by making you legitimately care about Jacob and his struggle to work out what is going on and come to some sort of peace in himself. 2. Exorcist III (1990)  Detective Bill Kinderman (a minor character from the first Exorcist film) investigates a series of gruesome murders that seem to be the work of the infamous Gemini Killer - except that the Gemini Killer was executed 15 years previously. His investigation leads him to the psychiatric ward of the hospital where two of the murders take place, where he discovers an amnesiac man known only as "Patient X", who was discovered wandering aimlessly 15 years ago and who had been in a catatonic state until shortly before the murders began. To his horror, Kinderman also discovers that Patient X bears a striking resemblance to his old friend, the late Father Damien Karras... Even if you've never seen Exorcist III, you've p[robably seen THAT scene in a YouTube "Scariest Horror Clips" video. The film is a lot more than just that, however, as it plays with suspense, tension and horror as it slowly builds up to the revelations of Patient X and just how he is connected to the murders despite being unable to leave his padded cell. George C Scott is superb as Detective Kinderman, a tired old cop dealing with a seemingly-impossible serial killer case, the murder of what is probably his closest friend, and the carp that has taken over his bathroom (one of the best monologues in the whole film). And of course, there's Brad Dourif as well, for when you absolutely positively definitely need someone to play an utterly batshit insane character. The film does fall down a bit in the final act, where the studio demanded an exorcism be put in and to hell with the rest of the plot, and it gets a little silly, but overall it still holds up as a great film. 3. Halloween (2018)  40 years after the events of the first movie (and ignoring all the other sequels and remakes), Michael Myers is still imprisoned at Smith's Grove Sanitarium, seemingly catatonic and uninterested in the world around him. Being transferred to a new prison, however, gives him the opportunity to escape, and soon he's back in Haddonfield again, mask, jumpsuit and a large knife in hand, and back doing the only thing he's interested in - killing people. This time, however, Laurie Strode is ready for him, having spent the past 40 years preparing for the eventuality that Michael escapes and comes for her once more, even if it has cost her a relationship with her daughter and granddaughter and given her the reputation of the town crazy. The showdown between these two is inevitable. Rewatching this last night, I realised that the arsehole boyfriend character did not, in fact, get killed by Michael, despite his behaviour and connection to protagonist Allyson making him seem like a shoo-in for a close encounter with Michael and his knife. That was a bit unexpected. Despite rebooting the continuity and making many horror fans very confused as to where Danielle Lloyd and Josh Hartnett went, Halloween still manages to be an effective stalker movie, and Michael is especially brutal as he single-mindedly makes his way back to Haddonfield to finish a job he started 40 years previously. My only complaint is that the doctor character was (a) not as good as Donald Pleasance; and (b) kind of obvious in the way his plot arc was going. New: (1); Jacob's Ladder Rewatched: (2); Exorcist III; Halloween (2018)
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Sep 28, 2019 14:09
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1) The Exorcist 3 (1990) Watched On: Goon Stream  Love this movie. Well shot, well acted, spooky as hell. Some very minor complaints about the kind of silly studio mandated ending and how they dropped a very cool philosophical discussion from the novel. Still one of my favorites. Probably not better than the original, but absolutely on the same level.  /5
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Sep 28, 2019 14:31
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I wanted to note that I write these little blurbs and share them with friends + family on facebook too, so I'll probably say some stuff that seems really obvious to posters in this thread but is less obvious to non-horror folks (like that Brad Dourif was the original Chucky) 2. Child's Play (2019) (digital) Many moviegoers get really salty about remakes of classic films, and dismiss them as unnecessary or somehow disrespectful to the original without even giving them a chance. This is a bad attitude to have, especially when it means you are going to miss out on really fun movies like this one. It's funny, gory, and looks surprisingly good. And most of the special effects are practical! It introduces more than enough new and original ideas to justify its existence. I hesitate to even call this a remake - it's more of a re-imagining of the story of the first film. If you were to change the look and name of the doll it would have very little in common with the original. Chucky is still a talking doll, but here he is also a "smart" device like a Google Home or Amazon Echo who is able to control other smart home devices. Instead of having the soul of a murderer, his violent tendencies come from a rogue artificial intelligence. The subtext/satire here is how vulnerable this kind of technology can make us. While the original Chucky (voiced by the great Brad Dourif) had two modes - cute doll and violent foul-mouthed rear end in a top hat - the doll here starts off as unnerving and slowly gets worse as time goes on. Mark Hamill provides the voice this time, and his performance is a big part of what makes the film work. He's often genuinely funny (especially when singing the doll's goofy friendship song) and suitable creepy when he needs to be. One perfectly valid complaint I've heard is the Chucky doll looks really bad, and I admit that I wasn't sure it was going to work when I first saw the design. It didn't take long for me to get used to it though, and I think that making him a bit unnerving right from the start was a good decision. I still think the original design was better, but this one works too. It's not perfect for sure. Even though Chucky is mostly an actual animatronic, there are some shots of weak looking CGI when he is jumping or moving quickly. Luckily there aren't very many of these. In the third act it relies on a couple of cliché moments and dumb one-liners, but nothing so bad that it stops the movie from being fun. I liked this a lot and definitely recommend checking it out. Just a heads up though, because I know this sort of thing can really bother people - in one scene Chucky kills a cat, and even though the actual act isn't explicitly shown it's still pretty disturbing. 4/5 Total: 2 Watched: Dead of Night | Child's Play
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Sep 28, 2019 14:45
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Random Stranger posted:I'm surprised that this year we have two posters watching the entire Children of the Corn franchise. I had vague plans to do this last year but abruptly dropped them after the first film was so incredibly mediocre. Oof. To those who succeed where I have failed, I salute you!
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Sep 28, 2019 15:14
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I considered doing the Children of the Corn marathon during this or May (along with other franchises) but I've learned my lesson that doing Franchise marathons is just kind of drag for me. I prefer to be able to switch around to stuff more organically and helps me keep going. If I'm feeling a franchise I'll run with it. If not even with the years I can go find something different. No "ugh, I have to go back to the next mediocre/bad sequel".
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Sep 28, 2019 15:21
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I've only seen one Children of the Corn movie, Children of the Corn: Genesis. I wouldn't recommend it
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Sep 28, 2019 15:22
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 Child's Play(1988) I also kicked things off with Child's Play, although I had to include the 1988 original because it's one of my childhood favorites. It's always hard to find new and interesting posters so I thought this year it'd be fun to post old VHS covers like this one whenever possible. They hold a lot of nostalgia for me and remind me of browsing the shelves of Blockbuster video in the early 90s. This is just a great mix of 80's elements and an excellent cast, Dourif gets all the praise but Chris Sarandon and Catherine Hicks do just as much to carry the movie. From a production design standpoint, the formula was probably perfected with Child's Play 2 a few years later but Tom Holland establishes a lot of what Child's Play is still famous for right away in the original. This is a film that is definitely of it's time, which is why I appreciated that the remake honored that by doing it's own thing.  Child's Play(2019) I have to agree with pretty much everything gey muckle mowser said on this one. It really is a pleasant surprise. This is a remake that is very very different from the original, and in this case different is good! The thing I didn't expect going in was to actually sympathize with Chucky. He is confused. He doesn't understand the world he's been dropped into and it's rules. He's been programmed to worship his owner and that's all he knows, the rest he absorbs from what goes on around him. In trying so hard to please, he becomes something very scary, but I have a hard time actually blaming any of it on him. It's a different kind of horror. Aubrey Plaza is really good and the first third doesn't really drag much at all, probably because she does a great job of making those early scenes interesting. Hamill is getting a lot of praise but I'll admit I didn't really notice him that much while I was watching. Certainly not the gonzo performance of Dourif's Chucky. But overall I'd definitely recommend this, which definitely makes it one of the nicest surprises of the year.
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Sep 28, 2019 16:35
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 3. Escape Room (2019) (digital) Six strangers each receive a mysterious invitation to participate in a new immersive escape room from a company called Minos (that should've been a clue right there), with a $10,000 prize for the winner. They arrive and meet in the waiting room, exchange some bad dialogue, and soon realize that the game has already started. As they look around for clues, things start to get intense, and soon they suspect that their lives may be in danger. Basically Saw meets Cube meets House on Haunted Hill. I really like the premise of this, but I thought the execution was poor at best. The writing is generally really awful and the characters are all one-dimensional stereotypes. Each character has a short backstory that is told through very awkward exposition dumps. None of the acting stands out as particularly bad, but no one is very memorable either. At least the escape room puzzles themselves are pretty neat, even if they don't always totally make sense. The ending in particular is super loving dumb. Overall I found this entertaining but ultimately forgettable. I think the PG-13 rating hurts it a lot - a horror film doesn't necessarily need to be bloody to be good, but the deaths were so toothless and lame that I was expecting the characters to show up again at the end unharmed. If you go in with low expectations you might have a good time with it, but I can't really recommend it. It looks like a sequel is in the works, and the premise has enough potential for me to give it a fair shot. 2.5/5 Total: 3 Watched: Dead of Night | Child's Play | Escape Room Basebf555 posted:The thing I didn't expect going in was to actually sympathize with Chucky. He is confused. He doesn't understand the world he's been dropped into and it's rules. He's been programmed to worship his owner and that's all he knows, the rest he absorbs from what goes on around him. In trying so hard to please, he becomes something very scary, but I have a hard time actually blaming any of it on him. It's a different kind of horror. yeah, Dourif's Chucky was such a little rear end in a top hat, it's neat that here he's doing violent stuff because he think it'll make Andy happy. although some of the kills later on get pretty sadistic gey muckle mowser fucked around with this message at 17:11 on Sep 28, 2019 |
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Sep 28, 2019 17:07
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I get what y'all are saying about Manos (there's some comparisons to be made to Carnival of Souls, although that one has much more polish), but I have a hard time shaking all the backstory behind Manos actually getting made from my mind whenever I watch it, which keeps it from feeling quite so... discomforting? I do feel like Torgo's creepiness is easier to take seriously with the restoration, though. #5) Cemetery Man (1994), a.k.a., Of Death and Love, a.k.a., Zombie Graveyard, a.k.a., Demons '95 Well, this was a surprise. To start with, for years I was under the impression that this starred Everett McGill. I'd still like to see that alternate timeline version, but this was excellent, and had much more substance than I'd expected. I loved the absurdism, the fluid nature of the story, the beautiful score, and the way that each of the actors approached their role in very different ways, but made them all fit together in the weird fantasy of the film. It felt like such a natural outgrowth from the initial conceit to the next tangent, and the next, and so on, somewhat like (odd comparison) an early episode of The Simpsons. Checking Letterboxd reviews after watching, I saw someone comparing it to a mixture of Raimi and Lynch, which feels pretty apt. The bizarre dove-tails into the mundane so neatly, and characters were so believably idiosyncratic, that it just spun together perfectly. Great acting all around, with actual pathos for a character who communicated almost entirely in non-word groans. Also impressive were the set design and dressing, lighting, camera-work, practical effects, and make-up. That reaper; holy poo poo. It feels like there's a lot to dig into if you want to pose events of the film as metaphor, but it also functions quite well as just straight-forward narrative. It also ramps up the looseness of reality so effectively that I just accepted the final scene without hesitation. So glad I picked this up at a thrift store along with a passel of urban action tapes.  score: 8/10
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Sep 28, 2019 17:30
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I have issues with screentime causing headaches, and I have brain surgery near the end of the month, but I'll commit myself to 15 movies in October, with at least five of them being new / previously un-watched.
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Sep 28, 2019 17:41
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3. Evil Bong 2 2009 | dir. Charles Band | Tubi The premise of a bong that, after smoking from it, kills you during your high in a Freddy Kruger-style ironic death should be way more fun than it actually is.  I like Full Moon flicks. I have fun throwing on the Puppet Master series and the Subspecies series, and occasionally you get Objectively Good movies from them, like Castle Freak. So it's a little disappointing how phoned in Evil Bong actually is. The premise is silly, but you could still make this a funny movie. A good writer or comedian could throw in plenty of jokes that wouldn't break the budget. Instead, most of the jokes are just the characters talking about each other. "Oh you're fat now." "I can't stop humping things cuz I'm cursed from the Evil Bong." These aren't jokes. There's no real pay-off. The dialogue is so mundane and lifeless that when there are actually jokes--like the life-saving special chili they have to eat is actually Spaghetti-O's--I'm instead left wondering if it's intentional, or if it's just another budgetary restraint. Or how a member of a tribe of women who have never left the jungle has clearly had breast implants. Is this just a foresight, or are they self-aware enough and hoping I'll laugh with them? Most of the movie looks like it was filmed in someone's office that they decorated to look like a living room, and then someone's backyard. The main cast is back, and I don't have anything negative to say against them, other than I wish they actually had something to do. It's a little weird that this film foregoes a lot of the premise of the original film, and spends most of it's time on a fetch quest instead of people smoking a bong and being killed in their fantasy. Movies Watched: Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom | Annihilation | Evil Bong 2 Rewatches: Total: 3
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Sep 28, 2019 17:46
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Random Stranger posted:
lmao, I'm so glad there's a gif of this part. I almost made one myself for the post. I feel similar. I'm fine recommending the movie in the context of this thread, but otherwise I'd have to have a pretty good lock on someone's tastes to feel comfortable pointing them to his weirder movies.
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Sep 28, 2019 17:49
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1. Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) Re-watch. Still absolutely holds up. My friend has never seen it so I felt it was my duty to show them. Even the practical effects are still magnificent looking. I know I'll catch a little flack for saying this, but it's truly a shame how the sequels were handled, they retro actively weaken how strong the original is. It had been a while since I had seen it and I forgot just how trippy it is while it blurs the lines between reality and the dream world. Still a 5/5. 2. Hard To Die (1991)  Re-watch. An absolutely fun and stupid romp. Perfectly crafted "bad-good" movie! Tons of tits, obscenely long shower scenes, and skimpy outfits. If you like any of the other Slumber Party Massacre or Sorority House Massacre films you will love this too. It's basically the movie that Dude Bro Party Massacre 3 pulls so much of what it is from. It's almost to the point of parody, but you can tell it is sincere. If you watch it you'll understand why it's called Hard To Die. I really love this stupid movie way more than I should. I rate it an honest 3/5, even though I probably personally enjoyed it more than that. Watched Nightmare on Elm Street | Hard To Die Windows 98 fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Sep 28, 2019 |
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Sep 28, 2019 17:57
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blood_dot_biz posted:lmao, I'm so glad there's a gif of this part. I almost made one myself for the post. You might want to check out The Happiness of the Katakuris, then. It's a horror/comedy he directed that isn't quite as grotesque as Gozu, but goes in some pretty weird directions.
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Sep 28, 2019 18:03
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Windows 98 posted:If you watch it you'll understand why it's called Hard To Die. does everyone die with a raging boner or something
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Sep 28, 2019 18:10
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also, just to make it official (I've already said it in the Discord): I'm going for 31 movies this challenge. the additional rule I'm setting for myself is no US theatrical releases. this means direct-to-video movies, direct-to-streaming movies, and stuff that had festival runs but went straight-to-streaming. this is primarily so I can fit both Doom: Annihilation and Tammy & the T-Rex in, but honestly i've always kind of liked the chutzpah of weird DTV movies and meant to get deeper into them, so this might just be fun in general. or i might end up watching a lot of horrible garbage.
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Sep 28, 2019 18:17
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1. Crawl - 3/5quote:Great setting, great setpieces, and great scale, but by that same measurement, it's completely hampered by having such a small cast. Both characters are obviously important, so they just kinda brush off all their injuries and aren't ever at risk of actually dying. More meat for the grinder would have improved this movie exponentially.
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Sep 28, 2019 18:17
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LORD OF BOOTY posted:does everyone die with a raging boner or something You should watch and find out!
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Sep 28, 2019 18:19
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 #6) Bowery at Midnight (1942) This was an odd one. Started out as a standard mediocre '40s crooks-doin'-crimes flick, but then took a turn. Bela Lugosi runs a soup kitchen as a front for a gang, and decides to do more than the usual when their victims wind up knocked off, by having his mad doctor acquaintance zombify them. However, the presence of zombies does much less to affect the existing circumstances than you might hope. Slow-moving, predictable, and never exciting, but there's a bit of amusement value anyway. Also neat is that Lugosi essentially plays two roles, with his soup kitchen operator posing as a criminologist by day. There's not much done with the dual identities, but it's something to complicate the simple script, so I appreciated it anyway. Another Mill Creek inclusion, this one had better sound and visuals than One Frightened Night, with which it shared a disc, and I'm guessing that's more due to its shorter run-time than any efforts by the MC gang. A little below decent, overall, and I expect to forget most of it in short order, but not so poorly done as to annoy. rating: 4/10
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Sep 28, 2019 18:24
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LORD OF BOOTY posted:also, just to make it official (I've already said it in the Discord): Hell yeah, planning to watch Tammy and the T-Rex for my challenge too 
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Sep 28, 2019 18:25
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You could definitely just watch doom and tammy and the t-rex without subjecting yourself to a month of DTV, but i salute your gusto.
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Sep 28, 2019 18:33
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I was going to exclude anything produced by a major streaming service, but then I realized Amazon's the only one with a really consistent track record and they give all their stuff limited releases so it wouldn't count anyways. Netflix is just as often garbage as gold, especially for horror, and most of the good straight-to-Shudder stuff got limited releases (Mandy would be out, for example).
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Sep 28, 2019 18:47
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 2. The Wailing (2016) Dir: Na Hong-jin (Shudder) Another one I've been putting off watching for years, mostly because of the daunting run time (two and a half hours!). You definitely feel that run time, but I think it works in the film's favor, letting tension build and build. This film has a really nice, creeping atmospheric quality to it that permeates throughout while still allowing for some nice scenes of levity to throw people off guard. Like the spirits in the film, there's a certain kind of ambiguous haunting thing you can feel behind the camera. I don't think this is a film where you're meant to understand every specific element on the first run, and I certainly didn't. Always good to have some ambiguity to come back to. Some really beautiful cinematography, too! I need to watch more Korean horror one of these days. Friends Are Evil fucked around with this message at 18:54 on Sep 28, 2019 |
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Sep 28, 2019 18:48
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Brgihtburn (2019) Brightburn is a ‘bad seed’ movie with a twist - what if Superboy was evil? This has been explored often in comic books but not so often in film. It starts in familiar territory, with a farm couple (played by David Denham and Elizabeth Banks) struggling to have a child. Their prayers are answered when a spaceship crashes on their land. They raise the child as their own but when he reaches puberty things change. He realizes that he’s not like other humans and has abilities that no one else does such as invulnerability and super strength. He also can emit electromagnetic pulses. The film is kind of clumsy at this point. I can accept the kid as inherently evil but there’s not much going on thematically beyond that. There’s some focus on his relationship with a girl at his school but that’s quickly dropped. It goes into his relationship with his dad but that storyline comes to an abrupt end as well. The lack of a central protagonist really hurts this film. This really just kind of ends up playing out as a super powered slasher film. Despite my complaints I did find this movie to be fairly entertaining in a mindless sort of way. There’s some good gore, including a really icky scene involving an eye. The closing credits are kind of interesting too. I wouldn’t recommend going out of your way to see it but if it hits a streaming service it’s not a bad way to kill 90 minutes.
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Sep 28, 2019 18:56
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1) One Cut of the Dead I feel extremely bad that my first entry into the challenge is going to have almost no write up. That's because nobody should know a goddamn thing about One Cut of the Dead going into it other than that there's some zombies and maybe it's found footage question mark. These are two genres that are as stale as the grave but it doesn't matter, this movie does absolutely everything right. I'd say the middle might drag a bit especially as you're trying to piece together what just happened on the film's turn, but where it comes from and where it goes holds the movie up on its shoulders enough for it to be extremely successful. 3.5/5 and honestly it might go up after a rewatch.
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Sep 28, 2019 19:03
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Random Stranger posted:You might want to check out The Happiness of the Katakuris, then. Everyone should do this. It might actually have been my staff pick if I'd been active when the new thread went up since my usual choices were already covered.
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Sep 28, 2019 19:07
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For those with The Criterion Channel, they have a lot of good stuff up: Haxan The Lodger M Vampyr Diabolique Fiend without a Face The Blob The Haunted Strangler Eyes without a Face Carnival of Souls Hour of the Wolf Night of the Living Dead Equinox Sisters The Wicker Man House Eraserhead Nosferatu (Herzog) The Brood Cronos Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me The Lure The Love Witch Plus a ton of Godzilla and other Japanese horror/sci-fi.
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Sep 28, 2019 19:09
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 7) Children of the Corn 666: Isaac's Return - 1999 - Prime This one's been a pleasant surprise. There's a concentrated effort to at least connect back to the first film. If anything, it feels more like a genuine sequel to the first film than everything that followed it. It's nice seeing all the references and callbacks, and they do connect well with the events of the first film. Compared to the previous films just sticking with killer kids and an occasional reference to corn and calling it good there, this film comes across as more coherent. I recommend for any Children of the Corn marathon watching, just stick with the first film and this one since the rest are skippable.  8) Children of the Corn: Revelation - 2001 - Prime I should've guessed with how much I enjoyed the last film that the quality improvement wouldn't last. It's like they decided to double down on everything that diverged from the original concept. He Who Walks Behind The Rows is no longer some eldrich entity, he's now the Devil which completely trashes the intriguing pagan undertones of the corn cult. Overall, this one was bad even for a direct to video release.
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Sep 28, 2019 19:16
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Windows 98 posted:2. Hard To Die (1991)
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Sep 28, 2019 19:51
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 #7) Shock (1946) Aw yeah, first VPrice of the month. He plays a man who kills his wife, but is seen doing so by the film's no-agency protagonist, a young woman whose army husband?/boyfriend? has just returned. Armyboy finds her in shock from seeing the murder, and the recommended physician turns out to be none other than Price, who recommends that the woman be committed to his sanitarium. Said sanitarium turns out to have its own secrets and intrigue to uncover, and it builds up as a tremulously effective web of tension around our hero, who remains bed-ridden for most of the film. Price easily out-acts everyone around him, and pretty much any of the scenes not featuring either him or his witness are immediate sinks in liveliness and interest. In a few scenes set outside of the patient's room, the sanitarium is shown to be basically a mansion, which is maybe the most marking sign of the times in the film. There's one or two lapses into delusions/dreams, which are handled with interesting visual overlays and dissolves, but apart from that, the camera doesn't get to play around too much, and many of the scenes are shot in a very stage-play way. It's certainly a mixed bag, but Price and Bari do well enough with what they're given to make it feel more enjoyable than not. A weak ending, and one that's easy to see coming, but that's the way it goes. rating: 6/10
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Sep 28, 2019 19:59
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1) Phantom Of The Paradise (1974) I can see why this so quickly became a cult classic. The design work on not just the costumes but also the sets is fantastic. The various backstage areas and recording studios reminded me of the opulent castle in Roger Corman's Masque Of The Red Death. The film takes place in a Technicolor nightmare hyper-reality and bounces from scene to scene with an infectious enthusiasm. The cast is great, with William Finley's over the top energy as the Phantom being the standout. Every emotion he shows is twice as big as you expect it to be and it matches the bizarre nature of the film perfectly. I'm glad I chose this to start things off this year. Flying Zamboni fucked around with this message at 00:01 on Oct 17, 2019 |
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Sep 28, 2019 20:33
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 #8) The Ghost Walks (1934) Another 'old dark house' film, this time with more of a comedic tone. Much more meta-leaning humor than I expected, with some of the main characters being a film producer and associates, and a playwright who has people acting out his play while letting the producer think it's really happening. There's also a spiritualist, who 'channels' a ghost (read: closes her eyes, then opens them, and speaks for the ghost without changing her voice), which kind of leads into the film cutting loose. Unfortunately, there's so many characters that few of them are allowed to develop beyond their beginning state. This being another Mill Creek item, there were other issues, with the audio fuzzing out more than a few times, which made it difficult to follow along. Some good comedic exchanges, but also broad acting (particularly from the effeminate assistant character), sub-par framing, and cheap-looking sets. Did get a smile out of everyone cramming into a dank tunnel, though, and the 'mad scientist' plays it nicely over-the-top. I feel like I'd enjoy this much more (or just have an easier time enjoying it at the same level) if I could find a higher-quality copy, as it really was an endearingly playful little film. Anyone who's looking to pull in '30s films for this challenge, this would be a decent back-up. rating: 5/10
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Sep 28, 2019 21:21
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Oh hell yes, I've been looking forward to this year's challenge even more than usual over the last few weeks. Gonna try and go for 31 movies with no repeats from last year, but anything beyond that is fair game. And coincidentally, me and a friend of mine decided our next movie watching project will be what we've decided to call the Triple David marathon, going through the collective filmographies of Cronenberg, Lynch and Fincher in chronological order, which I'm sure will give me more than a few movies for this thread depending on how far get into that this month. To that end, we started right from the very beginning yesterday with Cronenberg's Stereo and Crimes of the Future. Maybe it's because I went in expecting a curiosity piece more than anything else (which it still very much is mind you), but I actually came away liking Stereo quite a bit more than I expected to. Framed as an educational film with commentary over silent black and white footage, a group of eight test subjects are isolated away together as part of a collective experiment in telepathy. From there, we are shown the mental, physical and social ramifications of the experiments upon the test subjects. Even knowing that it was framed as it was at least partially to work around unwanted audio, the framing device ultimately ended up being the movie's greatest strength in my eyes, with the dry narration, silent footage, and sterile campus all serving to apply a cold, clinical lens to the human test subjects. On the other hand, I'll be honest and say that I had a much harder time making heads or tails out of Crimes of the Future. The film is obstensibly the Adrian Tripod, director of a skin clinic, looking for his missing mentor after an cosmetic caused outbreak wipes out the adult female population. What follows, as best as I can describe, showcases his encounters with members of the remaining male population and their handling of the circumstances. The commentary over silent film technique is still in effect, existing as the main character's narration, alongside sporadic sound texturing which I found pretty jarring. Personally, I thought the specific framing device worked less successfully here than it did in Stereo, in large due to the less contained premise/setting, and the greater complexity in character and narrative. That being said, some of Cronenberg's later propensity towards body horror shows its roots here, particularly in his depiction of the disease, and in one character who simulates birth by growing and removing organs. Movies Watched (2): Stereo, Crimes of the Future Trash Boat fucked around with this message at 22:15 on Sep 28, 2019 |
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Sep 28, 2019 22:11
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2)Paranormal Activity 4 Where Watched:Tubi  I loved the first, hated the second, and thought the third was kind of silly. This one...is not great. It's not as terrible as 2, but not as goofy as 3. It's real mediocre. The convoluted mythology is sort of breaking around the found footage format. I guess the cast is fine, but the creepy kids are just doofy and not particularly creepy.  /5 spring loaded cats
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Sep 28, 2019 22:24
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Ambitious Spider posted:2)Paranormal Activity 4 That poster is pretty cool at least
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Sep 28, 2019 22:28
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gey muckle mowser posted:That poster is pretty cool at least yea, I think it was from mondo.
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Sep 28, 2019 22:35
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 #9) Atom Age Vampire (1960) Ehh, I want to like this one more than I actually did. Kind of a melding of The Brain that Wouldn't Die with Little Shop of Horrors, the premise of this film is that a woman's face is badly scarred in a car accident, and a doctor's experimental treatment is able to restore her appearance. Unfortunately, he gets emotionally attached to her, his treatment isn't a permanent fix, he needs to go out and kill women for more ingredients, and his use of radiation has him transforming like a werewolf. A few too many things in play. I feel like the removal of the doctor's transformations could have really tightened this up into something interesting, with exploration of his obsession and scars that keep revealing themselves. Too bad that's not what it is. On the upside, I got a laugh out of someone being scolded in an Italian horror film for smoking too much. There's some decent work with Wolfman-ish lapse photography for the scientist's changes, but the make-up job for his monster form looks terrible. Maybe it came off better on the set, but it resembles vague scaliness in the movie. Fitting for being caused by radiation, but it doesn't make for a memorable visual, and since his regular hair is hanging over the edges of the make-up, it's not especially convincing or menacing, either. A few too many filler scenes to pad out the run-time; again, if it had been trimmed down to more of a claustrophobic focus on the doctor's obsession with his patient, this could have really been something striking. For all my moping about how it could have been improved, it's not that bad, and while the neat touches draw out the dullness of the lesser portions, they also show that there were some good ideas behind the film. It's just that they happened to end up smothered. rating: 5/10
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Sep 28, 2019 22:52
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