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#1: Midsommar I watched this for the first time four days ago, and I was expecting a spiritual successor to the 1973 "The Wicker Man" and got exactly what I was looking for and a whole lot more I wasn't expecting. This movie hit a really raw nerve with me and I wanted to understand it better, so I watched it again today to try and suss out my feelings both on the themes it explores and the ending itself. This movie digs deep (and I mean deep) into issues of personal loss and the handling of grief, emotional relationships, and ends with either a triumph of personal rebirth or complete damnation depending on how you interpret it. And honestly? There are no "villains" in this movie in the traditional sense. Horrible things happen to innocent people, but it's done in such a way that it messes with your sense of reality. This movie hosed me up. Before I get into the plot, I need to explain that my girlfriend lost her father to cancer earlier this year. Handing that and being a positive and supportive influence for her has been a hard and monumental learning experience. Which is why I wanted to punch the character of Christian in the face so many goddamn times in this movie. In short, the main character is a young woman named Dani who suffers a very traumatic and personal loss (literally the first 5-10 minutes of the film) and her callous and emotionally distant boyfriend Christian was already trying to break up with her, but then feels trapped by her tragedy and instead invites her on a trip to Sweden with his friends to study a pagan community celebrating its once-in-a-lifetime Midsommar festival for his post-grad thesis. What follows is a series of events that you can pretty much predict from the jump, except it's shot in complete daylight with the most beautiful countryside you can imagine as a backdrop. The sheer attention to detail in the background is amazing, and if you're paying attention, the entire plot of the movie is literally written into the communal walls of this "idyllic" community. But then, poo poo goes south. Complete spoilers going forward, but if you haven't seen this yet, it is an incredible piece of work from Ari Aster who previously wrote and directed "Hereditary" (which I still haven't seen and plan to cover later this month, so I definitely saw this movie first). The biggest question for me is do you feel happy for Dani at the end of the movie? Clearly the loss of her entire family put her in an emotionally vulnerable state that made her perfect fodder for Pelle to suck into his web of indoctrinated psychopathy, but at the end of the day the "cult" weren't trying to trick her, they were genuinely open and excited for her to join their hosed up family, because they actually believed the crazy things they espoused. She was absolutely manipulated by Pelle to get her there, but it left her in a place where her life could actually be better going forward, at least until she turns 72 and has to jump off a cliff to complete their version of the "circle of life." But then again, the British couple were straight up murdered and offered for sacrifice just because they freaked out at the cliff jump ceremony. Did they do anything wrong? Nope. But they still died. And poor Simon being strung up in a chicken coop with his lungs flayed back (still alive) was one of the most horrifying things I've ever seen, holy poo poo. Also, I would argue that the crazy sex ritual with Christian and the redhead girl is absolutely sexual assault on Christian. He was intentionally drugged up and manipulated into that scenario while she was a willing participant, and the fact that he's been a lovely boyfriend (and person in general) throughout the film kind of the clouded the fact that he was the one being raped in that scene. That's a bold choice and something I don't think I've ever seen before, and quite frankly don't want to ever see again. It's a hard watch. This isn't a typical horror movie, there are no jump scares here. 90% of the film is shot in broad daylight and even that fact kind of fucks up your perception of time and place, which only adds to the building sense of dread and discomfort. I wholeheartedly recommend this movie, but at the same time I don't know if I'll ever be able to watch it again. It has some problems I didn't bring up the "cognitively unclouded" incest-bred Oracle for starters but the performances are genuinely awesome, and the cinematography is straight-up Oscar worthy. It's like the ying to "The VVitch"'s yang. 5/5 T3hRen3gade fucked around with this message at 07:21 on Oct 7, 2019 |
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Sep 29, 2019 06:58
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So I needed a palate cleanser after watching "Midsommar" twice, and I want to watch entirely new-to-me films, so based on recommendations in the main Horror thread I decided to go with... #2: One Cut of the Dead (2017)  Action! This movie was not what I expected it to be, at all. I went in knowing nothing (as people here have said you should do) and I can't recommend that enough. Do not google this movie. Go in knowing just this simple premise: it's about a cast of people making a zombie movie, and then real zombies start showing up. That's it. That's all you need to know. Enjoy every cheesy moment in the first 30 minutes, and then buckle up. This is the horror comedy equivalent of a Russian nesting doll, and it just keeps giving. Hilarious! I seriously spent the first 30 minutes taking mental notes of weird little moments, like when the actors took awkward breaks in the dialogue and the way the zombie in the shed just stood there when it made no sense at all that it wouldn't attack the woman. But I began to chalk it up to possible cultural differences, and how that might affect comedic timing, and had no idea what I was in store for. When the reveal happens that this ISN'T a zombie movie at all, and that they showed us the final product in its "intended" form right up front... I was hooked. The rest of the movie is a beautiful behind-the-scenes recreation of what actually went into making those first 30 minutes, and it nails every single thing I initially took for a weird mistake in what I thought was a cheesy comedic B-level zombie movie. This is anything but, it's something very special and original, and it should be seen by everyone. 4/5 Total: 2 "Midsommar" (2019), "One Cut of the Dead" (2017)
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Sep 30, 2019 04:07
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#3: Apostle (2018) I liked this one quite a lot. A man travels to an isolated island where a cult has kidnapped his sister for ransom. Set in the early turn of the century, it was a great period piece full of some very good performances (Michael Sheen is awesome in everything he does, so no surprise there) and has some seriously gnarly gore. It's pretty long at 2 1/2 hours, and the first hour is kind of slow, but once it picks up and brings some of the more supernatural elements to the foreground, it doesn't let up. Once he swims through the sewer of gore and meets the witch (I think she's a witch?) face-to-face, all bets are off. I also liked how they turned the trope of "evil Prophet is evil" and gave Michael Sheen more depth. I mean sure, he's still a hosed up guy who worships witch magic, but he never crossed the line and actually killed anybody. The guy who tried to usurp his position as leader of the cult was a great villain, what a piece of poo poo. His death was extremely satisfying. This was also the only thing starring Dan Stevens I've seen outside of "Beauty and the Beast," and since he's 95% a CGI Disney character in that one, this was a refreshing re-introduction. He and Sheen carry this film, and I think it's another notch in Netflix's belt in terms of quality. My only real gripe is the runtime, which I think could be shaved down by at least a half hour. 3.5/5 Watched: Midsommar; One Cut of the Dead; Apostle Total: 3
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Sep 30, 2019 22:12
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Hot Dog Day #89 posted:
It's got one of most amazing kills in the entire franchise, when the dude in the wheelchair gets machete'd in the face and kicked down a huge flight of stairs! F13 Part 2 is maybe my favorite of the whole series, possibly rivaled only by Part 4.
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Oct 1, 2019 04:41
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I asked for some Australian horror recommendations, and this was the first one I watched. Man, you guys did not disappoint. #4: Wolf Creek  I am officially never going into the Australian outback. gently caress that poo poo. This movie has maybe the most Australian opening line ever: "Traveling with two sheilas, are you mate?" It follows our three main characters, native Ben and his two super attractive British friends, on a road trip out into the middle of goddamn nowhere to see the Wolf Creek asteroid crater. All three of them are immediately likable; the first half of the movie takes its time letting us get to know them as they pal around in the car on a seemingly endless drive into an even more endless landscape, until at last they reach their destination. Coming back to their car after spending a rainy afternoon in the crater, they discover their car is dead. Along comes Mick (like Dundee, get it?), an affable bushwhacker who is also immediately likable, who offers to tow their car to his place and get them back on the road. Ben just had to drop the "this is a knife" Crocodile Dundee reference, didn't he? I'm sure you can guess what happens next. What gets me most about the villain here is that his character doesn't change one bit, even after the violence begins. He's a talkative outback yokel who under any other circumstances you'd want to have a beer with and listen to him tell stories about literally anything in that signature Aussie drawl of his. Unfortunately he is a loving psychopath, and has apparently been doing what he does for a very long time. I especially enjoyed the character of Liz, who for the most part acted unusually smart for a movie of this kind, with one exception: she had Mick dead to loving rights when she freed her friend, and instead of bashing his loving brains in, she whacks him on the back a couple times and runs off without the gun? What the hell, girl? It also has a scene that felt heavily inspired by Road Warrior, which I thought was fun. The whole movie does a great job of making you feel completely isolated, hundreds of miles away from literally anything, and that really made me pause and think. What would you do if you were driving in the middle of the outback and your car just... stops working? In a time before smart phones and constant internet connectivity no less? Nope. Nopenopenopenope. 3.5/5 Watched: Midsommar; One Cut of the Dead; Apostle; Wolf Creek Total: 4 T3hRen3gade fucked around with this message at 09:42 on Oct 1, 2019 |
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Oct 1, 2019 08:44
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Next up in the world of Australian horror: #5: Lake Mungo (2008)  I watched this early this afternoon and then went to work thinking about it. I wasn't expecting it to be a "found footage" movie, which at heart it is, but it's framed through the narrative of a pseudo-documentary which in my opinion really helped to elevate it above other entries in the found footage genre. I think it might be me favorite of the bunch, actually. It tells the story of the death of young Alice Palmer, who drowns in a reservoir while on vacation with her family. Her brother is a budding photographer and decides to set up cameras in their house when he and his parents begin hearing strange sounds coming from Alice's room at night. I did some research on this, and it turns out that while the original "Paranormal Activity" was filmed in 2007, it didn't get released until 2009. "Lake Mungo" came out in 2008, which means it wasn't inspired by "Paranormal Activity," it was doing its own thing and frankly does it far better than "Activity" ever did. There are moments in this that legit had the hairs on the back of my neck standing up. It's a fantastic ghost story told in a way that was very unique for its time, and considering I hadn't even heard of it until goons in the Horror thread recommended it, I don't think it gets enough credit for being a pioneer of its genre. Finding the body of Alice Palmer in the lake (which isn't the titular Lake Mungo by the way, apparently Lake Mungo is a massive dry lake that was actually an ancient burial ground, making what happens at the end that much cooler) felt like a nod to "Twin Peaks," in the "Who killed Laura Palmer?" sense. I loved the many twists and turns in the narrative, and the climax of the cell phone footage where Alice meets her own future corpse legitimately made me flinch. That was spooky as poo poo. Even if you're not a fan of found footage-type films, give this one a watch. It felt more like an early version of the true crime documentaries that would come later like "Making a Murderer." It builds a similar sense of unease that "Dear Zachary" drops in your stomach, which happened to come out that same year. Fortunately, this one didn't actually happen. 4.5/5 Watched: Midsommar; One Cut of the Dead; Apostle; Wolf Creek; Lake Mungo Total: 5
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Oct 2, 2019 05:06
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 Super Samhain Challenge #1: The Best Month#6: Viy (1967)  I'm not cool enough to have a sweet .gif. For a guy who is drunk off his rear end for pretty much the entire film, Khoma could draw a better circle drunk than I can sober. In fact, I want to show this to some friends of mine and make the easiest drinking game imaginable out of it: every time a Russian drinks, you drink. By the time he starts seeing triple, you will too! This movie is a lot of fun, and it's short, which gives it bonus points. To echo what most everyone here has already said, the sheer goofiness that hangs over most of the movie is balanced so well by the bonkers weirdness that ensues inside the church. The practical effects are so simple I actually jumped a bit when the crow flies out of his book, it was just SO unexpected and the whole thing has a quaint classic charm. The score takes me back to watching stuff like the 1961 "Babes in Toyland," I just have a real fondness for that era of film scores. I'm confused a little bit about the relationship between the girl and the witch. Did she actually make a deal with the devil, giving her the power to do all kinds of weird stuff and transform into an ugly crone? Or did she get cursed by a witch who used her body demonic possession-style? Maybe it's just a cultural understand thing I lost in the plot, and maybe the answer isn't even really that important. I was just curious. Anyway it was a super fun film and interesting piece of Russian culture I would have never found otherwise, so thanks for giving me a reason to watch it. 4/5 Watched: Midsommar; One Cut of the Dead; Apostle; Wolf Creek; Lake Mungo; Viy Total: 6 T3hRen3gade fucked around with this message at 07:04 on Oct 2, 2019 |
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Oct 2, 2019 06:58
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Irony.or.Death posted:6. Joker (2019) - I'm not sure how I feel about counting thrillers, and even less sure about comic book movies, but I wouldn't give someone poo poo for claiming Spawn and this is both less comic booky and more likely to actually scare someone so whatever. If like me you have managed to avoid any trailers or conversation about this movie, the short version is that it's sort of an origin story for The Joker. Which is kind of funny right off the bat since one of his defining traits is that he has like fifty different origins, they're all fake, and nobody cares. This becomes an even better joke since so much of the movie is concerned with both individual people and society collectively ignoring the poor and the mentally ill. I can't wait to see this. From your first take and what I've heard elsewhere, it's going to be something that I will very much enjoy. Which is funny because when they first announced it I thought it was a horrible idea, then they cast Joaquin Phoenix. Anyway, on to the next title in my first-watch marathon... #7: Demon Knight (1995)  This. Movie. Rocks. First off, I didn't even know this was a Tales from the Crypt joint. I probably did on some level (I've heard it referenced before and watched the poo poo out of TFTC when I was way too young to do so) but the two things never clicked for me. So when I was greeted by the Crypt Keeper in the opening complete with an amazingly meta "on set" introduction I knew I was in for a treat. The cast in this thing is STACKED, Jesus Christ. It has everything; humor, horror, gore, great performances, interesting lore, hilarious amounts of gratuitous nudity, and amazing creature effects. Billy Zane is basically the best on-screen version of Randall Flagg from "The Stand" that has yet to be seen on screen (until Alexander Skarsgarde takes a crack at it next year, for which I'm pumped) and Jada Pinkett (not a Smith yet) delivers what is easily my favorite performance I've ever seen from her. Basically it's a chase story where Brayker (played by the always excellent William Sadler of "Shawshank Redemption" fame) is trying to keep an ornate relic key filled with the blood of Jesus and other holy men tasked with its protection away from the demonic and charismatic Billy Zane. They end up at a weird "off the books" motel in the middle of nowhere, filled with a crazy cast of characters that includes Thomas Haden Church, CCH Pounder and hilarious character actor Dick Miller, and demonic shenanigans ensue as they try to survive the night. I loving loved this movie, and I'm so glad I finally gave it a watch. 4.5/5 Watched: Midsommar; One Cut of the Dead; Apostle; Wolf Creek; Lake Mungo; Viy (Challenge #1); Demon Knight Total: 7 T3hRen3gade fucked around with this message at 06:21 on Oct 4, 2019 |
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Oct 4, 2019 06:15
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#8: Witchfinder General (1968) This one has been on my radar for a while now, and I was glad to use the challenge as a reason to finally watch it. Set during the English Civil War, it follows the horrendous exploits of the titular Witchfinder (played to pompous perfection by the legendary Vincent Price) who travels from town to town interrogating and subsequently executing accused "witches." I can see why this one is considered a folk horror classic. It's fairly dense and old school British cinema to the core, and the performances, while very melodramatic, are powerful. The main protagonist is a British soldier who marries a woman who is constantly harassed by Vincent Price and his henchman, and decides to go rogue to pursue the Witchfinder in order to exact his own kind of justice. The sheer amount of violence against women throughout the entire film is a little hard to watch, so be prepared for that. It isn't gory, it's more just an uncomfortable experience that almost dares you to keep watching. I found it interesting to discover that this movie was the source of the spoof scene in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" where they have the whole conversation about witches and things that float, which makes me appreciate it even more. 4/5 Watched: Midsommar; One Cut of the Dead; Apostle; Wolf Creek; Lake Mungo; Viy (Challenge #1); Demon Knight; Witchfinder General Total: 8 T3hRen3gade fucked around with this message at 19:20 on Oct 4, 2019 |
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Oct 4, 2019 19:16
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#9: Razorback (1984) Woah. What... the hell did I just watch?  An American journalist goes missing in Australia while trying to film interviews with the local population about animal cruelty (they kill kangaroos, you see) and her husband flies out to find her. Spoilers: she was eaten by a big loving razorback boar. This thing is definitely fun, and it comes off as campy, but I get the feeling they were really trying to make it the next "JAWS" but on land and with a boar. It even has a Quint-esque character who provides some delightful monologues about the dangers of razorbacks, and is easily the best part of the whole film. I also thought the main protagonist Carl looks an awful lot like a mix between James Marsden and Walton Goggins, which was kind of hilarious. The tone of this movie is all over the place, which was a little jarring. It takes itself seriously for the most part but there are weird choices like with pretty much everything the crazy kangaroo-killing Baker brothers say and do that try to add levity to scenes that are otherwise downright macabre. My saying this probably comes off as a complaint, but it isn't, because it just makes it weird. It's a bit like the tone of "Tremors," except not nearly as endearing. It was an interesting romp into the outback, that's for sure. Carl sure did get over the death of his wife pretty quickly. 3/5 Watched: Midsommar; One Cut of the Dead; Apostle; Wolf Creek; Lake Mungo; Viy (Challenge #1); Demon Knight; Witchfinder General; Razorback Total: 9
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Oct 5, 2019 19:58
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#10: Joker (2019) When this movie was first announced I rolled my eyes so hard. Why the hell would you make an origin story about a villain whose origin is intentionally obscure? DC movies haven't exactly had the best track record in the post-Nolan era, so I figured this thing was going to flop from the start. But then they cast Joaquin Pheonix, started leaking images and information revealing the retro aesthetic (grunge late 70's/early 80's) and asserted itself as a character study in mental illness. It was clear from the trailers that it was going to try and be a Film with a capitol F and not just a comic book movie. While it turns out to be better than I thought it had any right to be, it falls short of being the Oscar-worthy masterpiece initial buzz was making it out to be. It wants so badly to have something to say, and outside of the central performance from Pheonix (which I do think is incredible) it really is a case of all pomp and very little substance. I read an interview with Pheonix and Todd Phillips last week where they tried to defend the movie from making Arthur Fleck seem like a sympathetic antihero. They said something to the effect of "we're not trying to empathize with Arthur, we're trying to understand him." I'm sorry but I have to call bullshit, this movie absolutely tries to make Arthur come off as a sad, sympathetic man who is constantly kicked down by a society and system that doesn't care about or want him. Don't get me wrong, I'm okay with that, but call it what it is. There are TONS of shocking moments, and a lot of dark humor I thought the gun falling out of his pants in the children's hospital was awkwardly hilarious, and overall a lot of things I really liked. Although I'm not super enamored with the implication that Arthur is Bruce Wayne's half brother, which I would outright hate if it weren't left as an intentionally ambiguous question mark But ultimately (and I'm borrowing a quote from the ScreenStalker podcast that I think sums up my feelings here) this is a 5-star performance inside of a 3-star movie. It tries so hard to be "Taxi Driver" and "The King of Comedy" but fails to say anything meaningful other than "Man, isn't that sad?" Joaquin is excellent and it's totally a worthwhile movie to watch, but don't expect the Oscar-sweeping game-changer initial buzz made it out to be. Also, the toxic discourse around this movie is stupid. There are far more violent movies that try to sympathize horrible people that have come out this year ("3 From Hell") and after all the hype of how "dangerous" this movie is supposed to be, it's pretty tame by comparison. 3.5/5 Watched: Midsommar; One Cut of the Dead; Apostle; Wolf Creek; Lake Mungo; Viy (Challenge #1); Demon Knight; Witchfinder General; Razorback; Joker Total: 10
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Oct 6, 2019 15:56
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Darthemed posted:Very weird having virginity be such a central plot point in a Disney movie I'm not kidding when I say this was the movie that prompted 9-year-old-me to ask my father "what does a virgin mean?" Things were much simpler in the 90's.
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Oct 7, 2019 03:45
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#11: A Quiet Place (2018) This movie is fantastic. It's the only John Krasinski-directed film I've seen, and a quick google search reveals he's done some other stuff, and I might have to hunt it down. This is a tense, action-driven nearly silent horror film by necessity; aliens (or something?) have invaded Earth and wiped out most of the population. Since they hunt by sound, you can't make noise. John Krasinski and his family (including pregnant wife Emily Blunt) have survived 472 days and she's about to give birth. The whole film takes place over two days, and it's a very anxiety-ridden survival ride that I loved from start to finish. This seems like an absolute no-win nightmare world where I'm shocked that a family with three small children could have survived a week, let alone over a year. And seriously, fix the drat nail in the stairs! Every time a character went up or down those stairs I held my breath. My favorite scene is when the kids are in the grain elevator, because those things legit terrify me, and I've heard so many horror stories about people who fall inside of them and can't get out. What a horrible way to die, drowning in grain. I guess it beats the alternative of getting ripped to shreds by aliens though.  Also, I get what the ear devices were doing to some extent, but it looked like the frequency was making them go temporarily deaf? Was that just an unintended side effect? If so, why does it need to be placed around their ear and not just be a portable speaker that blasts ultrasonic sound? They also gave the impression that Krasinski had created many such devices before and none of them had worked. How did they find out they didn't work and somehow survive? So many questions. Highly recommend this one. 4.5/5 Watched: Midsommar; One Cut of the Dead; Apostle; Wolf Creek; Lake Mungo; Viy (Challenge #1); Demon Knight; Witchfinder General; Razorback; Joker; A Quiet Place Total: 11
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Oct 8, 2019 02:18
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Gripweed posted:Those were the outside component of a Cochlear Implant. You see the daughter is wearing one at the beginning. At some point it broke, and The dad has been trying to fix it/scavenge up a new one. The devices on his bench were failed attempts. The sound was the just a terribly unpleasant sound that the thing was making because it was faulty. The fact that it was painful to the aliens was pure coincidence Oh! So she was deaf?! I knew the implant looked like one of those for the hard of hearing, but I thought it was just some kind of device Krasinski had been working on to "find a weakness." That explains so much, like how the family knew ASL so well. I had figured they just learned it as a survival strategy. Wow, this seems super obvious in hindsight. Thanks for the insight!
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Oct 8, 2019 02:28
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 SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #2: Dead & Buried#12: Spider Baby or, the Maddest Story Ever Told (1967) feat. Sid Haig (1939-2019)  "Our diet is very austere." Holy poo poo. I am a huge Rob Zombie fan, and I genuinely consider "The Devil's Rejects" to be one of the top if not my straight-up favorite horror film(s), and I had never seen this before. This is the 1960's version of "House of 1000 Corpses." Or to be more accurate, "House of 1000 Corpses" remade this movie by taking major cues from "Spider Baby." Right down to an exact shot between when Frumpy Meryl Streep (Carol Ohmart) gets overwhelmed by feral captive women, compared to when Denise gets overtaken by captives in the cage in Tiny's room. It's the weird story of a trio of siblings afflicted with "Merrye Syndrome," a genetic brain disease that basically sounds like the "Benjamin Button" disease but more psychotic. They are watched over by a family friend-slash-caretaker named Bruno (Lon Chaney Jr.), and are visited by a group of extended relatives looking to take hold of their wealthy estate. What ensues is a wonderfully weird and dark episode of "The Addams Family" where Sid Haig plays the lumbering half-witted mongoloid version of Uncle Fester. He has no actual spoken dialogue, but his physical performance (especially since this was early in his career when he was young and spry) is so much fun to watch. While I was watching this I kept seeing things that I recognized from later films, from the obvious Rob Zombie influences to the costume design choices in "The Rocky Horror Picture Show." Seriously, Carol Ohmart looks like Meryl Streep's younger sister. And "Mr. Schlocker" has a name that is not only on the nose, but has a mustache that makes him look like Hitler and immediately makes you want to see him get done in by the Merrye sisters, who are themselves so much fun to watch. The entire cast is great, the tone is campy for its time and feels edgy, and has a genuine sense of humor. Since I watched this because of Sid Haig, I can't stress enough how much fun it was to see a young and energetic Sid run around like a slack-jawed Igor. Rest in peace. 4.5/5 Watched: Midsommar; One Cut of the Dead; Apostle; Wolf Creek; Lake Mungo; Viy (Challenge #1); Demon Knight; Witchfinder General; Razorback; Joker; A Quiet Place; Spider Baby, or the Maddest Story Ever Told (Challenge #2) Total: 12 T3hRen3gade fucked around with this message at 08:39 on Oct 8, 2019 |
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Oct 8, 2019 08:36
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#13: Hereditary (2018) Ari Aster disturbs me. Seriously. He's kind of a mad genius and is really good at doing what he does, but gently caress me. So I went into this knowing a couple of things I wish I hadn't, but ultimately it didn't detract from the experience of watching this. After watching "Midsommar" I listened to a ton of podcasts dissecting it and every single one of them brought up the decapitation of Charlie (without spoiler warnings I might add, so gently caress you podcast people) and they drew obvious comparisons to "Hereditary." Both movies share similar themes, especially of loss and the handling of grief, and this is why I was nervous about subjecting myself to this movie. Thankfully, Ari Aster really is a master of his craft, and he handles these things with a kind of reverence and care that I appreciate greatly. Toni Collette is wonderful from start to finish in this thing. Her performance is powerful on so many levels. Her reaction to the death of Charlie was hard to watch, and that kind of pain rings very true in a raw way that you don't often see depicted in film. What I wasn't expecting was Ann Dowd, holy poo poo. I LOVE her. "The Leftovers" is one of my favorite shows of all time, and between that and "The Handmaid's Tale" I know that whenever she is on screen you need to expect amazing performances and hosed up situations. This movie has both. It also shares some of the same discordant string music that pervades "Midsommar," and I'm almost certain that both movies use the same ring tone for cell phones. I don't know why that jumped out at me, it's just a thing I noticed. I'm not even going to go into a breakdown of the plot here, it's just a movie that you need to watch, and preferably with as little knowledge of what you're about to see as possible. It's shocking, it's powerful, and it's scary as gently caress in ways that will probably surprise you. I can't wait to see what Ari Aster comes up with next. 5/5 Watched: Midsommar; One Cut of the Dead; Apostle; Wolf Creek; Lake Mungo; Viy (Challenge #1); Demon Knight; Witchfinder General; Razorback; Joker; A Quiet Place; Spider Baby, or the Maddest Story Ever Told (Challenge #2); Hereditary Total: 13 T3hRen3gade fucked around with this message at 16:12 on Oct 9, 2019 |
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Oct 9, 2019 16:09
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SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #3: HORROR NOIR #14: The First Purge (2018)  I have seen all of the other Purge films before (but not the show), and overall I've liked them to varying degrees. The first one introduces the basic premise (which is simple and brilliant while also being wildly ridiculous), but that premise is mostly squandered by restraining itself to a simple house invasion story. The sequel "Purge: Anarchy" is where the series really starts to stretch its legs and improves on the concept by expanding its scope to the entirety of downtown LA. It was easily my favorite of the series (I honestly don't remember much of "Election Year," just that it was more of the same sprinkled with some over-the-top political commentary) until now. I think this one edges out "Anarchy" by virtue of a stellar cast of people I actually gave a poo poo about, and pulling off the rare feat of being a prequel that actually adds to the mythos instead of feeling like a cheap cash-grab. I was seriously expecting Skeletor to be hiding in the closet at the end, since they notice blood on the ground and Nya says she thought she had already cleaned it up. That's a weird line that had an obvious payoff that went nowhere, so now I'm wondering if there is an alternate ending. It would have made more sense, instead of having Skeletor randomly bumblefuck his way in behind the mercenaries and die rather unceremoniously in gunfire. I was hoping one of the named characters would get to kill him, but alas. Dimitri is a loving badass, and there were moments in the hand-to-hand fight down the stairwell that felt a little bit like the Raid movies. Great action, great characters, and great world building for a prequel to three other films. I really enjoyed how they actually tried to explain how a ridiculous national "holiday" like this could hypothetically begin as an experiment, and even the person who came up with it immediately realizes this was a bad idea. I wish her death hadn't been so anti-climatic, though. Class3KillStorm posted:Are the other Purge movies as fun as this one was? If so, I may have to check out the remaining films or the show. The first one isn't really "fun," it takes itself way more seriously than the rest of them do and feels at times more like a less interesting "Funny Games" than the action/thrillers that the rest of them become. If you liked this one, I'd say watch them all in order and enjoy the ride. You can do way worse, but I think "The First Purge" might be the overall best of the series. 4/5 Watched: Midsommar; One Cut of the Dead; Apostle; Wolf Creek; Lake Mungo; Viy (Challenge #1); Demon Knight; Witchfinder General; Razorback; Joker; A Quiet Place; Spider Baby, or the Maddest Story Ever Told (Challenge #2); Hereditary; The First Purge (Challenge #3) Total: 14
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Oct 11, 2019 05:25
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#15: Killer Condom (1996) Okay. I have no idea what I just watched. Seriously, this is awful and awesome in equal amounts, and I don't think I can recommend it to anyone. But at the same time I want everyone to see this crazy piece of German cinema that takes place in America (I have never seen it done this way before) which means everyone is speaking German, but it's supposed to be an American story set in NYC, and the culture clash that happens is just... weird. Really loving weird. But it's worth it. Holy poo poo is this movie worth it. The main character is named (Detective) "Louigi Mackeroni". He's an Italian-born American detective written by German people, which is just part of why this movies is hilarious. It also features wonderfully animated condoms biting people's dicks (or balls) off. But at it's heart, it really does try to comment on LBGT culture that I wasn't expecting. It isn't high art by any means (I mean, it's a horror movie about condoms with literal teeth) but it also isn't nearly as "bad" as your brain thinks it is when you read the title for the first time. This movie is awesome. I'm not giving this a rating. I genuinely can't compare it to anything in a way that would quantify some kind of number. It's also hard to judge because I watched this along with the Scream Stream and it's subtitled, so I'm sure I missed various lines trying to keep up with the movie and the chat. That said, I regret nothing. This movie is loving awesome. Watched: Midsommar; One Cut of the Dead; Apostle; Wolf Creek; Lake Mungo; Viy (Challenge #1); Demon Knight; Witchfinder General; Razorback; Joker; A Quiet Place; Spider Baby, or the Maddest Story Ever Told (Challenge #2); Hereditary; The First Purge (Challenge #3); Killer Condom Total: 15 T3hRen3gade fucked around with this message at 06:06 on Oct 13, 2019 |
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Oct 13, 2019 06:04
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#16: Road Games (1981) "Just because I drive a truck does not make me a 'truck driver'." I had never even heard of this movie until some of you recommended it to me a few weeks ago. I wanted some solid Australian horror/thrillers to add to my watchlist, and holy poo poo they were some great ones. This one is no exception. Knowing nothing about it and having no expectations going in, I was pleasantly surprised to find both Jamie Lee Curtis' and Brian May's names in the opening credits (May composed the music). So I just sat back and enjoyed the (in this case literal) ride. Stacy Keach plays Quid, a semi truck driver who constantly monologues to himself and his dingo companion while driving across the outback. He keeps running into a man in a green van, who based on police reports on the radio he believes to be a serial killer. Various hitchhikers have gone missing, and Quid is pretty sure the guy in the van is responsible. He runs into some interesting characters along the road in some cases I think a bit too coincidentally, my only real complaint about the movie including Jamie Lee Curtis, a hitchhiker that he affectionately refers to as "Hitch." She is also convinced this man in the van is a serial killer, and the two of them try to get to the bottom of it despite the police being suspicious that Quid is actually the man responsible for the murders. Jamie Lee is pretty good in this, especially considering that this movie came out right after her string of slashers that made her the Scream Queen. But Stacy Keach is the real show here, and he is incredible. I love how the movie keeps giving you hints that he might actually be crazy, and wonder if he is in fact the killer. There were times I kept asking myself if the man and his green van was even real, or just a delusion of his. The cinematography is gorgeous too, with a lot of wonderful wide shots of landscapes that are really fun to to look at. Top to bottom a well made film, and I really enjoyed it. 4.5/5 Watched: Midsommar; One Cut of the Dead; Apostle; Wolf Creek; Lake Mungo; Viy (Challenge #1); Demon Knight; Witchfinder General; Razorback; Joker; A Quiet Place; Spider Baby, or the Maddest Story Ever Told (Challenge #2); Hereditary; The First Purge (Challenge #3); Killer Condom; Road Games Total: 16
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Oct 13, 2019 21:42
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#17: Next of Kin (1982) I caught this on the Scream Stream tonight, and honestly I'm glad I did because without the communal experience of goons being just as perplexed as I was in the chat, I probably wouldn't have gotten through this on my own. It's very slow, and plods through a "plot" about a woman coming back to run her mother's estate after the mother has passed away, which has been turned into an elderly retirement home. A resident is found dead having drowned in a bathtub and it is implied some sinister supernatural poo poo is to blame. The only actor of note for me was John Jarratt, who I was introduced to last week as the psycho killer in "Wolf Creek," except here he is the young male love interest which was kind of a fun twist. There are some elements in here that remind me a bit of "The Shining," but I feel like that is implying it contains way more interesting things than it actually does. A quick google search on reviews revealed that Quentin Tarantino is a big fan of this film, and that just puzzles me. Maybe it's me, I just don't get it. But overall it was slow, confusing, and not actually scary outside of one or two moments in an otherwise dull film. There is a twist near the end that propels the final set piece, and those last 10 minutes are easily the best part of the movie. I just wish the rest of it had been infused with some of that energy. Different strokes I guess. 1/5 #18: Zombie, aka Zombi 2 (1980)  gently caress yes. This was more like it. This was feature #2 on the Scream Stream tonight, and while I have heard of this movie before, I had never actually seen it. In fact I don't think I've seen any Lucio Fulci films, so this was a fantastic introduction to a filmmaker I know people love and gives me a reason to check out his work. What's not to love here? It's zombies mixed with weird Italian cinema and shamelessly mixes nudity and gore (frequently in the same scene) in ways that I've never seen before. It has possibly the single craziest thing I've ever seen captured on film, and I mean that from a logistic "how did this get made" standpoint. A zombie in the ocean fights a shark. Like, a real no-poo poo bigger-than-you-are shark. An actor did that. Underwater. What the actual gently caress.  And there's so much more. This movie is insane, and it keeps giving great visuals and amazing practical gore effects right to the very end. The zombies themselves look incredible, they give the better parts of "The Walking Dead" a serious run for their money. In fact I can see how this movie was a big visual inspiration to that terrible show, and they do it with style. This movie is visually fantastic, even the bigger establishing shots of boats and landscapes really jump out as something created by people who know what they're doing. The plot almost doesn't even matter, and most of the characters act in such hilariously stupid ways most of the time, but I just shrugged and went with the vibe this thing gave off. Two scenes in particular are ones that will stick with me for a long goddamn time, and I can't wait to show this to my friends. It's no cinematic masterpiece and I have watched way better movies on my list this month, but I'm giving this full marks because a man fought a loving shark. I mean, come on. 5/5 Watched: Midsommar; One Cut of the Dead; Apostle; Wolf Creek; Lake Mungo; Viy (Challenge #1); Demon Knight; Witchfinder General; Razorback; Joker; A Quiet Place; Spider Baby, or the Maddest Story Ever Told (Challenge #2); Hereditary; The First Purge (Challenge #3); Killer Condom; Road Games (1982); Next of Kin; Zombie, aka Zombi 2 Total: 18 T3hRen3gade fucked around with this message at 06:13 on Oct 14, 2019 |
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Oct 14, 2019 06:04
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SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #4: Inktober Watch a horror film you've never seen that heavily features art or artists, or the main character is an artist. #19): Suspiria (1977)  Not only was this my first watch of "Suspiria," this was the first time I've watched any Dario Argento movie. In fact I didn't even know what "giallo" was when the October Challenge began, but reading all the reviews and discussion these past few weeks has really exposed me to whole new worlds of horror I didn't know existed. It's crazy. So thanks, goons! First of all, this movie is fun to look at. The lighting and set designs are amazing. So many shots are so well composed, and often filled with eerie tints of red, green, or blue light that add so much to the mood of these scenes:    The plot is basically about an American girl named Susie who is accepted into a prestigious dance academy in Germany. Literally the first night she's there, one of the other girls at the school is murdered. Quite spectacularly, too. She befriends another one of the other girls who becomes more and more suspicious (suspirious?) that something isn't quite right about the school and the people who run it. The tension starts building from the first frame and keeps climbing right into the finale, and I think the payoff is pretty neat. It certainly surprised me. I was totally expecting the obvious at the end, that the handyman with the knife was going to be behind the door. But nope, it was the reanimated corpse of her friend, and that was awesome. Also of note is the score for the entire movie. It's very reminescent of "The Exorcist," especially the main theme, and I loved it. It's so abrasive and used aggressively, even in seemingly innocuous scenes where people are just standing around looking out windows thinking about stuff. The score is almost like a character in itself, and the parts where it sounds like demons are chanting along with the rhythm is spooky as hell. Great stuff. So yeah, I really loved this, and I'm looking forward to checking out more of Argento's work. My next movie is going to be the 2018 remake of "Suspiria" so I can do a little compare and contrast, so that should be fun. 5/5 Watched: Midsommar; One Cut of the Dead; Apostle; Wolf Creek; Lake Mungo; Viy (Challenge #1); Demon Knight; Witchfinder General; Razorback; Joker; A Quiet Place; Spider Baby, or the Maddest Story Ever Told (Challenge #2); Hereditary; The First Purge (Challenge #3); Killer Condom; Road Games; Next of Kin; Zombie, aka Zombi 2; Suspiria (1977) (Challenge #4) Total: 19 T3hRen3gade fucked around with this message at 16:47 on Oct 20, 2019 |
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Oct 15, 2019 02:14
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#20 Phantom of the Paradise (1974) This has been a weird day for me. I watched the original "Suspiria" for the first time yesterday afternoon (still technically today for me since I haven't slept), which introduced me to an actress named Jessica Hopper. Eight hours ago I thought she looked like a young Karen Allen (from the first Indiana Jones movie) and enjoyed the hell out of it. Then, completely independently, "Phantom of the Paradise" started getting talked about over and over, and my music-loving brain just couldn't resist. I love Rocky Horror, I literally celebrated my 16th birthday seeing it in a theater for the first time (and I'm 35, this was a while ago) and I loved it then and every single time I've seen it since. That being said, how the gently caress did I not know about this movie? So Jessica Hopper plays what is essentially what turned out to be the real life inspiration that brought Andrew Lloyd Webber and Sarah Brightman together? If not, it's a funny coincidence. But once Paul Williams actually appeared as Swan and started speaking, it triggered something in me. When I was a young kid, we had a VHS tape that my grandparents recorded off TV with a movie called "The Night They Saved Christmas." It's about a family that lives up "north," and the father works for a drilling company that is blasting its way through ice so they can find oil. Turns out they are blasting their way into the actual North Pole, and Paul Williams plays Santa's Helper who shows up to try and convince the mom and her kids that he needs to stop trying to kill Santa. Also Santa is played by Art Carney. It's loving awesome, and is one of those movies that goes way back for me. I'm not making this up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqU9-IfRQp8 Finding out that the dude who I've always associated as Santa's Best Helper is also the man who wrote the song "Rainbow Connection" and before any of that starred in THIS. loving. MOVIE?! Holy poo poo. It's a lot to process. All of these things are colliding at once for me, and it made watching this movie really weird, but also amazing. I mean, this is absolutely Phantom of the Opera with a weird twist. But is the music actually better than Rocky Horror? On a technical level, yes. It's more like "Les Miserables" where the music is intrinsic and part of the story as opposed to Rocky Horror, where they are set pieces designed to entertain. I honestly loved this though, and I will need to watch it and listen to the music more to really get a good idea of where it sits in my brain alongside its "rock opera" contemporaries, which absolutely includes "Hedwig and the Angry Inch." Honestly I think the music in Hedwig beats both this movie and Rocky Horror, but I've had years to sit with that and only a few hours to sit with this, so time will tell I guess. Still, this loving rocks. I already want to watch it again in all its goofy rock-loving glory. 4.5/5 Watched: Midsommar; One Cut of the Dead; Apostle; Wolf Creek; Lake Mungo; Viy (Challenge #1); Demon Knight; Witchfinder General; Razorback; Joker; A Quiet Place; Spider Baby, or the Maddest Story Ever Told (Challenge #2); Hereditary; The First Purge (Challenge #3); Killer Condom; Road Games; Next of Kin; Zombie, aka Zombi 2; Suspiria (1977) (Challenge #4); Phantom of the Paradise Total: 20 T3hRen3gade fucked around with this message at 08:09 on Oct 15, 2019 |
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Oct 15, 2019 07:33
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#21: In Her Skin (2009) This one really bummed me out.  I didn't even realize this was based on a true story until about halfway through, when I started feeling like it was telling that kind of story, so I paused the movie and googled it. Sure enough, it all really happened, which made what was already hard to watch even harder. It's the story of the disappearance of Rachel Barber, an attractive teenage girl who loved to dance and had no earthly reason to just run away from home. It's a powerful exploration of mental illness, depression, and grief. Guy Pierce and Miranda Otto play Rachel's distraught parents, and their performances are utterly heartbreaking. But the most stirring performance belongs to Ruth Bradley, who plays the mentally unstable Caroline Reid Robertson to a chilling and unsettling degree of authenticity. Also of note is Sam Neil, who plays Caroline's father. It's a fantastic cast top to bottom, and you can tell that everyone involved brought their A game to give this story the telling it deserves. It's hard to even talk about this movie in terms of enjoyment now that I know it's based on a true story. It's a great movie that deserves to be seen. It made me feel a little bit like I did after watching the documentary "Dear Zachary," and for that reason I'll probably never watch it again, but it was absolutely worth seeing. Rest in peace, Rachel. 5/5 Watched: Midsommar; One Cut of the Dead; Apostle; Wolf Creek; Lake Mungo; Viy (Challenge #1); Demon Knight; Witchfinder General; Razorback; Joker; A Quiet Place; Spider Baby, or the Maddest Story Ever Told (Challenge #2); Hereditary; The First Purge (Challenge #3); Killer Condom; Road Games; Next of Kin; Zombie, aka Zombi 2; Suspiria (1977) (Challenge #4); Phantom of the Paradise; In Her Skin Total: 21
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Oct 15, 2019 20:18
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Lurdiak posted:I say no, but people have already reviewed it in here. I was wondering whether it would count as well and reviewed it anyway because I would argue it's a psychological thriller with some uncomfortable horror-ish elements sprinkled in, but if the verdict is it doesn't count, that's fine. I've decided to push to 31 and beyond if I can anyway. #22: Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006)  This was recommended to me by a work friend, and I found out it was on Shudder so I decided to sign up and check it out. I'm really glad I did. It's a little cheesy, but that is totally by design, and it delivers on the basic premise and then some. For those who haven't heard of it, this is a mockumentary horror/comedy that lives in a world where the "big three" slasher villains are real people; Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, and Freddy Krueger all exist and their legacy as serial killers is an actual thing. Along comes a bunch of student filmmakers who are making a documentary about a man who wants to become the next famous slasher villain: Leslie Vernon. As a fan of slasher movies, I found this very funny in a nudge-wink kind of way. There are some excellent jokes here (some duds too, but for the most part I thoroughly enjoyed the meta humor) that both skewer the slasher genre and spoof a lot of tropes, all the while explaining how a slasher villain pulls off a killing spree from a behind-the-scenes, tongue-in-cheek point of view. The concept is brilliant, and I'm surprised I had never heard of it before. After the initial setup, things get down to business and it turns into an actual slasher movie! And since Leslie Vernon meticulously explained how he was going to go through with it, those plans are in your head as the events start to unfold for real, which made for a really cool subversion of my expectations. I saw the "reveal" of the main journalist girl being his intended final girl all along, but it was still well done and a neat twist on the trope. I had expected it to be a comedy all the way through and didn't expect it to turn into a legitimate (albeit predictable) slasher in the final act, and the fact we spent the whole movie getting to know Leslie in a weirdly funny affable way almost made his relentless assault... more creepy? I've just never seen it done like this before, and I really liked it. Notable cameos include Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, and Zelda Rubinstein, as well as a really fun appearance by Scott Wilson (Herschel from "The Walking Dead") that I thought was delightful. So the pedigree in this movie is legit, people knew what was up and it's fun to see so many important faces in horror showing up in this thing. Overall it's a very fun movie if you like slasher films, it has heart and humor, and is a genuinely unique take on a horror genre that I have never seen before. You have to watch the entire end credits too. It's set to "Psycho Killer" and sets up the sequel I don't think we'll ever see, but I really kind of want now. 4/5 Watched: Midsommar; One Cut of the Dead; Apostle; Wolf Creek; Lake Mungo; Viy (Challenge #1); Demon Knight; Witchfinder General; Razorback; Joker; A Quiet Place; Spider Baby, or the Maddest Story Ever Told (Challenge #2); Hereditary; The First Purge (Challenge #3); Killer Condom; Road Games; Next of Kin; Zombie, aka Zombi 2; Suspiria (1977) (Challenge #4); Phantom of the Paradise; In Her Skin; Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon Total: 22 T3hRen3gade fucked around with this message at 07:08 on Oct 16, 2019 |
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Oct 16, 2019 06:58
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#23: Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead (2014) "This morning I shot my wife and child with a nail gun. I don't know how to make that into a story." There are a lot of things about this movie that I want to complain about. It's internally inconsistent, tonally incoherent, and just flat-out makes no sense in SO many ways. But you know what? It's also entertaining and metal as hell.  A meteorite shower hits Earth and all of a sudden people start turning into zombies. This happens right up front and the movie doesn't waste any time; people start turning and gore starts flying right from the jump. And it doesn't stop. It feels like Sam Raimi directed a Mad Max movie and decided to make it about zombies for the hell of it, it's that crazy. They even add some pretty radical ideas that I've never seen in a zombie movie before gasoline and fuel is no longer flammable, but zombie blood and the gas they belch is for some reason, so now cars are powered by burping zombies. Yeah. I mean, this movie is insane. I can't help but laugh at how ridiculous it gets. My biggest beef is that it has some weird moments where it stops being a balls-to-the-wall zombie action extravaganza and tries to inject some serious drama for no reason whatsoever. While stuck in a zombie-covered car overnight, one of the characters remarks that this situation isn't the most horrible thing he's ever experienced. He then tells a story about how his 7-year-old son was diagnosed with brain cancer and died in his arms. Meanwhile, zombies are swarming their car, and the man sitting next to him literally shot his wife and child in the head with a nail gun earlier that day. It just felt like an odd point to make in a movie like this. That being said, the action is fun and there is enough gore to satisfy most zombie fans. It does some weird stuff that you've never seen before, and has a frenetic energy that keeps things in constant motion. Overall I liked it, but I feel like it didn't know what kind of movie it was trying to be at times, and it had the potential to be an absolute genre-changing classic. Instead it seems content to be a loud, fun, bloody Australian mash-up of other, better movies. It still kicked rear end, though. "Never, ever ever, grab a man's balls in a fistfight. It shows low character." 3/5 Watched: Midsommar; One Cut of the Dead; Apostle; Wolf Creek; Lake Mungo; Viy (Challenge #1); Demon Knight; Witchfinder General; Razorback; Joker; A Quiet Place; Spider Baby, or the Maddest Story Ever Told (Challenge #2); Hereditary; The First Purge (Challenge #3); Killer Condom; Road Games; Next of Kin; Zombie, aka Zombi 2; Suspiria (1977) (Challenge #4); Phantom of the Paradise; In Her Skin; Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon; Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead Total: 23 T3hRen3gade fucked around with this message at 02:49 on Oct 17, 2019 |
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Oct 17, 2019 02:46
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STAC Goat posted:The other way of honoring the Inktober challenger I had was to… well draw something. Once upon a time i drew a lot and some would have called me an artist. I wasn’t one of those people. I could copy or sketch something but I couldn’t create something original. That always bothered me and between that and the fact that I was never satisfied with my work I just stopped drawing. Its been probably a decade since I drew something but I figured I’d pick up my old sketch pads and pencils and give it a whirl to honor my 31st film. Be kind. I’m rusty. This is awesome. In hindsight the challenge probably could have included an intro picture poster where you have to draw something, even if its a cheap MS Paint thing. The cheesier the better actually, I'm sure the entries would have been hilariously bad. I kind of tried to honor the idea of the artistic part of the challenge by choosing a "Suspiria" movie poster that looked hand-drawn instead of a promotional poster, but you did it right my friend. Great job! T3hRen3gade fucked around with this message at 00:09 on Oct 18, 2019 |
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Oct 18, 2019 00:05
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SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #5: Tourist Trap Watch a horror film you've never seen before that was made by / filmed in a country you've never watched a movie from. #24: Troll Hunter aka Trollhunter (2010) - Norwegian  This is how you do a found footage movie. I thought there wasn't anything left worth watching in the genre years ago, and then I saw "Lake Mungo" earlier this month and now this. Granted, both of these movies are fairly old entries at this point, but I think I (along with anyone else burned out on found footage movies) got frustrated with the endless "Paranormal Activity" sequels and the original "Cloverfield," but it turns out that found footage can be done if you do it right. This movie does it right. A documentary film crew drives into the Norwegian wilderness to film a story about what they think is a man who is killing bears illegally, which has been pissing off the local hunting community. What they find is a mysterious man who isn't hunting bears, he's hunting goddamn trolls. The ridiculousness of that premise is addressed by the filmmakers and then turned upside down really loving fast as the monsters start actually appearing, and they follow the troll hunter into the wild. This movie owes a lot to the original "Blair Witch," because it evokes a lot of the same "running through the woods in the dark" shots in a way that no other found footage movie has been able to accurately replicate with actual sincerity. I saw the original "Blair Witch" in a theater when it came out, and this is the first movie to make me feel that same kind of genuine "oh poo poo" tension. The CG monster effects are okay, not perfect but still used well in this kind of "realistic" setting. I genuinely laughed at the bridge scene where a huge troll fucks up a bunch of goats and fights the troll hunter in a very fun nod to the Three Billy Goats Gruff. The titular troll hunter himself is awesome, and is easily the most interesting and fun character in the entire movie. I highly recommend this as a good entry in the found footage genre, and the fact that it tackles a mostly neglected monster in contemporary horror (trolls) and does it in a way that takes itself seriously and is still fun and interesting is a pretty awesome feat. 4/5 Watched: Midsommar; One Cut of the Dead; Apostle; Wolf Creek; Lake Mungo; Viy (Challenge #1); Demon Knight; Witchfinder General; Razorback; Joker; A Quiet Place; Spider Baby, or the Maddest Story Ever Told (Challenge #2); Hereditary; The First Purge (Challenge #3); Killer Condom; Road Games; Next of Kin; Zombie, aka Zombi 2; Suspiria (1977) (Challenge #4); Phantom of the Paradise; In Her Skin; Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon; Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead; Troll Hunter aka Trollhunter (Challenge #5) Total: 24 T3hRen3gade fucked around with this message at 07:50 on Oct 18, 2019 |
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Oct 18, 2019 07:10
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Lurdiak posted:I'm so sick of movies and tv shows where the devil is just some loving guy. For the most part I agree, but Vigo Mortensen is one of my favorite versions of Satan in "The Prophecy." The way he hisses "I'll love you more than Jesus" is serious gently caress I love that movie.
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Oct 18, 2019 19:29
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#25: The Tunnel (2011) I seem to be watching a lot of found footage stuff, which has been completely unintentional, I've just been watching movies recommended in the Horror thread and trying to go in as cold as I can. This was another Australian film, and while I did enjoy it very much, the fact that I've watched "Lake Mungo," "Behind the Mask," and yesterday the Norwegian gem "Troll Hunter" hurt this one by comparison I think. Again, I really liked this movie. It does so many things very well, and at first glance I think it's the most well-shot found footage movie I've seen in terms of film quality. That is both a positive and a negative, because while many of the shots in this look amazing, they look like they're fully produced film-quality footage passing itself off as shaky-cam, and it makes a jarring contrast to the lesser-quality night vision second-cam stuff. It's just a weird mix of traditional cinematography and shaky-cam techniques that kept throwing me for a loop while I tried to get my bearings. The story is about a journalist who wants to uncover a government conspiracy that is displacing the homeless residents of the abandoned subway and WW2-era tunnels under Sidney by turning them into a water filtration reservoir. The characters drive the entire story, and the "office politics" between them both help and hurt the character development, because it feels very authentic for its time but from a 2019 lens it comes off as a core group of guys on a film crew constantly belittling and shaming the sole woman in the movie who is assigned to them, and it gets frustrating at some points. There are some great moments and genuine scares here. It feels a lot like a more metro version of "The Descent," complete with claustrophobic set pieces and creepy as gently caress underground monsters that never get explained. It's a tense, creepy journey into the underground labyrinth of Sidney's forgotten underground tunnels, and they even give a believable reason for why somebody would keep filming things using a camera once poo poo goes south the camera has the best source of light, and they're caught in the darkness of the tunnels. It's a good entry into found footage horror, but "Lake Mungo" is still the best Australian example by far. 3.5/5 Watched: Midsommar; One Cut of the Dead; Apostle; Wolf Creek; Lake Mungo; Viy (Challenge #1); Demon Knight; Witchfinder General; Razorback; Joker; A Quiet Place; Spider Baby, or the Maddest Story Ever Told (Challenge #2); Hereditary; The First Purge (Challenge #3); Killer Condom; Road Games; Next of Kin; Zombie, aka Zombi 2; Suspiria (1977) (Challenge #4); Phantom of the Paradise; In Her Skin; Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon; Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead; Troll Hunter aka Trollhunter (Challenge #5); The Tunnel Total: 25 T3hRen3gade fucked around with this message at 10:06 on Oct 19, 2019 |
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Oct 19, 2019 10:00
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#26: Profondo Rossa (Deep Red) (1975) I watched this on the Scream Stream last night, and it was a blast and a half. I'm starting to get a good idea of what giallo is all about, and the distinct style Dario Argento brings to the screen. It's shot and framed so beautifully, the kills are extreme (and extremely entertaining) and the music is loving amazing. Seriously, I could spend pages talking about the Goblin soundtrack in this movie. Every single time it starts to kick in, my ears perked up and I sat forward ready to see something crazy. The story follows a jazz pianist named Marc, who witnesses the murder of his neighbor and gets wrapped up in the mystery of finding out who the killer is. The police are a bunch of sandwich-munching idiots and aren't any help at all (pictured below) so Marc enlists the help of a local journalist named Gianna. Marc is kind of a chauvinistic dick (this is a huge understatement) and Gianna is better than him in literally every way. I have no idea why she falls for him, because Marc sucks.  There are so many wild moments of over-the-top violence that it's hard to pick a favorite scene. The story has some great twists, and I genuinely had no idea who the killer was going to be and the reveal at the end was both surprising and satisfying. I highly recommend this movie, especially as a primer on giallo films for those (like me) who might not be familiar with the Italian sub-genre. Hell, the movie is worth watching just to listen to the Goblin score. All the crazy visuals are just a bonus. 5 half-eaten sandwiches out of 5  Watched: Midsommar; One Cut of the Dead; Apostle; Wolf Creek; Lake Mungo; Viy (Challenge #1); Demon Knight; Witchfinder General; Razorback; Joker; A Quiet Place; Spider Baby, or the Maddest Story Ever Told (Challenge #2); Hereditary; The First Purge (Challenge #3); Killer Condom; Road Games; Next of Kin; Zombie, aka Zombi 2; Suspiria (1977) (Challenge #4); Phantom of the Paradise; In Her Skin; Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon; Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead; Troll Hunter aka Trollhunter (Challenge #5); The Tunnel; Profondo Rossa aka Deep Red Total: 26
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Oct 20, 2019 16:35
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#27: Body Melt (1993) I love me some good schlocky B-movie madness, and I've come to love Australian horror films, and this movie lives squarely in the middle of that very specific Venn diagram. It's got a silly plot, hilariously bad performances, gross gore, gratuitous nudity, and a self-aware sense of humor that makes it work. If Stuart Gordon had a twin brother from Australia, this is the kind of movie he would make.  An evil company is making experimental pills and vitamin supplements and using the residents of a cul-de-sac in a suburb of Melbourne as unwitting test subjects. I mean, that's pretty much it. That's the plot. What follows is a series of gross body horror vignettes where people's bodies... melt. Or explode. Or grow little tentacles and smear goo and goop and gore everywhere. The practical effects are really good, which makes up for the fact that that the plot is thin and the acting is quite bad. My one quibble is a personal thing, even though it produces what is probably one of the best creep-out moments of the movie, but it relies on a trope that I hate. I love body horror stuff, but I don't like it when it involves pregnant women. I just... don't like it, it's a personal preference thing. I hated AvP: Requiem for many reasons, but that was a big one for me. In this movie a pregnant woman goes into premature labor and her placenta falls out, complete with writhing umbilical cord, and it attacks her husband like a facehugger from Alien. I mean, it's a pretty rad idea and I get it. That's okay. But then her stomach blows open in a gaping maw of hollow horror and I just don't enjoy that particular kind of thing. It's like watching someone drown a sack full of puppies; I don't see the entertainment value in it. This movie has many issues, and coherent storytelling is top of the list. They don't explain some pretty fundamental things, leaving you to connect the dots yourself, but it's not horribly complicated and is basically just excuse after excuse to string together really gross scenes that look amazing. It's impressive on a practical effects level, and from what I've come understand was done on a shoestring budget, but as much as it wants to be a Cronenberg-esque classic it just doesn't have the storytelling to back up the crazy. Still, I enjoyed it for what it was. It has style and knows exactly what it wants to be, and that's good enough for me. 3/5 Watched: Midsommar; One Cut of the Dead; Apostle; Wolf Creek; Lake Mungo; Viy (Challenge #1); Demon Knight; Witchfinder General; Razorback; Joker; A Quiet Place; Spider Baby, or the Maddest Story Ever Told (Challenge #2); Hereditary; The First Purge (Challenge #3); Killer Condom; Road Games; Next of Kin; Zombie aka Zombi 2; Suspiria (1977) (Challenge #4); Phantom of the Paradise; In Her Skin; Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon; Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead; Troll Hunter aka Trollhunter (Challenge #5); The Tunnel; Profondo Rossa aka Deep Red; Body Melt Total: 27
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Oct 21, 2019 07:32
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SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #6: Sometimes They Come Back Watch a horror remake you haven't seen.#28: Suspiria (2018)  I'm glad I waited a little bit before watching this instead of doing it immediately after watching the original, like I had planned. It gave me some time to think about the original masterpiece by Dario Argento, which I absolutely loved. I didn't think it would be possible for a remake to improve upon something already so unique and colorful, while simultaneously being pitch black. I was wrong. This is one of the best remakes I have ever seen. Period. It's fascinating to see a director take the basic concept (American girl gets accepted into prestigious German dance academy that happens to be run by witches) and go in a completely different direction with it while still paying tribute to its roots. It helped a lot that Argento helped write the screenplay. This 2018 version doesn't have the inspired lighting design and Goblin soundtrack that made the original so unique; instead it has Tilda Swinton, Tilda Swinton, and Tilda Swinton. She plays three different roles, and she gets to go full Swinton in each one of them. Dakota Johnson is fantastic as Susie, who must actually know how to dance because the girl can seriously move. That's another thing I really appreciated about this remake that the original didn't do much with: it's a dance academy, and it prominently features dancing front and center in a way that makes sense to further the plot. One scene in particular involves Susie taking control of the leading role in one dance studio, with her movements controlling another woman's body who is trapped in a hidden studio room elsewhere, effectively snapping her into a horrifying pretzel like a living voodoo doll. Holy poo poo. I also liked the subtle hint at what was to come in the finale, when Susie pulled on those black gloves before going down to the final ritual. I took it as a nod to the original spirit of the giallo style, considering there was no evil stranger in black gloves murdering girls in this version, and instead it was Susie who was the real witch all along. loving amazing twist, I loved it. The original wasn't really all that scary, and doesn't even feature much of the supernatural witchcraft until the end of the final act. Not so here; the remake is much darker (both literally and figuratively) and leans hard into the supernatural elements very early on. The ending is loving insane. It subverts expectations (especially if you've seen the original) and tosses out so many holy poo poo moments so fast that my mouth was hanging open for a solid ten minutes. Also, it was cool to see a small cameo by Jessica Harper who played the original Susie. That was a nice touch. This remake was fantastic and I can't recommend it enough. 5/5 Watched: Midsommar; One Cut of the Dead; Apostle; Wolf Creek; Lake Mungo; Viy (Challenge #1); Demon Knight; Witchfinder General; Razorback; Joker; A Quiet Place; Spider Baby, or the Maddest Story Ever Told (Challenge #2); Hereditary; The First Purge (Challenge #3); Killer Condom; Road Games; Next of Kin; Zombie aka Zombi 2; Suspiria (1977) (Challenge #4); Phantom of the Paradise; In Her Skin; Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon; Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead; Troll Hunter aka Trollhunter (Challenge #5); The Tunnel; Profondo Rossa aka Deep Red; Body Melt; Suspiria (2018) (Challenge #6) Total: 28 e: vvvvvvvv 
T3hRen3gade fucked around with this message at 23:00 on Oct 21, 2019 |
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Oct 21, 2019 20:28
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I liked them both for different reasons. I mispoke in my review by implying the remake is an improvement on the original; it's a different beast entirely, but just as good imho
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Oct 21, 2019 22:28
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SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #7: Monster Mash-up Watch a horror film that you haven't seen that features two different monsters. #29: Sadako vs. Kayako (The Ring vs. The Grudge) (2016)  I would never have watched this movie if it weren't for this challenge. I got a trial subscription to Shudder because of the October Challenge, and it turns out there is a lot of good content on there. I did not think this movie would be part of that "good content," and I really do regret judging a movie by its cover (or in this case splash screen). This movie isn't as bad as some here have said, but I think your enjoyment of it will be determined by your expectations going in. I don't have any real sentimental ties to either of these franchises outside of seeing the American remakes made almost two decades ago at this point (which originally prompted me to see "Ringu" in the early 2000's which was my first genuine exposure to Japanese horror). As for "Kayako," I remember that Sarah Michelle Gellar was in the remake of "The Grudge" and it had some jump scares. That was about it. I really haven't thought about it since I was a teenager, and I couldn't tell you what it was about, because the only reason I watched it was because it had Buffy the Vampire Slayer in it. All this is to say that my expectations was that this was the Japanese version of "Freddy vs. Jason," and expectations were at rock bottom. I like the idea of the creepy girl from "The Ring," and the creepy girl from "The Grudge," and watching them fight in a battle of supernatural wills sounded awesome. Except this movie isn't about that. None of the movies that I've seen that these are based on have ever been about creature feature battles. They're about psychological fuckery and the build-up of an inevitable unpleasant demise. Pitting the haunted house ghost against the haunted video tape hair girl is pretty cool on paper, but you're not going to get the knock-down drag-out supernatural throwdown the title suggests without that buildup of tension. It builds up a reasonable (read: contrived) situation for why these two cursed entities would ever meet, and lets them do their thing for a few minutes at the climax before leaving you hanging and waiting for something more. Those couple of minutes are pretty cool though, and if you're willing to sit through the buildup to get there, it's worth it. 3/5 Watched: Midsommar; One Cut of the Dead; Apostle; Wolf Creek; Lake Mungo; Viy (Challenge #1); Demon Knight; Witchfinder General; Razorback; Joker; A Quiet Place; Spider Baby, or the Maddest Story Ever Told (Challenge #2); Hereditary; The First Purge (Challenge #3); Killer Condom; Road Games; Next of Kin; Zombie aka Zombi 2; Suspiria (1977) (Challenge #4); Phantom of the Paradise; In Her Skin; Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon; Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead; Troll Hunter aka Trollhunter (Challenge #5); The Tunnel; Profondo Rossa aka Deep Red; Body Melt; Suspiria (2018) (Challenge #6); Sadako vs. Kayako (Challenge #7) Total: 29
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Oct 22, 2019 06:33
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I think the bigger question is, have you really not ever seen Ghostbusters?
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Oct 22, 2019 18:16
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SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #8: Happy Holidays! Watch a horror film that you haven't seen that takes place on a holiday that isn't Halloween, All Hallow's Eve, Samhain, (edit) Dia De Los Muertos, etc.I don't know how long it would have taken me to finally get around to this movie without this challenge, but holy poo poo. This was the perfect confluence of a gaping hole in my horror knowledge and an opportunity to fill it. I watched... #30: Black Christmas (1974)  I've heard this movie referenced before, and knew people considered it a classic, but I never had any context for it. I always thought it was a cheesy horror-meets-Christmas piece of schlock. That is not the case. Not at all. This movie is amazing, and it completely changes my conception of the history of slashers. I always considered Michael Myers to be the granddaddy of slasher villains, but I was wrong. "Black Christmas" came out well before "Halloween" and does so many things that would later become tropes of the genre, and it did them first. Before we had Michael, we had Billy. The opening shot of "Halloween" where the camera takes Michael's perspective? Yeah, this did it first. Set during Christmas break at a college sorority house, a mysterious man sneaks into the attic during a party and basically just... lives up there for a few days while occasionally creeping down to murder women and hide their bodies in the attic with him. He also makes a bunch of phone calls to the sorority sisters downstairs that are legitimately creepy. Like, holy poo poo, this guy is seriously psychotic. That also makes it, I think, the first major motion picture to depict the urban legend "the call is coming from inside the house," and it does it so loving well that the hairs on the back of my neck stood up at certain points. And I haven't talked about who is in this thing! Margot Kidder (not the main star, but a really fun boozy sorority sister), Olivia Hussey (Juliet in the iconic "Romeo and Juliet" of 1969) and John Saxon (Lt. Thompson in the "Nightmare on Elm Street" series), and they are all excellent. What really surprised me was how serious this movie is, and how much weight it carried by building the tension and fear and delivering on it at every opportunity. I had always thought this was an older movie with a tone of something more along the lines of "Santa's Slay," and it's the exact opposite. This is a very dramatic murder mystery that goes all-in on trying to make you feel uncomfortable, as if you're in the house with these girls who are unaware of the danger that is literally hiding right above their head. The ending is great, and slightly ambiguous we the viewer know the killer wasn't Peter (who is a complete rear end in a top hat by the way) and that "Billy" is still alive and apparently still in the house? And the first dead girl's body has been sitting next to a window for days, and nobody noticed it? Nor the did police search the obvious hiding place of the loving attic after poo poo went down? I mean, that's not realistic at all but honestly I don't care. It's a tiny logical winkle in an otherwise fantastic piece of horror. Oh, it also features a very interesting subplot involving abortion, which I'm sure at the time was even more taboo than it is today. But the movie isn't about abortion at all, it's just a side thing that gets brought up in detail between two of the main characters, and it fuels the whodunnit aspects of the story in a way that somehow isn't political. It's just good storytelling. drat this movie is good. Hard recommend, if you haven't seen it and read this thread (and like slasher movies) you need to watch this one, it's essential and in hindsight I'm shocked it took me this long to get around to it. e: And I just realized that "Scream" probably named the character Billy because of this movie. drat. 5/5 Watched: Midsommar; One Cut of the Dead; Apostle; Wolf Creek; Lake Mungo; Viy (Challenge #1); Demon Knight; Witchfinder General; Razorback; Joker; A Quiet Place; Spider Baby, or the Maddest Story Ever Told (Challenge #2); Hereditary; The First Purge (Challenge #3); Killer Condom; Road Games; Next of Kin; Zombie aka Zombi 2; Suspiria (1977) (Challenge #4); Phantom of the Paradise; In Her Skin; Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon; Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead; Troll Hunter aka Trollhunter (Challenge #5); The Tunnel; Profondo Rossa aka Deep Red; Body Melt; Suspiria (2018) (Challenge #6); Sadako vs. Kayako (Challenge #7); Black Christmas (Challenge #8) Total: 30 T3hRen3gade fucked around with this message at 08:25 on Oct 23, 2019 |
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Oct 23, 2019 07:27
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SUPER SAMHAIN CHALLENGE #9: Hackers Watch a horror movie you haven't seen about CYBERSPACE/computers/haunted technology/etc.I hit 31!  Not quite the movie I wanted to cross the threshold with, but what can you do? #31: Unfriended (2015)  I avoided this thing and its sequel because I thought it was a stupid gimmick that couldn't possibly be interesting enough to carry a whole movie. Turns out I was half right; it IS a stupid gimmick, but it wasn't as terrible as I expected it to be. It's not very good, but it's not a complete piece of poo poo either. A bunch of annoying millennial high school kids are in a Skype call when weird poo poo starts happening. The entire movie takes place from the perspective of the main girl's computer screen, so the gimmick is that there are no real camera shots, just the things being displayed on a laptop screen. One of their old "friends" killed herself a year prior due to cyber bullying, and it appears that her ghost has hacked everyone's computers and forces them to stay on the Skype call and play games that reveal information about how each of these teenagers is a horrible, lovely person. It's creative, I'll give it that. It manages to mix up various forms of social media platforms to dole out contextual information as needed, which is something different, but it made following parts of it annoying because I had to pause the movie and read various pieces of text to make sure I wasn't missing something important. In hindsight that wasn't necessary, there really isn't anything interesting in the margins that the characters don't put right in front of your face anyway. I didn't know if this was a story about a vengeful hacker or an actual ghost for most of the first half of the movie, but nope it's a ghost. They each get possessed one by one and forced to off themselves in fairly grotesque ways while the others watch. The girl who swallows a hot hair curler was a good one. The very tail end of the movie can gently caress right off though, it's a stupid jump scare that is so hackneyed and overdone in modern horror movies these days, and I just rolled my eyes as it rolled to credits. I'll give it points for trying, but this isn't very good and it isn't very bad. It's right down the middle for me. Watch it if you want to be annoyed by bratty teenage assholes for an hour and a half. Byyeeeeee. 2.5/5 Watched: Midsommar; One Cut of the Dead; Apostle; Wolf Creek; Lake Mungo; Viy (Challenge #1); Demon Knight; Witchfinder General; Razorback; Joker; A Quiet Place; Spider Baby, or the Maddest Story Ever Told (Challenge #2); Hereditary; The First Purge (Challenge #3); Killer Condom; Road Games; Next of Kin; Zombie aka Zombi 2; Suspiria (1977) (Challenge #4); Phantom of the Paradise; In Her Skin; Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon; Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead; Troll Hunter aka Trollhunter (Challenge #5); The Tunnel; Profondo Rossa aka Deep Red; Body Melt; Suspiria (2018) (Challenge #6); Sadako vs. Kayako (Challenge #7); Black Christmas (Challenge #8); Unfriended (Challenge #9) Total: 31
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Oct 23, 2019 21:40
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You guys piqued my interest and it was on Hulu, so I decided to see if this one was actually an improvement... #32: Unfriended: Dark Web (2018)  Woah. Talk about night and day. This one is significantly better than the first. I actually liked the characters for starters (it helps that this time around the cast is older and not completely terrible human beings) and the plot is way more interesting. A guy named Matias found an abandoned laptop in the lost-and-found at a cyber cafe and decides to take it home to help develop a program he's making to make communicating with his deaf girlfriend easier. See, right off the bat the story is engaging and introduces our POV character as someone we can actually root for. He starts poking around the hidden files on this laptop while setting up a Skype group game night with his friends, and stumbles into a dark web portal called "The River." He and his horrified friends discover a library of made-to-order snuff films and a ring of mysterious people who pay outrageous sums of money in BitCoin to have them made. The man who originally owned the laptop starts hacking into the system to make contact, and shenanigans ensue. This delivers on the original gimmick of "entire movie plays out in real-time on the screen of a computer" in ways that the first movie didn't even come close to. Our characters here are smarter, funnier, and far more likeable than than the dumpster fire of teenage trash we got in the first movie. I also really love that this movie features actual scary people as the collective villains, rather than a supernatural entity that haunts computers. It's way more compelling and believable this way. The fact that The Circle is a bunch of tech-savvy hackers makes them the perfect antagonist for a story told in this format. It does tend to do the thing where much of the "action" isn't clear or altogether completely off-screen, which the first movie was guilty of as well, but at least here its more grounded in reality. The dude who got swatted was an idiot, he should have shouted to the cops that it was okay to break the door down and stay on the floor. Ah, well. Movies! It's no "Godfather: Part II" but it's definitely an addition to the list of sequel movies that are better than their predecessors. Honestly I'd recommend just watching this one and skipping the first, you aren't missing much. 3.5/5 Watched: Midsommar; One Cut of the Dead; Apostle; Wolf Creek; Lake Mungo; Viy (Challenge #1); Demon Knight; Witchfinder General; Razorback; Joker; A Quiet Place; Spider Baby, or the Maddest Story Ever Told (Challenge #2); Hereditary; The First Purge (Challenge #3); Killer Condom; Road Games; Next of Kin; Zombie aka Zombi 2; Suspiria (1977) (Challenge #4); Phantom of the Paradise; In Her Skin; Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon; Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead; Troll Hunter aka Trollhunter (Challenge #5); The Tunnel; Profondo Rossa aka Deep Red; Body Melt; Suspiria (2018) (Challenge #6); Sadako vs. Kayako (Challenge #7); Black Christmas (Challenge #8); Unfriended (Challenge #9); Unfriended: Dark Web Total: 32 T3hRen3gade fucked around with this message at 06:24 on Oct 24, 2019 |
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Oct 24, 2019 05:31
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#33: Triangle (2009) What the hell just happened? I really loved this. I'm still trying to process it because it's very much a mindfuck of a movie, but in a fun way. I don't even know how to talk about it without going into major spoilers, so I'll just say this: Jess is a single mother of an autistic child, and it's very clear that raising him alone hasn't been easy. She accepts a friend's invitation to go sailing off the coast of Miami when a nasty storm capsizes their boat. Fortunately, a huge cruise ship sails by and they hop on board, but the entire ship appears to be empty. At this point the movie becomes a seafaring version of "Edge of Tomorrow" or "Groundhog's Day," where Jess starts living through a weird recurring series of events that bends time, with her involvement growing more and more extreme, until she ends up killing the entire cast multiple times in order to "get back to the mainland" so she can pick her kid up from school. This movie is insane, and completely awesome. It's not even fair to say this is a "Groundhog's Day" movie, because events keep happening in sequence while different versions of her are there to change the outcome, and occasionally interact with each other, which is crazy. I'm sure there is a diagram out there somewhere that breaks down how the timelines work out, but I'm not looking it up because I just loved it for what it was and any questions I have are getting hand-waived as "who cares." It's a really fun story and it deserves your full attention. I don't think this is as good as "Memento" or "Inception," but a lot of this reminds me of the kind of mind-bending fuckery that Christopher Nolan likes to experiment with. It plays with your sense of reality in really cool ways, and I really enjoyed the ride. 4/5 Watched: Midsommar; One Cut of the Dead; Apostle; Wolf Creek; Lake Mungo; Viy (Challenge #1); Demon Knight; Witchfinder General; Razorback; Joker; A Quiet Place; Spider Baby, or the Maddest Story Ever Told (Challenge #2); Hereditary; The First Purge (Challenge #3); Killer Condom; Road Games; Next of Kin; Zombie aka Zombi 2; Suspiria (1977) (Challenge #4); Phantom of the Paradise; In Her Skin; Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon; Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead; Troll Hunter aka Trollhunter (Challenge #5); The Tunnel; Profondo Rossa aka Deep Red; Body Melt; Suspiria (2018) (Challenge #6); Sadako vs. Kayako (Challenge #7); Black Christmas (Challenge #8); Unfriended (Challenge #9); Unfriended: Dark Web; Triangle Total: 33 T3hRen3gade fucked around with this message at 09:12 on Oct 24, 2019 |
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Oct 24, 2019 09:05
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STAC Goat posted:I got a couple of movies this year's thread (or the other thread in the same time period) have put on my list. But they are already on my list so a wildcard sounds more fun and challenging. Try to watch the French horror "High Tension," it's on Shudder. I appolgise in advance. e: Oh, I misread that you said besides Shudder. You could try the free trial, it's worth it. T3hRen3gade fucked around with this message at 20:44 on Oct 24, 2019 |
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Oct 24, 2019 20:41
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