October Horror Challenge 2020: PRIZES. FINALLY.

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > October Horror Challenge 2020: PRIZES. FINALLY.

Class3KillStorm: Feb 17, 2011

I'm in for 31 this year. I have no real plan or self-imposed challenge I intend to follow; like everything else in life, I'm just gonna fly by the seat of my pants and hope it all works out.

# ¿ Sep 25, 2020 19:59

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 02:28

Class3KillStorm: Feb 17, 2011

First one of this year!

#1. The Ghost of Frankenstein (Amazon Prime)

_{After the Monster is released from the sulfur pit under Castle Frankenstein, Ygor takes it to Ludwig, Frankenstein's second one, to be healed. Ludwig is talked into replacing the Monster's criminal brain with a "good" one... only to be tricked into replacing it with Ygor's brain instead.}

...but not the one I would have expected.

Ghost of Frankenstein is... adequate, is the correct word to use here I think. Everything, from the set design to the acting to the scripting to the directing, is workmanlike and serviceable, but a noticeable step down from the more transgressive original and stylish sequels. Long stretches of the middle just feel perfunctory and somewhat lifeless.

Still, there's some good stuff that manages to stand out a bit more from the monotonous surroundings. I thought the beginning, from the villagers whipping themselves up into a frenzy through the destruction of the castle, was better paced and better looking than most of the rest. I also liked the following bit, where the Monster wanders around in the forest begging the sky to strike him with lightning.

I found it funny that they reused the sets for Talbot Manor from The Wolf Man for Ludwig's home here, though it does make it odd to think that he also had a mazelike underground laboratory set up underneath there at some point. I did like that there was a literal ghost of Dr. Henry Frankenstein that appeared, but was annoyed that Cedric Hardwicke didn't do more to channel Colin Clive in his performance; it feels more like Ludwig talking to himself than it does two theoretically distinct characters. I liked the ending bit where Bela Lugosi was dubbed over Lon Chaney's lips as Ygor inside the Monster's body, and I had to smile at the dumb, overly saccharine "lovers walk hand in hand into the sunset" ending.

A lot of the best bits are relegated to the opening 10 minutes and the closing 10. It's a shame, then, that the 50 or so minutes separating those bits is so plodding and dull; if they were better, Ghost of Frankenstein might feel like more than a seventy minute footnote in the Universal Frankenstein series.

:ghost:

/5

_{Watched so far: The Ghost of Frankenstein}

# ¿ Sep 28, 2020 16:25

Class3KillStorm: Feb 17, 2011

#2. The Happiness of the Katakuris (Amazon Prime)

_{A struggling family moves into the mountains to open and run a small tourist bed-and-breakfast. However, the guests that come to visit all start dying in mysterious ways, leading the family to try and cover up them up.}

I watched this for the Director Bracketology thread, and I'm glad I did, as I enjoyed the film overall. However, I also don't feel like there's necessarily a ton of depth to the work, that it's themes were all pretty surface level and not particularly interesting or well observed. I think that the film, in embracing the artificiality of the musical genre at times, ended up going so broad and slapstick that it ends up undermining itself at times. (Also, the cost-cutting claymation inserts felt cheap and ugly, so while they can flit in and out and work tonally, I ended up dreading them showing up.)

The Happiness of the Katakuris is messy, bizarre, and about as deep as a shallow puddle. I won't deny that it doesn't have some fun musical set pieces or striking imagery, though, even if applying a "horror" label to the film feels like it's being overly generous at times. I think I may be puzzling over this one sporadically for the next couple of days, but also can't help but feel like maybe that's more credit than the movie is due.

:ghost:

/5

_{Watched so far: The Ghost of Frankenstein, The Happiness of the Katakuris}

# ¿ Sep 29, 2020 16:40

Class3KillStorm: Feb 17, 2011

EL BROMANCE posted:

... although I might have been more disappointed by the lack of aforementioned 'chopping' back then.

The movie was originally made and released as Killbots, and the rename happened because audiences were confusing it for a kids' movie (somehow?) and Roger Corman thought a goofy horror pun would be an easier sell.

# ¿ Sep 29, 2020 19:54

Class3KillStorm: Feb 17, 2011

Basebf555 posted:

I feel like you can argue he's at his most evil in Frankenstein Created Woman, when you consider that he purposely tanks court testimony in order to get a guy executed, specifically for the purpose of trapping his soul, which causes the guy's girlfriend to kill herself out of despair. Frankenstein's response? Oh good, a fresh body!

I dunno, I think it's easy to argue that the out-of-nowhere rape scene in Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed is kind of the most despicable thing that he does over the course of the series, as it's one of the few things he does that's not borne out of either self-preservation or a single-minded pursuit of scientific inquiry. (Which is all still bad, mind you - the ends don't justify the means - but at least those kinds of actions are understandable in a way that rape is not.)

# ¿ Sep 29, 2020 20:43

Class3KillStorm: Feb 17, 2011

#3. Rabid (1977) (Kanopy)

_{A young woman is involved in a motorcycle accident, and given an experimental treatment at a nearby clinic. Afterwards, she awakes with a strange needle-like protrusion in her armpit... and an insatiable thirst for blood. The people she drinks from end up turning into crazed zombies with rabies-like symptoms, attacking others at random and threatening to overrun Montreal.}

Another watch for the Director Bracketology thread, and for a big chunk of the beginning all I could think was... "wait, have I seen this before?" It reminds me a lot of Shivers, another early days Cronenberg work, with the same kind of dispassionate remove, thin characterization and lack of plotting. The whole thing feels more like a series of repetitive vignettes, with the first half all about people coming onto Marilyn Chambers, getting snagged by her armpit vagina needle, and then her just kind of hugging on them until they die. The back half is all about those same people coming back with gray pancake makeup and orange juice tears, running around and snarling and biting at people. Then the whole gets wrapped up with the same faceless mask-and-gown government stooge villains from Romero's The Crazies gunning down rabies zombies and tossing our heroine(?) into a garbage truck over the end credits.

I wish I could say something more cogent about this film and Cronenberg's themes or career, but I found it too sloppy and repetitive to really care about anything going on. Chambers isn't interesting enough to carry the film, which ends up splitting its focus between her exploits finding victims, and then those same zombie victims getting loose and causing havoc. But I ended up not caring about either half, so it ends up feeling like two separate bad movies only tenuously connected together, an emaciated, threadbare series of connective tissue barely hanging on a shambling skeleton. Maybe that kind of imagery appeals to Cronenberg's clinical temperament; I just call it a bad movie.

:ghost:

#4. A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (Vudu)

_{Freddy Krueger is resurrected again, and this time manages to kill the remaining survivors from the previous film. However, while Freddy turns his sight on a new group of teenage victims, daydreamer Alice, and her ability to absorb the talents of her friends, may prove to be the key to stopping Freddy once and for all.}

I needed a lighter, funner option after trying to sit through the first Presidential debate last night, and Freddy does know how to scratch that particular itch. I know I'm going against general thread consensus on this opinion, but I prefer the later sequels, glossier budget, ironic punishment Freddy over the earlier, grungier, "let's all hang out on this one set" Freddy from the original. And man, Nightmare 4 knows how to deliver on slick, glossy, ironic deaths like gangbusters. It's hardly a good film outside of those elements, but if you're looking just to see Freddy show up and execute some ridiculous over-the-top grossout or gore sequence, then you're not gonna do better than the fluff that Renny Harlin knows how to serve up.

:ghost:

/5

_{Watched so far: The Ghost of Frankenstein, The Happiness of the Katakuris, Rabid (1977), A Nightmare on Elm Street 4}

# ¿ Sep 30, 2020 17:25

Class3KillStorm: Feb 17, 2011

Franchescanado posted:

Fran Challenge #1: Horror Noire

Watch a horror movie directed by a black director

or

Watch a horror movie with a predominantly black cast

or

Watch a film mentioned in the documentary Horror Noire as a strong representation of black culture (not one of the movies they use as an example of bad representation.

#5. Blacula (Amazon Prime)

_{African prince Mamuwalde is cursed with vampirism by Count Dracula in 1780. In 1972, Mamuwalde is reawakened in Los Angeles and begins stalking a woman who looks identical to his deceased wife.}

It's a shame that the film's name works against it right from the get go, relegating it to the bin of easily overlooked movies or "Simpsons" jokes. There's a pathos to this movie, a wounded dignity that the film is carrying with it. A lot of that has to be credited to William Castle, who is one of the best tragic vampires ever put on screen, he of unbent regality even in the face of losing everything that he had (un)lived for. It's easy to root for him, since he's as much victim as villain in this whole thing. Credit also to Thalmus Rasulala as the Van Helsing stand-in, who goes from modern medical man to skeptic to believer in a pretty convincing manner throughout. He's a wonderful counterpart to Castle, similarly distinguished but more laconic, shrewd and conniving in approaching the situation.

That said, while it's possible that the film's title has worked against it in terms of respect, it has granted it a certain pop cultural longevity, a half life as an easy joke that people watch and then get turned around on. Of course, the flip side to that is that the film is nearly 50 years old at this point, and some of it's callow attitudes can be shocking for how callous and casual it is. The number of times a certain homophobic slur gets tossed around in easy conversation - and by our hero a couple of times, no less! - was both surprising and rankled me more than I expected. (Also, this is another film where things end immediately upon the antagonist's death - "oh, he died. CREDITS ROLL NOW!" - which always annoy me.)

I dunno. It's a film that surprised me with it's inherent pathos and dignity, but that doesn't mean that it gets to punch down even further to maintain its sense of propriety. It's worth a watch, but you have to keep in mind that it is still a cultural artifact; sometimes they surprise you, but maybe not always in the way they intended.

:ghost:

/5

_{Watched so far: The Ghost of Frankenstein, The Happiness of the Katakuris, Rabid (1977), A Nightmare on Elm Street 4, Blacula}

# ¿ Oct 2, 2020 16:43

Class3KillStorm: Feb 17, 2011

Weekend catch up time!

#6. Night of the Demons (1988) (Amazon Prime)

_{Ten teenagers throw a Halloween party in an abandoned funeral home, and accidentally summon demons during a party game. The demons begin possessing and killing them off one by one.}

A pretty standard affair, with stock characters, some cheap nudity and a handful of decent effects bits. It also has a pretty good animated opening, too. Beyond that, there's actually not much going on here, and not much to recommend.

NOTE: The sound mix was jacked up on Amazon Prime when I watched this; dialogue and music sounded like it was in stereo, but all of the effects sounded like they were in mono, so the whole thing was jarring and distracting and downright unpleasant to listen to at times. If you must seek this out, you would do better to look for it on another service.

:ghost:

#7. The Phantom of the Opera (1943) (Blu Ray)

_{An acid-scarred former musician dresses up in a mask and cape and begins killing cast members and causing accidents at the Paris Opera House, all to help one young singer's career.}

I'll admit I'm not a big opera or music buff, so when the movie asks you to assume that some character isn't singing or playing perfectly, I'll have to take it at its word. That said, it is a very sumptuous looking and sounding film, all those technicolor sets and costumes and all of those operatic solos and duets sprinkled throughout.

It does take a long while to get going, though, and the titular Phantom is less of a menacing or looming presence than I would have expected. I think Claude Rains is wasted here, in a version of the story where the Phantom doesn't sing nor have all that much spoken dialogue. A shame, because while he doesn't make for a super great presence in the cape, I can imagine a version where he does talk to Christine or the opera patrons more frequently, and then Rains would be an absolute boon for the movie as a whole.

Also, I think that the film may seem pretty well dated in terms of today's audience expectations. The final opera scene is questionable, since I believe it is playing off "exoticized" Russian imagery (unless it's meant to be Mongolian? I know it's not a real opera that they're staging in the movie, so I don't know if it's a play on some other piece that was notable at the time). And there's an ongoing thread through the piece about how Christine, while being wooed by two different men, needs to be prepared to push both of them aside "for the sake of the music." It's a somewhat toxic mindset that is getting more push back today, but it does lead to a goofy ending where Christine leaves both men for the adulation of her new fans, so they go off arm-in-arm together as new friends.

:ghost:

#8. The Mummy (1959) (Digital copy)

_{In the 1890s, a team of British archaeologists discover the untouched tomb of Princess Ananka but accidentally bring the mummified body of her High Priest back to life. Three years later, back in England, a follower of the same Egyptian religion unleashes the mummy to exact grisly revenge on the despoilers of the sacred past.}

More of a remake of The Mummy's Tomb than The Mummy proper, the Hammer film makes the wise decision to model itself on the more popular image of a mummy stalking around and strangling its victims, the incongruity of an "exotic" ancient monster in a "civilized" modern world. Of course, I think the film actually buys into that mindset more than it needed to, so it ends up feeling just as patronizing as the 1930s originals, which is disappointing. On top of that, I just found it kind of dull, on the whole.

Peter Cushing is fine as ever, and Christopher Lee has a pretty intimidating figure, but outside of the brief flashback where he plays Karras in the flesh he's basically a non-entity. Also, the film just kind of peters our of steam and stops at the end, wrapping up with a firing squad taking the Mummy out, even though he shrugged off two point blank rifle blasts earlier. It seems like the production team ran out of ideas and just wanted to finish the whole thing as quickly as possible; can't says that I blame them.

:ghost:

#9. Over Your Dead Body (Shudder)

_{During the rehearsal of an upcoming play, a group of actors in a Gordian Knot of sexual tension begin losing their grip on reality, as the play and their lives intertwine and blur, with dangerous consequences.}

Watched this for the Director Bracketology thread, but I don't think it's gonna do anything to sway my vote to Miike here. It doesn't really feel like one of his earlier films; there's not much of his trademark giddiness or glee prevalent here, at least any that I could see. There's a very effective self-exploration(? It's coded like a self-abortion, but in the story it sounds like the actress is disappointed that she's not pregnant scene, and its aftermath is suitably disgusting and intense, but on the flip side, the "twist" ending didn't really land for me.

I don't know - I'm assuming that the play-within-a-movie element is an adaptation or a nod to something else in Japanese folklore or mythology or something, but none of it was familiar enough to make an impression on me. As it was, it was making it difficult to care about anything that was going on, or even to give the film my complete focus.

:ghost:

#10. Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (Shudder)

_{Ten years after his Halloween night rampage, Michael Myers reawakens from a coma and begins seeking his niece, still living in Haddonfield.}

This is "Agreeable Noise: The Slasher Film," but starring Michael Myers for once instead of Jason Voorhees. This one definitely feels like the Halloween series aping the more popular, more profitable latter-day Friday the 13th sequels, and losing some of the series' identity along the way. That said, none of what is presented is necessarily bad, merely serviceable, but it is a notable step backwards from the John Carpenter original. (I'd still put it well above Halloween 2, though.)

Donald Pleasence is great fun, as always, and Danielle Harris is great at screaming and crying (less so for all the other acting moments required). The rest of the cast is fine but not exactly noteworthy. The gore is okay, the score is okay... everything else is okay, but that's about it. The ending is really effective, though, but the best bits are the things that have little to do with the story proper (namely the opening credits set over autumnal farmhouse decorations and the scene in the drug store, if only for all the old Halloween bric-a-brac the production team could cram in there). Whether the fact that the best bits have nothing to do with the film is a plus or a minus I'll leave to you.

:ghost:

# ¿ Oct 5, 2020 19:09

Class3KillStorm: Feb 17, 2011

#11. Frankenstein (1931) (DVD)

_{An obsessed scientist brings a creature to live, made from the pieces of dead men. Come on, it's Frankenstein; you know the drill by now.}

I threw this on last night in order to not break the streak of watching at least one horror film a day, every day in October, because my lovely internet was making it impossible to stream anything, not out of a grand desire to revisit Frankenstein again for the dozenth time.

It's a good film, but I don't know if I'd go so far as to call it great. Rather than dwell on that, here are some things that stood out to me this time:

- I never really noticed before, because the film doesn't dwell on it, but Frankenstein purports to have found a spectrum of light that brings things to life, and that's what he's testing in the lab; we all just shorthand it to lightning because he needs the electricity to power the machine. I know it's all hand-waving gobbledygook to get to the important thing, but that might be an interesting angle to take if ever anyone decides they really need to do their own version of "Frankenstein" again in the future. Call it [b]Lifelight[/i] and do your own thing with it.
- "Quite a good scene, isn't it? One man, crazy - three very sane spectators!"
- This is the best exchange in the whole thing: "It's a perfectly good brain, Doctor. Well, you ought to know. It came from your own laboratory." "The brain that was stolen from my laboratory was a criminal brain." "(furtive glance towards the door) Oh, well. After all, it's only a piece of dead tissue."
- Edward Van Sloan is the best thing in the film by a country mile.
- The little "rar" sound that Karloff makes when the Monster sees Elizabeth in her bridal gown.
- Henry yelling "Fire, fool! Fire!" when waving the torch at the Monster at the end, as if he doesn't know what it is

:ghost:

/5 (1/5 for my ISP)

_{Watched so far: The Ghost of Frankenstein, The Happiness of the Katakuris, Rabid (1977), A Nightmare on Elm Street 4, Blacula, Night of the Demons (1988), The Phantom of the Opera (1943), The Mummy (1959), Over Your Dead Body, Halloween 4, Frankenstein (1931)}

Unrelated, but is there a schedule for when Fran Challenge's tend to get posted?

# ¿ Oct 6, 2020 15:55

Class3KillStorm: Feb 17, 2011

Franchescanado posted:

I aim for Wednesdays and Fridays, but I keep it flexible. Gonna start posting more of them sooner.

Neat! Thanks. These little mini-challenges are definitely among the highlights of these yearly marathon threads.

# ¿ Oct 6, 2020 16:35

Class3KillStorm: Feb 17, 2011

Flying Zamboni posted:

Halloween is fun when you remember that once Kills comes out there will be three Halloween 3's and only one of them is actually called Halloween 3 and that one has nothing to do with any of the other movies. There are also three Halloween 2's, one of which is just called Halloween.

Kinda sorta not really?

There'll be three films named Halloween, but only two of them are considered a "Part 1," since the Zombie-verse one is a distinct and separate entity from the extended Carpenter-verse ones and the new 40 Years Later-verse. Sure, they make references to the Carpenter original thematically and stylistically, but there is no scenario where that Michael and the Carpenter Michael are the same person or separated by time or whatever.

There'll be 3 Halloween IIs technically, with only 2 of them named that, but I guess it depends on whether you want to consider Halloween 2018 or Halloween Kills for the #2 slot in the 40YL timeline.

There will only be two Halloween IIIs, but again, if you insist on saying the new 40YL timeline trilogy as starting at Part 2, then there will also be two Halloween IVs.

As of now, Rob Zombie never continued past his second film, so there is no Zombie film that could be called a Halloween Part 3.

I have HTO - Halloween Timeline Opinions.

# ¿ Oct 6, 2020 22:07

Class3KillStorm: Feb 17, 2011

#12. The Ice Cream Man (Amazon Prime)

_{A psychotic, homicidal ice cream man attempts to restart a town's old, abandoned ice cream shop and ice cream making business, killing people and using their pieces in the process. He threatens a group of kids who discover his secret, and multiple allusions to the "Pied Piper" story are made throughout.}

I was annoyed the other night because my crappy internet was keeping me from watching this film; upon further reflection, maybe I should have been thanking them instead?

The trailer makes you think that this will end up being better than it is, all goofy jokes and dreamlike, hallucinatory imagery. It feels like it should be slotted in alongside "better than you'd expect" goofy horror films, like Dr. Giggles or what have you. Plus, it's populated with a really weird cast that should elevate the material, being filled with your B-movie and horror alums (Clint Howard with a put-on fake gravel voice, David Naughton), your "I guess you can call this slumming it" TV stars (Lee Majors Jr., Jan Michael Vincent), and your "aren't you better than this?"-ers (David Warner, Olivia Hussey).

That "should" kind of tells the whole story though, doesn't it? I mean, it starts with an ice cream man getting gangland-style machine gunned to death in broad daylight suburbia in the 1950s, you'd imagine it would only get bigger and weirder from there. Instead, the film is not all that clever or funny, and the dreamlike bits harvested for the trailer are only a few minutes of flashbacks and everything else is shot very flatly. The gore is really weird and spotty (there's a suitably gross bit where Howard makes a "marshmallow" out of someone's eyeball and an ice pick through the jaw that almost lands but doesn't quite) but mostly done off screen, and the pacing is bizarrely inert. There's also a weird tendency to pick up and drop characters throughout - the film wants you to think that Howard killed a child early on, but it turns out he only kidnapped him (two different kids at two different times, in fact), but then he gets away and pops in and out again? I'm not sure why the film bothers, other than making some weak allusions to Howard being like the Pied Piper, which the film will remind you of every 10 minutes. But since Howard never out and out kills any children, it feels like the film is pulling the few punches it bothers to throw on screen.

I guess not every day is a happy, happy, happy day.

:ghost:

Class3KillStorm fucked around with this message at 15:58 on Oct 7, 2020

# ¿ Oct 7, 2020 15:54

Class3KillStorm: Feb 17, 2011

Franchescanado posted:

Fran Challenge #2: Short Cuts
Watch 60+ minutes worth of short films.

Wall o' text incoming!

#13A. "Creaker" (YouTube) - 3.5 mins

All atmosphere, no real substance. The "twist" is obvious and, with such a short amount of time for set up, doesn't land super well. Still, it's got a good enough sense of style and the ending does work as a black humored set of sight gags, the brother's bashed in face contrasted against the festive candle sputtering out, so I guess it all kind of works out in the end?

:ghost:

#13B. "The Dollmaker" (YouTube) - 9 mins

I wanted to like this better - the set up is fairly long and this is another one that is "twist reliant" that doesn't land super well. There's not enough time for the impact of the dead wife reveal to feel impactful enough. Extended out to a 20 or 30 minute short film, maybe there would be more earned pathos and a chance to build a creeping sense of dread. At under 10 minutes, it's decent, but feels a bit too weightless for what it's aiming for. It's fine, but I wish it was better than that.

:ghost:

#13C. "The Third Hand" (YouTube) - 9 mins

As a mostly short, mood piece it's okay, and it does a lot to set up the main protagonists mindset quickly (though not terribly efficiently? He's got a hang up about his one missing finger, so he's eating a candy bar called "Fingers", as on the nose as you can get). But it also faffs about for a longer amount of time on establishing "evil copy machine" than you need, and it feels like the more sinister ending is to let the guy leave with his mangled replacement hand, rather than just kill him off immediately after he gets it. Faust stories do usually let the protagonist out to live with the consequences of their actions a little bit, after all.

Ah well, maybe it's better this way for Paper Jam Fingerless Man.

:ghost:

#13D. "Catcalls" (Shudder) - 9 mins

I thought the director had a good sense of pacing and atmosphere, and was wise to not show off the were panther(?) creatures too much, but I don't think that it added up to too much. It's sort of a "rape revenge" film mixed with a standard slasher "wander around while the bad guy pursues you" deal, but the revenge happens off camera and no one is well established as a character, so it feels more like moving pieces around on a chessboard.

Wish fulfillment revenge fantasies do need at least some level of characterization for the protagonists in order to get the audience sympathies in the right place. As it is, our lead heroines are nameless, practically faceless, and can apparently turn into giant cat monsters... or at least one of them can, the film is kind of dodgy on whether both of them can do it. An expanded version might have worked better, but, again, the short time works against what the film is trying to accomplish.

:ghost:

#13E. "The Whistler" (Shudder) - 11 mins

Of the short horror films I watched, this is the longest one, but also the one that does the least with that extra time. The whole thing feels like it needed another pass or two through the typewriter, to really set up the mythos that they wanted to explore. As it is, things feel very confused - I think the whole thing is a gag because the teen sister is actually still a virgin and that's why she gets sacrificed, but it doesn't really make much sense. Nor does it make any sense that magic evil forest man apparently lets his dozens of other victims go, in favor of the older sister. I also can't tell if this is supposed to be a play on the whole "your made up story comes to life" trope, if the myth the big sister talks about was supposed to already exist or if she was making up some bullshit to torment her little sister to torment her.

This wants to be Labyrinth by way of The Babadook, and ends up being worse than both... and I'm someone who likes neither of those films. A major disappointment.

:ghost:

#13F. "Witch's Night Out" (Shout Factory)

This is one of those old Halloween specials that we had on a dusty recorded-off-TV VHS copies of, and I loved popping it on every season. I'm not sure why - it's fairly slight overall, the animation is cheap looking and the character designs simplified into a weird level of abstraction. (I know that there's at least one other Canadian animation short with most of these characters, but it's not very good. I think this is a sequel? There's moments where it assumes a small amount of familiarity, like "Here's you old favorite Bazooie!" As if I'm supposed to know what the gently caress a Bazooie* is.)

There's also not much in the way of characterization, and the humor ends up in a weird spot where it's a little smarter than small children would probably like, but not deep enough for adults. It's humor is mostly a lot of disgusting sounding food jokes, but then they sneak in a weird background audio gag here and there that just sticks out more than you'd think ("How's work?" "Oh, you know... brain surgery..."). But you also still have to get past the dated Canadian moralizing that works its way in at times, as well ("You know, if you scare people they're probably not gonna wanna hang around you!")

The thing that really makes it work is the one-two punch of Gilda Radner and Catherine O'Hara providing voice work for two of the chattiest characters; they're both great, and making the most of the sparse script. Also, it has the 70s-est font work I've ever seen, and a pretty awesome opening song. I know it's a bit of an oddity, a curio more than anything, but I still have a lot of affection for it. Recommended.

(It's this, btw:

)

#13G. "Halloween is Grinch Night" (YouTube)

I can appreciate the idea of making a Halloween version of the old "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" cartoon, but this one kind of misses the mark on pretty much every account. The story is slight, as these Dr. Suess adaptations tend to be, but there's a lot less of the core element here - less high energy sled action to make it feel like the story has momentum, and less sight gags to build the whole "Grinch attacks [holiday]" conceit around. There's not much time devoted to the whole "Grinch on Halloween" bits at all, so it feels more like "Halloween is Max Slowly Dragging the Grinch's Wagon Down a Mountain For 70% Of the Runtime Night".

I can appreciate that the big set piece moment at the third act climax is basically a kid friendly psychedelic freakout, with the Dr. Suess style deliberately abstracted into being almost unrecognizable. But the Grinch doesn't feel like much in the way of a character, and the main child character is annoying, so it feels like just even more padding. That said, this bit is worth seeking out on its own, if only just because if you, like me, have been irony poisoned by this dead gay forum, there's a moment in the whole tangle of weird imagery that will have you shouting out "no ring!". That's about all I got. Oh, and Hans "Disney's Captain Hook" Conreid is fine as the Grinch, but he's also no Boris Karloff - who could be though?

"I have to use The Euphemism." The euphemism here is poo poo. It's like they knew...!

:ghost:

#13H. "Claymation Comedy of Horrors" (YouTube)

I'm not going to be able to be totally objective with this one; I first found it as a capper to one of those perfect October Halloween lead-in nights, and it ended up being another perennial VHS mainstay in our household for years afterward. Of everything here, this is definitely the one that meant the most to me as a child, that random nostalgic brain worm that you rediscover as an adult and marvel at how much things have changed. It's a slight thing, but it's quaintly charming in its nonsense and obvious love of old horror icons and the potential physical mutability of claymation. A lot of the gags don't quite work anymore, but you have to appreciate the work that went into making this little special. I think it's charming enough that kids and adults would still be won over by it today.

"Is there a laboratory around here?"
"Of course. Down the hall, to the right."
[inside a bathroom]"...Lavatory. I hate homonyms!"

:ghost:

#13I. "Garfield's Halloween Adventure" (YouTube)

Garfield's time as a children's icon seems to come and go without much fanfare; he's a perennial thing, always managing to stick around but never make a deep impression on the populace when he's there. Maybe I'm underestimating how much Garfield window clingers mean to people, or much people remember something like "Garfield and Friends" the TV show. For me, he's mostly remembered as some drat good fruit snacks from back in the day, some okay funny books (I mean, he was no "Calvin & Hobbes," but then again what was?), and a couple of pretty good holiday specials. I think that's the best place for Garfield to exist as a niche, a thing that can be sporadically relevant but never call for a ton of attention or commitment.

I know that "The Nine Lives of Garfield the Cat" is more well remembered as being sad and tragic, but I think that this lighter touch would be more appreciated by younger children. It's never aiming for scary or upsetting, it's much more reliant on simple jazzy songs and simple sight gags than anything. It's slight, but it also makes it more effective as a nightcap, which is how I used it.

Also, more Halloween specials should use pirate theming, they're an under-rated source of spookiness.

:ghost:

# ¿ Oct 7, 2020 21:02

Class3KillStorm: Feb 17, 2011

#14. Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde (Hoopla)

_{Dr. Jekyll becomes obsessed with cracking the secrets of immortality, and believes that female hormones provide the answer. He will stoop to any means to procure a fresh supply, including leaning on grave robbers... and even murder. He tests his serum on himself, which causes him to change into a beautiful woman. "Sister Hyde," as he dubs her, begins a battle for dominance, and continues the Doctor's killing spree as well.}

This is a film that is overloaded with ideas and allusions - in addition to the titular gender bending twist on "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," it also includes a depiction of the infamous grave robbers Burke and Hare and extended allusions to Jack the Ripper, plus dual romances of a pair of siblings from Jekyll and Hyde. I was worried that the film would end up buckling under the weight of so many ideas and subplots. Fortunately, it manages to pretty deftly keep that many plates spinning for the majority of the runtime.

The film is canny about what it chooses to give room to breathe and when, so that we do get some time to develop Burke and Hare, the romantic interests, Jekyll's friend and even a few of the victims. The downside to that is that it all detracts from the titular characters and their battle of wills, short changing some of the ideas about transformation and how their personalities begin to merge or come out at inopportune moments. They still manage to wring out a variety of scenarios with the changes and the dual interactions between the warring personalities, but I was still left wishing for more opportunities for Martine Beswick to show up.

I normally find Hammer Films to be somewhat staid, finding that they often feel rote and trading on the setups from the original Universal approaches to stories, just with fancier color cinematography and more expansive gore effects. (A better stable of actors does help keep things lively, at least.) This one is bursting at the seams with ideas and elements, so maybe they saved them all for this one? Regardless, it's a pretty great movie in its own right, and it's making me think that I need to step further away from the usual Draculas and Frankensteins and Mummys on the Hammer side to find fresher material. That would be a change that would make Jekyll proud in its own right.

:ghost:

Class3KillStorm fucked around with this message at 16:10 on Oct 9, 2020

# ¿ Oct 8, 2020 15:37

Class3KillStorm: Feb 17, 2011

M_Sinistrari posted:

With all that said, this movie was okay, but it felt more like a Five Nights at Freddie's lite. I think they would've been better off just doing a proper Five Nights at Freddie's movie and gone with another angle for the Splits. Have them be aliens from another dimension or something like that.

My understanding is that the producer of this was the guy making the "Five Nights at Freddy's" movie, but the original creator would never give approval for the scripts they produced and eventually used a contractual clause to pull the rights back. So the producer has a script that he likes, and ended up working with Universal to find an older, similar property that they could copy-paste in and make a quick thing for SyFy, to rush this out the door as a "gently caress you" to the guy for taking his property back and to potentially undercut the idea of a FNaF movie experience. The Banana Splits were just an easy swap here for the FNaF characters, and it's not like anyone cares about them in today's environment, so it was an easy sign-off on "sure, make those doofy old 70s children's characters into R-rated killer robots, the gently caress do I care?"

# ¿ Oct 8, 2020 22:01

Class3KillStorm: Feb 17, 2011

moths posted:

Jesus Christ that's the second "now you're trans!" as punishment film I've heard about this month.

(The other was The Assignment.)

There's also a lovely movie called Victim that sounds like it has a similar plot to The Skin I Live In, but shot and staged like an early 2000s torture porn film. It was pretty grotesque and should be avoided at all costs.

# ¿ Oct 9, 2020 16:17

Class3KillStorm: Feb 17, 2011

#15. Blood Quantum (Shudder)

_{A zombie plague is spreading across the world... except at the isolated Mi'kmaq reserve of Red Crow, where the Indigenous inhabitants are strangely immune. However, old wounds may still end up unleashing death and destruction on the remaining survivors.}

I was surprised by this movie. The trailers made it seem like it would be more of action fest, but this is a slow burn, somber and weighty in its approach. There's a long build in the beginning to establish the characters and where they are in the world, isolated from the wider, whiter towns nearby, with the Red Crow citizens poor but unbent. I loved the gutted fish coming back to life and flopping around - a simple image but one that's sufficiently creepy and laden with doom.

It takes a while to get going, which I normally hate, but I liked the setting and the characters enough that it didn't bother me. I will say that it seems like, while the movie has a long first act it has a truncated second - I would have liked to spend more time in the fortified reservation, seen the characters interacting with zombies in the world around them, especially if we could have seen any more of the infected wildlife. Once things start to get really running in the third act, though, I was on the edge of my seat pretty much the whole time.

This was really great. I was really surprised by the tone, which had a reserve about it that saw all of this as a long-standing generational pain - the pain of the Indigenous people being essentially forced into isolation, tied to a father-son conflict that propels the whole thing. It sees us all as being so focused on past pains that we're doomed to perpetuate them; I can't tell if that makes the ending shot optimistic in the face of that or not.

:ghost:

#16. The Hideous Sun Demon (Tubi)

_{An alcoholic scientist gets exposed to gamma rays and turns into a bloodthirsty reptilian monster whenever he is exposed to sunlight.}

Hey, you guys remember the very early "The Incredible Hulk" stories, where Bruce Banner gets exposed to gamma rays and then turns into a monster whenever the sun goes down. You think that Stan Lee and them were thinking of The Hideous Sun Demon on some level when they were writing it up? It makes sense, it's basically the same set up but with the day/night cycle reversed. Hey, is that why the Hulk turned green later, like they realized their inspirations and decided to lean into it more?

Sorry, I'm rambling about the Hulk because I'd rather not address The Hideous Sun Demon because The Hideous Sun Demon fuckin' sucks. I know Robert Clarke directed, produced and starred in this thing, and all he did was prove he sucked at all of those jobs. This isn't a monster movie or a horror movie, it's a boring melodrama, populated exclusively by bad actors, about a lonely drunk who cannot learn the simple lesson of "stop going out in the sun, moron." Sometimes it gets punctuated by the guy turning into a reptilian Reverse Werewolf, but even those scenes are boring and poorly shot and not worth your time.

I hate that I didn't watch this movie with the wisecracking robot silhouettes over top of it, then it might have been less painful. I'd say it was mercifully brief at only 74 minutes long, but the true mercy would have been if it was 75 minutes shorter.

I'm giving this a point because the phrase "Hideous Sun Demon" is fun to say and because some of the music is decent and got recycled into better movies (most notably Night of the Living Dead). Otherwise this would be a straight zero.

:ghost:

# ¿ Oct 10, 2020 17:12

Class3KillStorm: Feb 17, 2011

#17. The Raven (1935) (Peacock)

_{A psychotic doctor uses a disfigured murderer to help him torture the people who wronged him using devices based on the stories of Edgar Allen Poe.}

Loosely "suggested" by the Poe poem of the same name, the story about a psychotic doctor, obsessed with his own genius and angered by anyone's dismissal of it, who devises an overly complicated plan to torture and murder the people who wronged him and stood in the way of him claiming a woman he becomes fixated on. Really though, it's an excuse to let Bela Lugosi loose on a scene and watch him tear into it with vigor. Lugosi is equally charming and terrifying, a far more eloquent monster than he was several years prior in Dracula; I maintain that his role as Ygor, the vindictive broken-necked hunchback in Son of Frankenstein and Ghost of Frankenstein is his best work, but this is a far closer second than any other Universal role I've seen him in.

I can understand Lugosi's frustration with the marketing of the film, which put Boris Karloff front and center for a second fiddle role. Karloff is fine here, helped by a half-mask that vaguely reminds me of the Mummy makeup more than anything, but he's really window dressing. This is Lugosi's movie through and through, and you can tell he was both relishing it and displeased at having to share the spotlight. Credit to Karloff, I think he realized that and gave Lugosi enough space to work his magic largely unimpeded.

The film does kind of slow down a bit once the pieces are mostly established, to have a drawn out party segment to get the players to Lugosi's house for the final act. Call it the calm before the storm. Nevertheless, the film won me back when it revealed that, in addition to his hidden sub-basement medical theater/torture chamber, Lugosi also had a whole elevator room to bring the heroine down to him (with the boring hero nearly falling down the shaft after knocking the door down). It all gets wrapped up pretty pat, with a gag cutaway that doesn't really do anything but stand out like a sore thumb right at the climax. That said, the film is still pretty great. I know the temptation is to revisit Dracula if you need a Lugosi fix during the Halloween season; I'm going to suggest that this is actually the proper avenue for that from now on.

:ghost:

#18. Final Destination 2 (Digital copy)

_{After a vision, a young woman saves almost a dozen people from a horrific traffic accident, but Death will not be cheated and the survivors begin dying in mysterious ways. Can the lone survivor of the previous film help them all stay alive long enough to break Death's plan for them?}

Final Destination 3 remains my sentimental favorite for its glib tone and some pretty expertly timed sight gags, but Part 2 is probably the platonic ideal of what a "Final Destination" movie should look like. Slickly produced, straight forward schlock with a love of Rube Goldberg-ian setups, well-timed payoffs and as much practical effects as you can get away with. (There's some pretty obvious CG meshing that goes on, but the majority of these were done with practical effects and real gasoline explosions, and I appreciate any film that will go off and do the physical handiwork these days.)

Fun fact about me is that IRL I have a weird anxiety about long-distance driving; I hate doing it, I always believe that I'm going to end up losing control and getting into an accident and so remain bolt-upright, locked in place and hyper-alert whenever I have to go more than 2-3 miles at a time. So I was worried that the beginning disaster set piece was going to set off some kind of low key anxiety attack or something. Fortunately, between the frequent over-the-top car explosions and some near perfect timing and reveals (like that Grim Reaper styled semi-truck bursting out of a wall of flames at the end of it), I was laughing more than anything. I think that's the movie's MO - with great timing, any kind of shocking reveal or reversal, like a guy getting tri-sected by barbed wire or a kid getting blasted by a barbecue explosion... with his charred arm flopping back onto the picnic table, get a laugh rather than a gasp or a scream. It wants to scare you into laughing, which helps make those horrifying moments more palatable.

I had a lot of fun with this one. It's fun seeing random actors in small parts (like the voice of "God of War"'s Kratos as the teacher obsessed with controlling his fate or the CGI abomination Michael Bay Michelangelo as a random farm kid), it's fun seeing Tony Todd stop the show to monologue about Death, it's fun seeing all of those ridiculous kill scenes and how they end up playing out, seeing if they can trick you or not. I think Final Destination 2 is the closest that the series comes to "good" in its own right; within the context of the rest of the series, it ends up working like gangbusters.

:ghost:

# ¿ Oct 11, 2020 19:58

Class3KillStorm: Feb 17, 2011

#19. The Creature From the Black Lagoon (Digital copy)

_{After discovering a fossilized arm of a prehistoric "gill man", a group of scientists venture to a remote Amazonian basin to try and discover the rest of the skeleton for study. Unfortunately for them, they discover a still living Gill Man in the Black Lagoon, and the Creature is both highly territorial... and fixated on the lone woman on the crew.}

I had a headache last night, so I wanted something short and easy to throw on before bed, to act as background noise. This one mostly fits the bill, but for one element I always forget about... the ever-present, ever intrusive "Gill Man Theme," a cacophonous blasting of horns to signal to the audience that Something Is Happening Now. And since the Gill Man pops up like a vaguely fish-shaped Whack-a-Mole every 5 minutes or so without fail, you're never gonna get away from it. Needless to say, my throbbing temples did not like being reminded that yes, Virginia, there is a Fishman Monster on the screen. Your eyes do not deceive you, your ears can confirm it too. Thanks, movie, very considerate of you.

:ghost:

# ¿ Oct 12, 2020 20:27

Class3KillStorm: Feb 17, 2011

#20. The Invisible Man (2020) (Digital copy)

_{An emotionally abused woman runs away from her controlling boyfriend, a genius optical engineer. When he appears to have committed suicide, she believes that he is still alive and is stalking her, having found a way to make himself invisible.}

A strong parable about gaslighting and being haunted by past abuses, it's somewhat surprising that the most relevant horror film to come out of 2020 is an update to the old "Invisible Man" story, and one helmed by Leigh Whannel, at that. Weird to think that the guy most known for kick-starting the Saw and Insidious franchises had something so simple yet complex brewing away in his head.

What makes the film fun and interesting is the way its shot - wide open space dominates every scene, allowing the audience to do all of the emotional work of filling them up with dread, full of imagined terrors and implied threats. There's some simple special effects sequences that are peppered throughout, like doors getting pulled open or shut by string or things like that. It makes it seem more like a traditional ghost movie at times, which helps underscore the thematic "haunting" that the heroine is experiencing. That the film is so restrained in when it wants to deploy those moments of Invisible Man shenanigans means that they get paid off even heavier at the big climactic Invisible Man kills a dozen security guards action scene.

Really, though, all of the credit for how well the film works has to go to Elisabeth Moss, who ably carries the film on her back. She's got some decent supporting actors helping - especially Aldis Hodge and Michael Dorman - but Moss is the main point of focus for something like 90% of the movie. She does a fantastic job of conveying all of that past abuse and trauma with her actions, but never loses her ability to project a core of certainty and strength. She simply is the movie, and I don't think it would have worked half as well without an actress of her caliber in that role. You should check out the movie for her performance alone; the fact that the movie itself is actually good as well is icing on the cake.

:ghost:

# ¿ Oct 13, 2020 16:47

Class3KillStorm: Feb 17, 2011

Franchescanado posted:

Fran Challenge #3: Feardotcom
suggested by Retro Futurist

Watch a movie that deals with technology or the internet as a horror entity, or as a means to summon evil.

The film must be new to you.

#21. Countdown (2019) (Showtime)

_{After a patient dies mysteriously, a nurse downloads "Countdown," the hot new app that tells you when you're going to die... and sees that she only has 2 days to live. With time running out and a horrible entity tormenting her, will she be able to change her fate?}

It's not the first "evil app" horror film out there, but it might be the best. However, that doesn't mean that it's not without flaws, especially some weird tonal issues as the film can't seem to decide what it wants to be.

The problem really is the second act, which stands out as being far more sardonic and goofy than the beginning or ending. It introduces several side characters that, while fun, really feel incongruous with the more self-serious violent horror movie vibe from the pre-credits sequence through to our heroine actually getting involved. I mean, I love that stoner priest character, introduced smoking a joint, waiting for GrubHub and snacking on communion wafers - I think he'd be a great focal point for a consistently goofier movie, if the director wants to bring him back - but he doesn't fit in the movie you were lead to believe you were gonna get. And that violence is shockingly visceral, which was surprising - the few deaths we see are all shocking, and play off of some of my squickiest things in horror movies (two of them feature realistic looking "head cracking against a surface" moments, which are impressive looking and immediately make me cringe in pain).

Also, while you'd imagine "killer app" would be a dated idea, the film is peppered with topical moments and call outs, including a surprise #metoo call-out against a hands-y doctor. I'm not sure if it's sincere and there to elevate the script or if it's more cynical than I want to read it; on the other hand, how can you not at least smile at a movie where the female lead chucks a crowbar into a sexual predator's spine while yelling "Time's up, you rapey gently caress!"?

So the comedy feels tonally out of wack, but that's relegated mostly to the middle portion of the movie and really only a couple of side characters that end up dominating the film when they're on screen. The beginning and ending are much more serious and feature some surprising violence, but that tonal shifting is a hard needle to thread and I don't think the film totally nails it. It doesn't feel like it earns the jokey moments, or especially the moments of crying teenage girls. It kind of feels like it's lurching around, trying on new tones almost every other scene, which makes it hard to call this a consistent experience.

I dunno - Countdown is a mess, but it's a mess that worked well enough for me. I do think that if it was a more consistent experience than it might have been more able to find an audience. On the other hand, maybe this tonal weirdness is gonna make it a cult film in the future? On the other other hand, I don't know of many cult films that feature so many visceral scenes of skulls cracking against bathtub rims or stairs, so this may have something of an uphill battle, no matter what.

:ghost:

# ¿ Oct 14, 2020 16:44

Class3KillStorm: Feb 17, 2011

Franchescanado posted:

Fran Challenge #5: Silent Scream
suggested by Dr. Puppykicker

Watch a silent horror / thriller film.

#22. Nosferatu (1922) (Criterion Channel)

_{A slightly tweaked version of "Dracula" - real estate agent Hutter travels to Transylvania to sell a house to the mysterious Count Orlok, who turns out to be a vampire. Orlok ships out to his new home, bringing a plague with him, before he is ultimately defeated by a good woman and her love.}

I'd seen Nosferatu back in high school and again in college, but it had been about two decades since I last rewatched it. Looking at it again last night with fresh eyes, and an improved HD transfer with a proper score and color tinting, it was almost a revelatory experience. I knew the famous, iconographic shots from the film, of course - Orlok rising up out of the coffin, prowling around on the ship looking down on the audience, the elongated shadows coming up the stairs, his famous death scene - but I didn't realize how good the rest of the film was capable of looking.

I found it interesting seeing the discrepancies between this and the far more famous (and official) Universal Dracula adaptation. There's a lot more scene setting in the beginning of Nosferatu than in the Universal movie, showing us far more of the Harker/Mina couple (here renamed to Hutter and Ellen) and their life pre-vampire-encounter. It's interesting that the Renfield analogue, Knock, is the one that puts the film's events in motion, since it seems he knows Orlok is a vampire prior to sending Hutter off to sell him a home in town; doubly interesting that I can finally see the print well enough to see all of the physical similarities between Knock and Orlok's physical appearances. (It's funny that, even 100 years ago, old rear end in a top hat wealthy real estate types are the real monsters who end up unleashing plagues on the unsuspecting poor, all for a subservient devotion to a gaunt rodent-like "master" in another country.) It's also funny to realize that this is where vampires being killed by sunlight ends up originating in popular culture, since they are only weakened during the day in the original book.

That said, I do think there's some extraneous padding in the film. There's an overlong period of getting Hutter from his home town in Wisborg to Orlok's castle, and while it's nice to establish his relationship with Ellen I don't know that it's necessary. I also think that the extended period where Hutter and Orlok are in the castle together, which is set to take place over several days, ends up being a little overlong and repetitive. The film plays it up like he ends up being tricked into letting his guard down by the daylight hours, which is why he never seems to take anything seriously until it's too late. However, when the situation is never in doubt, it feels like the film is spinning its wheels. The film picks up immensely once Orlok finally ditches Hutter and moves towards Wisborg, but those first two acts really feel like kicking the tires over and over again.

Still, I'm probably just quibbling. The film remains an important, foundational horror experience, it looks better than it has since release these days, and it can still move surprisingly well (when it wants to). It's worth seeking out, even almost a century after its release.

:ghost:

# ¿ Oct 15, 2020 18:53

Class3KillStorm: Feb 17, 2011

For FC #7, I'm thinking of watching either The Changeling or Diabolique, since they're notable films that are easily accessible, but if I wanted to watch Possesion, where would I be able to?

# ¿ Oct 15, 2020 21:55

Class3KillStorm: Feb 17, 2011

Random Stranger posted:

Wilfred Brimley also passed a couple of months ago and is probably the person I'll be using for that challenge. He has a few options, but The Thing is the obvious one.

The Thing is actually a two-fer, since Ennio Morricone did the score and he also passed this year.

I'm debating between that and revisiting The Exorcist, for Max von Sydow, myself.

# ¿ Oct 16, 2020 03:37

Class3KillStorm: Feb 17, 2011

Franchescanado posted:

Fran Challenge #8: When Animals Attack!
suggested by Basebf555

Watch an animal attack movie.

#23. Boar (Shudder)

_{A monster-sized wild boar terrorizes the Australian Outback, zeroing in on a family on vacation.}

A perfectly serviceable Oz-ploitation film about a giant sized wild boar running around and killing and eating people. Not much more to it then that.

I'd want to say something about Bill Moseley being an asset, but to be honest he's not in the movie much and he barely makes an impact; I'd see bits of the movie coming across it on the Shudder live channels and I don't think it registered that it was actually him when he was on screen. Nathan Jones, aka "Rictus Erectus" from Mad Max: Fury Road, is fine in the action hero bits where he gets to fist fight a giant monster boar, but doesn't really work when he has to do anything besides play threatening uncle or do said boar-punching. There's a pair of old Australian guys who get sucked into this mess in an extended sequence that feels like a bit too much like padding to up the kill count who are fine and fun, but they don't really impact the story too much other than setting up the pickup truck ex machina ending. Everyone else feels like some level of superfluous.

The monster boar design is cool, and the animatronics are admirable for what they are. However the director didn't learn the lesson from Jaws about using clever staging to hide the monster as much as possible, so its limitations - specifically that it can't move much of its upper torso, so it looks bolted to the ground - become very apparent in wider shots. It's more oversized, over-expensive Halloween decoration than plausible monster if you shoot anything other than the (admittedly cool looking) head and face. Of course, you could say something similar about the CGI, which to be fair isn't Asylum-level Awful, but only SyFy Original Movie Adequate. It helps sell the illusion a bit more, but it sticks out like a sore thumb whenever it gets trotted (har!) out. Still, there's enough decapitations and blood sprays to make up for the monster's limitations, even if it's just papering it over with Karo syrup.

Again, this is a film that advertises a giant monster boar killing people and it delivers it to the best of its abilities. It doesn't have much more on its mind, or much higher ambitions than that - I don't know if I should dock the film points for not trying to be more than it wants to be, or if we should applaud it for doing one thing fine enough. I'm giving this film a middling score, but to be honest it's probably still the best "killer monster pig" movie out there. Maybe that's the lesson - shoot for a small enough mountain and you can still be happy being king?

:ghost:

# ¿ Oct 16, 2020 16:26

Class3KillStorm: Feb 17, 2011

Ambitious Spider posted:

... but it's still a fun, and very wet, watch.

Everyone talks up how damp Dagon is, but the overriding thing for me was that all of the Spanish architecture and zombie-like villagers and weird tentacle monsters just made me really want to play "Resident Evil 4" again after watching it.

# ¿ Oct 16, 2020 20:16

Class3KillStorm: Feb 17, 2011

Franchescanado posted:

Fran Challenge #6: Tomb of the Blind Spots

Watch that essential horror / thriller movie you haven't seen. You know the one. The one that you're too embarrassed to admit you've missed.

#24. Diabolique (1955) (Criterion Channel)

_{The wife of an abusive man and his mistress conspire together to murder him. However, the body disappears and strange things begin occurring at the boarding school where they live and work. Is he really dead, and out for revenge?}

Some may call it a slow burn, I say it burns so slowly you have to wonder if it didn't gutter out at some point before it reached the end. I knew that it had ended up on several of the "scariest moments of all time" film lists, but after watching I have to confess that I don't know what people saw as scary, even then. That moment ends up undercut by the acting on the heart attack right afterwards - it looks so terribly fake that I thought they were going to go for a double fake-out ending right then and there. Which I guess they kind of did, by having the bumbling retired cop come in to swiftly arrest the criminals and assure everyone that justice would be done, whereas the real horrifying ending for the time would be letting the criminals get away with it. More interesting too.

I am still trying to be vague and not give away all of the obvious plot details, but I think that's part of my hang up. The plotting is so well structured in this film that it ends up becoming a killing bottle, not letting anything breathe or have a life of its own. (Okay, that's not absolutely true - I did love the blustering upstairs neighbor, all self-righteous anger behind closed doors and obsequious and charming to the mistress in person. That was a nice touch.)

It's odd - I loved the cinematography and I thought the acting on the side characters was really good. I can respect a tight, controlled, Hitchcock-ian style thriller, but there was something about how controlled this one was that didn't work for me. Maybe there's more subtlety and humor in the French dialogue than I was picking up on? Maybe there's some cultural context clues I missed? I don't know what it was, but at the end of the day, I can only say that I respect this film more than I actually liked it.

:ghost:

# ¿ Oct 17, 2020 15:33

Class3KillStorm: Feb 17, 2011

Franchescanado posted:

Fran Challenge #4: Scream, Queen!

Watch a horror movie with themes and/or subjects that directly relate to the LGBQT+ community

#25. Bit (Hoopla)

_{A transgender teenage girl on summer vacation in Los Angeles fights to survive after she falls in with four queer feminist vampires, who try to rid the city's streets of predatory men.}

This is an interesting first act stretched out to feature length, since it's less concerned about playing off the themes and topics it's using and more about setting up all of the internal rules and regulations that the vampires of this universe operate under. In fact, they spend so much time doing set up of all of the moving pieces that the big finale comes and goes like a fart in the wind - so much time setting up the Big Bad Vlad, but he ends up getting resurrected and re-killed in less than five minutes. And even has something of a point at the end, which the film just blows past in favor of some more pyrotechnics.

Okay, the job about thematic intent is not entirely fair or true - there's a lot of thematic intent, it's just all played super subtly, so subtle that it all but disappears into the background. I like that the film treats its transgender lead as a simple fact and never belabors the point - I don't think that the word "transgender" is actually ever broached, so if you weren't reading between the lines (or didn't read the logline) it might sail over your head completely. It does end up coloring everything about the character of Laurel and how she approaches the scenario, though; an outsider among the cabal of queer vampire ladies, she's the one most likely to settle on a true spirit of inclusivity. I can also appreciate the queer and feminist theory of ladies banding together and lashing out at all of the cis white male threats of the world - all those trolls definitely deserve the turnabout of being the ones being fed on, for a change. They undercut their own thematic intent, though, by focusing on the wrong things at times.

I like the actors, I like the general vibe, everything looks nice. I just wish there was more meat here - more lady vampires murdering assholes, less belaboring the point about how the old vampire rules are dumb and outdated. Lean into the idea of vampirism being a metaphor for self-actualization, but don't lean so far you need to make jokes about sleeping in coffins. And hopefully return to Vlad's point about how they've made him a monster in their eyes because of Duke's damage, and how they've been getting to lead to just keep perpetuating that cycle. That's what Laurel's "let's share the power" point seems to be making at the end, but that appears RIGHT as the end credits start to roll, so you're only left with a massive feeling of deflation.

They make a joke over the end credits about wanting to make more of these in the future; if they're done fussing about the table placements now, I'll happily come back to the feast.

:ghost:

#26. Friday the 13th, Part IV: The Final Chapter (Digital copy)

_{After being taken to the morgue, murderer Jason Voorhees spontaneously revives and embarks on a killing spree as he makes his way back to his home at Camp Crystal Lake.}

I threw this on because I had watched that RedLetterMedia review discussion video of this movie, and they called it "the quintessential Friday the 13th film." They're not wrong, either - this one really feels like a summation of everything those early F13 films had been and been about, but beefed up with a bigger budget and better special effects. For a film series that Paramount famously had nothing but disdain for, they were going out of their way to make sure the supposed "last one of these we'll ever do ever" ended up going out on a high note.

A high note for a Friday the 13th film, though, which has a lower bar than most other films. It's a comforting white noise film series, where your attention only needs to be on the screen in short bursts at semi-regular intervals, helpfully alerted with music stings and blood squibs going off. (Usually. There's one kill where a guy is getting chopped with... something?... in near darkness, and he helpfully lets you know what's happening with a whole bunch of "Oh god, he's killing me!" and "Run away, he's killing me" yells. That's a low point for this film, and the series as a whole; even random off screen deaths seem less embarrassing.)

The film looks good, it sounds good, there's a whole bunch of pretty people getting hacked and stabbed throughout. You won't know or care about their names, because you're only going to focus on Corey Feldman and Crispin Glover being in this one; no one else matters. (And even Glover only matters because he's the only source of weird manic energy among the nameless rabble of Designated Cannon Fodder. When he gets offed the movie loses that source of energy, but fortunately it's close enough to the end that it basically propels itself along by turning into a Perpetual Motion Machine of onscreen carnage.) Again, it's the quintessential Friday the 13th film; you already knew what you were getting with that idea alone.

:ghost:

/5

_{Watched so far: The Ghost of Frankenstein, The Happiness of the Katakuris, Rabid (1977), A Nightmare on Elm Street 4, Blacula, Night of the Demons (1988), The Phantom of the Opera (1943), The Mummy (1959), Over Your Dead Body, Halloween 4, Frankenstein (1931), The Ice Cream Man, multiple shorts and specials, Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde, Blood Quantum, The Hideous Sun Demon, The Raven (1935), Final Destination 2, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Invisible Man (2020), Countdown, Nosferatu (1922), Boar, Diabolique (1955), Bit, Friday the 13th Part IV}

# ¿ Oct 18, 2020 16:30

Class3KillStorm: Feb 17, 2011

Franchescanado posted:

Fran Challenge #7: Dearly Departed

Watch a film which had major contributions by a person who has passed away since last year's October Challenge

#27. Needful Things (Starz)

_{The Devil opens a curio shop in Castle Rock, ME, and begins selling the townsfolk their hearts' desires. His price, though, is a series of pranks that escalates into violence and murder throughout the town.}

Watched for the performance of Max von Sydow, taking on the role of Satan in the form of Leland Gaunt. This was an inspired choice, as the character of Gaunt needs to be both charming and apparently harmless while possessing a core of steel and an ability to be commanding at the drop of a hat. That mercurial ability to shift between obsequious and authoritative is something that von Sydow was known for; it's basically the reason he was so perfect for the role of Father Merrin in The Exorcist, after all. (Tempting though it was to revisit that film, I did want to watch something new for this challenge.) It's also fun to see a serious actor like von Sydow get some of the best laugh lines in the film. ("I killed my wife... is that wrong?" "Hey, you know, these things happen.")

The rest of the cast, including Ed Harris, Bonnie Bedelia and Amanda Plummer, also acquit themselves well. However, the film's direction by Fraser C. Heston is pretty bland. For some reason, I always associated this movie with endless commercials for upcoming airings on TNT in the late 90s, so I thought this was actually a pretty upscale TV movie for a long time. It's sure shot and staged that way for a lot of it - I think the only thing that gives away that it's not is the profanity and some of the really big explosions at the finale. You couldn't do some of those on a 1990s TV movie budget.

In the end, this is a decent enough thriller being saved from itself by its cast. Without some of those principal cast members, this would be a boring talking heads movie for a long time; the cast, and von Sydow in particular, make it fun enough to watch just by their presence. It's a middle-of-the-road Stephen King adaptation, so you can just add it to the pile of those, I guess. Wonder what it would take to get the Devil to give us another good one of those?

:ghost:

#28. The Wasp Woman (1959) (Kanopy)

_{A cosmetics executive begins taking an experimental drug based on the royal jelly of wasps in order to reverse the effects of aging. However, it also begins to turn her into a human/insect hybrid that will murder her subordinates indiscriminately.}

This reminds me of a slightly more upscale version of The Hideous Sun Demon, in that it's supposed to be about humans dabbling in science they cannot control and becoming monsters but really being a boring chatfest for like 90% of the run time. It works slightly better here - credit to Roger Corman for being a decent director, unlike THSD's director Some Guy. However, for a film that's barely longer than an hour there still feels like a significant chunk of padding, and some of the film's attitudes feel damned patronizing these days.

The film is about a woman executive who has tied her cosmetics empire to herself and is now aging out of the ability to command people's attention. You'd think that would be a thematic hook to drat both the cosmetics industry and Americans' obsession with image, but the film takes it as a given that a woman's worth is tied to her beauty and that an older woman cannot be beautiful. Moreover, the film basically contains multiple scenes of slow moving corporate espionage treated as a positive, as multiple times her subordinates end up stealing her notes and letters as a way of "helping" and "protecting her from herself."

You'd think that this would make it a positive turnaround when she gets bug powers and starts to fight back, but no. The film never really shows you a proper transformation sequence; once or twice I had to wind the film back to make sure that yeah, she was just in her office as a human and then just showed up somewhere else as a bug mutant to kill a guy and then was next shown back in that lab as a human, no worse for wear and seemingly not aware that anything had happened. It's like a terrible version of The Wolf Man, unsatisfying and dull. Then everything concludes with a bottle of acid to the face and a drop out a high rise window, the end. Blech.

I'm giving this a slightly higher score than something like The Hideous Sun Demon for three reasons. One, Roger Corman was a better director than of that movie, and could better pace his film and get a more sensible plotline together, if only just. Two, Susan Cabot is a better actress than whoever was in THSD in general. Three, the wasp lady makeup effects were better here, but still pretty lackluster compared to what Hammer was doing with the Mummy that same year. In the end, this is still a movie that's not really worth your time and effort to seek out... unless there's some goofy robots in the bottom quandrant clapping back at the whole stupid affair.

:ghost:

# ¿ Oct 19, 2020 16:01

Class3KillStorm: Feb 17, 2011

#29. Arachnophobia (DVD)

_{A recently discovered, highly poisonous species of South American spider hitches a ride to a small town in California, where it begins breeding deadly hybrids that start to overtake the populace.}

Well, my last review was for The Wasp Woman, so I felt like I needed to give the "killer bugs" subgenre another chance to redeem itself. Fortunately, this one knocked it out of the park, so congrats, bugs, you're still fun and scary.

Well, bugs may be scary, but this movie isn't, by design. It's more roller coaster ride than movie, aiming for fun spectacle more than spooks and frights. Even when it goes for high concept fake out scares, it tends to keep undercutting itself for a laugh. It operates in that weird 90s style where everyone and everything is so snarky and deadpan and just over genre trappings that it can't take itself seriously. The movie was already tongue-in-cheek throughout, but John Goodman's character shows up and supercharges that whole attitude. It does make things play out a little oddly - the film delights in having spiders appear wherever they can, no matter illogical, and it delights in Jeff Daniels' disgust and defeatism in dealing with other humans. But it never treats Daniels' titular arachnophobia as a joke; if anything, it seems to be going about trying to validate that as a sensible response to spiders, in general.

At a bit under 2 hours, this was a tad overlong and padded. There was a lot more small town politics than probably needed to be there, especially since most of the characters end up being barely sketched cannon fodder anyway. Still, it was a lot of fun, and that ends up overriding most of my criticisms here.

:ghost:

# ¿ Oct 20, 2020 18:42

Class3KillStorm: Feb 17, 2011

Franchescanado posted:

Fran Challenge #10: Run This poo poo Into The Ground
suggested by both Dr. Puppykicker (who said 3rd entry) and Basebf555 (who suggested the 4th entry)

Watch the 3rd+ entry to a franchise

You know I think I sent you something about watching the third entry in a series, too. Great minds and all that.

# ¿ Oct 20, 2020 21:01

Class3KillStorm: Feb 17, 2011

Franchescanado posted:

Fran Challenge #10: Run This poo poo Into The Ground
suggested by both Dr. Puppykicker (who said 3rd entry), Class3KillStorm (who also suggested t 3rd entry) and Basebf555 (who suggested the 4th entry)

Watch the 3rd+ entry to a franchise

#30. Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence (Shudder)

_{Matt Cordell, the Maniac Cop, is resurrected again by a voodoo priest after being laid to rest. Cordell returns to clean the streets, but ends up becoming obsessed with a woman police officer wrongly accused of using excessive force and currently fighting for her life in the hospital.}

Guess I should jump on the challenge that had my name added to it. Also guess I should have looked a little bit harder before settling on this one last night too.

You know that things are gonna be good when they put in the "Alan Smithee" name for the director's slot. This film had a notorious backstory, where director William Lustig - returning from Maniac Cops 1 and 2 - ended up walking off the project when his first cut was less than an hour long, so a producer shot more content and they edited in more clips from part 2 to pad the run time. The end result is maybe a bit better than you'd expect, but not by much, and there still feels like important story elements that don't get covered.

Two big questions I had from this viewing: Why did the voodoo priest resurrect Cordell in the first place? Someone mentions a symbol of "anti-justice" and the priest talks about "needing [Cordell's] brand of darkness" but it's not like they sic the Maniac Cop on anyone in particular. That might have been a fun twist - resurrect the Maniac Cop and use him as an ersatz Robocop to go in and take out drug dealers or whatever, since he can basically take infinite damage and has no compunctions about killing; set him loose on "the deserving" instead of random innocent people or other police officers. However, that brings up the second question: Why did Cordell fall in love with this woman? He never sees her before the shooting in the beginning of the movie, and it's not really implied that they knew each other when they were still alive (I guess Robert Davi knows her and Cordell knows Robert Davi, so by The Transitive Property of Robert Davi I guess he might have known her?). Is he just into her because she also hates crime and will go to extrajudicial means to stop it? Seems like a flimsy reason to begin a relationship, Matt.

Anyway, the whole thing cheaps out and basically becomes the Halloween 2 of the Maniac Cop series, where more than half of the movie is set in this one hospital, which also happens to have a bunch of underground tunnels that connect it to one of the two other sets they have. It feels like the movie is stalling out whenever they go back to the hospital, especially since Maniac Cop only kills two people in the hospital proper, and one of them is a super-lame off-screen death by X-ray machine. (The end effect looks worse than the hot tub boiling death from Halloween 2, speaking of hospital-based kill scenes.) Having the object of Cordell's obsession be comatose also reduces her from a damsel in distress to a literal object for the villain to seize and carry around; the effect is especially distressing at the end, when Cordell goes up in flames again - can't have a Maniac Cop movie without an extended "guy on fire walking around" stunt scene - but ends up burning the poor comatose woman to death with him.

All in all, the whole thing was a mess. I'm giving this extra points for the shootouts and stunt work, especially the fiery car chase at the end, because they look and sound impressive enough on a modest budget. Also because some of the acting is decent (Robert Davi is fine as the lead, but he seems to be on autopilot for a good chunk of it here; I wonder if that's when the extra scenes were shot), and it's cool to see people like Jackie Earle Haley or Robert Forrester pop up. But it seems like that modest budget got stretched too thin for what they wanted to accomplish, and while they got in the cool stunts and some okay kill scenes, the connective tissue bits all suffered.

:ghost:

# ¿ Oct 21, 2020 16:26

Class3KillStorm: Feb 17, 2011

Franchescanado posted:

Fran Challenge #11: �skur heyr�ust um allan heim
suggested by FreudianSlippers

Watch a horror film that is in a language you do not speak.

#31. The Lure (Criterion Channel)

_{A pair of mermaids arrive on shore in Warsaw and are adopted into a family cabaret act. They become a sensation at a Polish discotheque/night club, but their experiences among humans begin to change them: one falls in love with a human while another wants only to feed on them.}

Everyone had been talking up the Polish mermaid musical-slash-horror movie for a while, so I almost slotted this in as the Fran Challenge #12 spot. Either way, I'm glad that I checked it out, because this movie was incredible.

It's a hard movie to describe, since it so deftly waves between genres and moods so expertly and so frequently. It's part dreamy fairytale, part flashy musical, part moody horror, sometimes all of those things at once. I do wish the horror elements were a bit more pronounced, since it felt at times like I was cheating having this on a Halloween horror movie watch-list, but there were enough small scenes of fanged mermaid ladies eating people scattered throughout to assuage those feelings by the end. Especially at the end, where that fairytale atmosphere of Srebrna's love collides with the harsh light of reality. I was surprised that they went for a "realistic" medical approach to a lower-torso, and that the young musician's inability to reconcile the long haul of medical recovery for massive, traumatic surgery with the "quick fix" of a fling-cum-marriage ended up leading to multiple deaths. That image of the one woman with her lower half separated while sitting on ice was haunting; the image of Srebrna, post-surgery, with a massive set of stitches around her whole torso and mismatched skin-tone torso will stick with me for a while. It was also neat to see the whole Grimm's fairy tale ending to "The Little Mermaid," with the protagonist turning into sea foam, being brought back and treated with a respectful amount of weight.

I don't know that I'm able to add much more onto the discussion for this title. It's pretty incredible, and I am all for more horror movies being bright and colorful and upbeat and even having musical numbers. Go see it for yourselves.

:ghost:

/5

And with that, I've managed to meet the goal I had set for myself at the start of the challenge, with about 9 more days to go. Time to run up that scoreboard!

_{Watched so far: The Ghost of Frankenstein, The Happiness of the Katakuris, Rabid (1977), A Nightmare on Elm Street 4, Blacula, Night of the Demons (1988), The Phantom of the Opera (1943), The Mummy (1959), Over Your Dead Body, Halloween 4, Frankenstein (1931), The Ice Cream Man, multiple shorts and specials, Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde, Blood Quantum, The Hideous Sun Demon, The Raven (1935), Final Destination 2, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Invisible Man (2020), Countdown, Nosferatu (1922), Boar, Diabolique (1955), Bit, Friday the 13th Part IV, Needful Things, The Wasp Woman (1959), Arachnophobia, Maniac Cop 3, The Lure}

# ¿ Oct 22, 2020 18:15

Class3KillStorm: Feb 17, 2011

alansmithee posted:

Also since we can't double dip, I wouldn't mind a recommendation. Ideally on Prime/Hulu/Netflix (I do have Shudder on Prime), 70's or newer.

Dunno what you've seen and what you haven't, so here's some options.

Prime

The Exorcist III
Frailty
The Stuff
Child's Play (2019) (also on Hulu)
Fright Night
Crawl (also on Hulu)
30 Days of Night
The Cabin in the Woods (also on Hulu)
Midsommar
The Lighthouse
The Lords of Salem
Wishmaster

Hulu

Stir of Echoes
Oculus
House of 1000 Corpses (also on Netflix)
Blade
Blade II
Evil Dead 2
Army of Darkness
Christine
Elvira, Mistress of the Dark
The Fly (1986)
Mom and Dad

Netflix

Sleepy Hollow (1999)
Killer Klowns from Outer Space
Green Room
ParaNorman
The Ritual
Creep
Anaconda
Sinister

# ¿ Oct 22, 2020 18:41

Class3KillStorm: Feb 17, 2011

#32. Killer Klowns from Outer Space (Digital copy)

_{A big top-themed UFO full of clown-like aliens lands outside a small town. The "klowns" begin capturing the townsfolk so they can eat them later, and only a group of ragtag misfits can stop them.}

Needed something entertaining and light-hearted after watching that last Presidential debate, and Killer Klowns from Outer Space certainly fits that bill.

I have to be honest here, I'm not going to be objective with this film. It's tied to much to my own personal history and development of taste in movies. I used to make my parents rent the VHS for me from the local pharmacy for literal years in the late 80s/early 90s; hell, I'm the kind of person who'll buy a Funko Pop of one of them from the retro video game store just because I saw it. It's not a good movie, but it's a movie that was made with a lot of care and attention from the Chiodo Brothers, as sort of a "best hits" demo reel, so there's a lot of love in there. I think that's the wavelength that we're both working on; a love of monsters, of goofy set design, of a can-do attitude and approach to filmmaking. I'll forgive a movie a lot if it'll wear its heart on its sleeve so willingly... or, you know, if it's got clown-liens. That too.

:ghost:

# ¿ Oct 23, 2020 18:50

Class3KillStorm: Feb 17, 2011

Could I make a request for a recommendation? I have pretty much every streaming service imaginable, at this point.

# ¿ Oct 24, 2020 00:23

Class3KillStorm: Feb 17, 2011

Weekend catch-up time.

#33. Bride of Chucky (Digital copy)

_{Chucky is stitched back together and resurrected by his old flame Tiffany, another homicidal psychopath. After a fight, Chucky kills her and transfers Tiffany into a doll body of her own. The two then hitch a ride with a pair of young lovers, on the run from an abusive uncle, and end up framing them for multiple murders.}

I was looking back over my watchlist for the month and realized that I had accidentally watched the fourth entry for most of the big slasher series, so I figured I may as well keep that streak going. Bride of Chucky isn't necessarily a great movie, but it is still a lot of fun. It holds a special place in my heart as the first Chucky entry that I could watch uncut and contemporaneously, as I was a teenager when it came out after being traumatized by the originals as a child. (Those I could only watch after years of "exposure therapy," namely being able to watch the cut for TV versions since they played on USA all the time in the early 90s.)

It looks like a time capsule of late 90s filmmaking, with director Ronny Yu's trademark blue lighting filter over everything set at night and his viscous, pure black blood getting spilled at any opportunity. This is the first of the deliberately "funny" Chucky movies, and a fair number of the jokes do land. I think some of the stuff around the stereotypical gay best friend didn't age all that well, and the actor's performance ends up dragging a flimsy character down even further. I also think some of the movie's "road trip" element ends up feeling half-baked, like they don't get out of the van enough or get a good sense that they have actually traveled all that far.

Still, the big kill scenes work really well and the animatronics are impressive. The film ends up being a lot of fun, which is all I ask for in a movie about a doll possessed by a serial killer trying to kill people in extravagant ways. (Well, dolls, now.) Recommended.

:ghost:

Franchescanado posted:

Fran Challenge #12: Ourorboros
Ask a fellow goon participating in this challenge for a wild card.

#34. Angst (1983) (Amazon Prime) - suggested by Kvlt!

_{A disturbed, psychotic young man is released from prison, and he immediately sets out to try and kill again. He ends up invading a secluded home with plans to torture and kill the occupants, but his plans start to go awry.}

I actually had this title down on the list of potential titles to watch that I drew up at the beginning of the month, mainly from osmosis from the regular horror movie thread. So when Kvlt! recommended this one for me, I was intrigued. Had I known what this film was about, I probably would have demurred - I'm not a big fan of the "home invasion" subgenre, in general, and I was not a fan of the whole Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer experience. I tend to avoid the "feel bad" horror movie experience when I can.

Make no mistake, Henry is also probably the closest analogue that I can think to make for this movie, though even then there's some amount of base charisma that Michael Rooker is able to impart on that character. Watching a scene where Erwin Leder, the unnamed main character, circles around the targeted house multiple times, all I could think to liken him to was a shark, some unfeeling, uncaring predatory animal. (This gets reinforced several times by the way he ends up couching around and moving in the back half, looking like something feral more than human.) Since Leder rarely speaks on screen, and communicates to the audience purely by a dispassionate, cold fish narration, there really doesn't seem to be anything human in him at all. It's an incredible performance, even if it's entirely designed to shove the audience away.

I can also say the film is something of a technical marvel to look at at times, the way that the camera glides in and around the character, often framing him from above or below and almost always at middle distance or further. It seems the film wants to keep you separated as much as possible (when it doesn't go in for nauseating close-ups, abstracting human elements into grotesqueries). Were this made in modern times, it would probably seem like half the film was shot via drone camera. There's also a pervasive jitteriness imparted by the handheld and boom shots, so the film seems to match the fractured, barely contained sensibilities of the killer. Also, the score is incredible - I can say that's probably the element that ends up imparting a sense of urgency and unfolding horror more than anything, especially in the aftermath.

I can say the film succeeded at what it set out to do, and I can also say that I don't normally go for the types of films this one wanted to be. A different audience member may get something more out of it. I can say that I am glad that I saw it, from an exercise in purely technical cinematic execution; I can also say I will never watch it again.

:ghost:

#35. Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II (Shudder)

_{A promiscuous girl is burned to death on Prom Night, 1957, after winning the title of Prom Queen. 30 years later, her spirit returns and begins trying to possess a new body, so that she can win the title again... and will kill anyone who gets in her way.}

Needed something entertaining and light-hearted after watching Angst, to try to put a capper on the night. Unfortunately, I don't think this one fit the bill. I saw that it had been likened to A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 for the inventive, fantastical elements of that film; really it's a mash-up of that one and ANoES 2, considering the plotline of Mary Lou Maloney wanting to steal a living body to use (which she's probably more successful at than Freddy was, even).

It's a film about a ghost trying to win the Prom Queen crown through murderous means, which is ridiculous on its face. Unfortunately, the film is too stilted and po-faced to run with that as a joke, trying to take everything way too seriously. You knew the film was going to go that way with the very graphic death by fire of Mary Lou at the beginning; there was probably no way back to something fun and light after how that was handled. There are one or two fun gore scenes in the back half (especially a death by locker crushing that is pretty perfectly timed), but for the most part this is bland, cheap-looking and stone-faced. Not what I was looking for at all. Not recommended.

:ghost:

# ¿ Oct 25, 2020 15:56

Class3KillStorm: Feb 17, 2011

#36. Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight (Digital copy)

_{A drifter is chased into town by a mysterious stranger, who is seeking a special key in the drifter's possession. Holing up in a strange hotel, the drifter and multiple strangers must survive the night... and all of the demons that are trying to get in.}

All of the people posting reviews of Demon Knight from the Scream Stream showing reminded me that I haven't watched that movie in a few years, so I needed to rectify that situation. This movie is just such incredible fun, I don't know how anyone could knock it. It's a bigger budgeted episode of "Tales from the Crypt" with a longer runtime; I don't know how you say no to something like that.

The cast is fun and pretty much all operating on the correct wavelength for a picture like this; extra points for Billy Zane as the picture's Big Bad, who just gets to relish being charmingly, knowingly evil. (I even dug his really terrible Hunter S. Thompson impression when playing barkeep for Dick Miller's big temptation sequence... oh yea, Dick Miller is in this, so it's automatically a good movie.) The effects are much bigger than the TV show ever got, suitably gloppy and spewing green lightning all around whenever they get the chance. The script is wonderfully tongue-in-cheek, enjoying the sheer exuberance of being a fun goofy thing for fans of the tv show. Hell, they even keep the intro and outro credits mostly the same; the filmmakers know who their target audience is, so they will indulge them. And I am all in for this kind of indulgence every now and again.

:ghost:

Franchescanado posted:

Renny Harlin did nothing wrong, you cowards. The movie may have run out of budget, but it didn't run out of ideas. Freddy may be too goofy, but his murderous nightmares are some of the best in the series. It feels like there's two drafts pushed into one script here, which also creates strange whiplash.

Nonetheless, Renny Harlin is the king of making a crazy, half-baked script into a ridiculously enjoyable cinematic treat. It's the equivalent of a milk shake. Of course it's not good for the body, but it's good for your soul.

The rightest take.

Class3KillStorm fucked around with this message at 17:14 on Oct 26, 2020

# ¿ Oct 26, 2020 17:12

Class3KillStorm: Feb 17, 2011

#37. 3 From Hell (Shudder)

_{The Firefly family, aka the infamous "Devil's Rejects" cult, escapes from prison and head to Mexico to lay low, where they come into conflict with a group of luchador-masked gangsters intent on avenging a fallen family member.}

Wasn't intending to watch this last night, but I stumbled onto the start of it on a Shudder live stream channel, got pulled in by the beginning with the faked 1970s newscast footage recap and eventually decided "what the hell, I'll finish this." That sounds dismissive, and that's because by the end I kind of felt that way.

3 From Hell is a bit of an odd beast in Rob Zombie's oeuvre. It sits at an uncomfortable mid-point, stylistically and tonally, between his debut House of 1000 Corpses and the much better, much more intense and serious The Devil's Rejects. That latter film showed a marked growth is Zombie's artistic aspirations and talents (Ho1C is fine, but feels more like a music video director upgrading to the big leagues), and was more of the blueprint for a lot of his follow-up films until 31. I felt 31 was a marked step backwards for Zombie, more towards his debut feature and its gonzo aesthetic and lack of plotting. 3FH isn't quite so much in that vein, but it does feel fairly scattershot and more reliant on tonally unnecessary digressions than before. And even then, it does things badly - I can't see something like the slow motion glitter rain from that one party clown and not imagine this is Zombie attempting to recapture the magic of that one rising crane shot held for an almost unbearably long time in Ho1c; you know the one I'm talking about.

And why is that party clown there? That's another problem with this film, it's bizarre plotting, which renders story beats and plot points into almost anthology-style vignettes. Here's the "home invasion" segment, there's the "motel killing" segment, here's a really long "trip to Mexico to battle luchador gangsters for no real reason" vignette. And on that ending, it ends up feeling so mishandled that it kind of tanks the movie for me, looking and feeling out of place in the Rob Zombie Extended Universe. Between a moment where it looks like a gangster wearing a pink luchador mask ends up bleeding pink too and Baby Firefly getting a bow-and-arrow upgrade, it seems more like a sequence pulled from a big budget video game than anything else. (That said, I would play the hell out of a Suda 51 game where all of the villains wear white suits and different colored luchador masks and then bleed whatever color the mask is. Hell, you can even include the bow-and-arrow if you want Suda, that'd be fun.)

The ending also feels like a tonal misfire as well, attempting to piggyback off of the horrifying "vengeance makes you a bigger monster than the one you chase" ending of TDR and reframing it to make the gang into Awesome Badass Protagonists as well. They're briefly caught before Sacrificial Midget rescues them while everyone is distracted by Otis' Awesome Machete Fighting skills, and then they set the head luchador bad guy on fire to kill him off while relishing his torment. How awesome. How heroic. How... pointless and unnecessary. Our heroes turn and walk into the sunset, and I just don't care.

I mean, that about sums the whole experience up, for me. "Our heroes [do anything], and I just don't care." This felt like a major step backward, for pretty much everyone and every thing in this picture. Rob Zombie feels like he's regressing, and Sheri Moon Zombie definitely did here (I mean, she has no character at all but "trailer trash Harley Quinn, but even more so than the Suicide Squad version," but she's been better at non-characters before; look at her work in Zombie's Halloween and Halloween II for proof). Richard Brake is fine but he's not really a Sid Haig substitute, and I never really got a good feel for his character beyond "redneck hunter who likes old movies (but not Bogart ones) and sometimes howls like a wolf like a dumbass." Only Bill Moseley largely comes out of this unscathed, and even then I can't say I'm interested in seeing him in any more of these things. This is a waste, but it at least proves an important lesson - when you try to please two very different groups, you end up pleasing nobody. Democracy in action, I guess.

:ghost:

# ¿ Oct 27, 2020 16:45

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 02:28

Class3KillStorm: Feb 17, 2011

Last night was a Larry Drake double-header!

Franchescanado posted:

Fran Challenge #9: TerrorVision
Watch a made-for-TV movie

#38. Dark Night of the Scarecrow (Amazon Prime)

_{Bubba, a mentally challenged man, is wrongfully accused of a crime and murdered by a group of vigilantes while dressed as a scarecrow. After they escape justice, the scarecrow begins appearing near their farms, presaging their untimely demise. Is Bubba back from the dead and seeking vengeance?}

...or that was the plan at least, even if Dark Night of the Scarecrow didn't really deliver on the Larry Drake front. He appears in the first segment as the mentally disabled man Bubba, targeted as a possible pedophile for his friendship with young Marylee and murdered by a quartet of rear end in a top hat Southern good old boys. The poster makes you think this'll be one of those "walkin' around" scarecrow villains, whereas in the film proper it acts more like an omen that appears near the next victim. But also the ghost or whatever can be heard clearly walking around near people, but otherwise it just seems to content itself with remote telekinesis machine operation? It's neat that a few of the rear end in a top hat vigilantes get ironically killed by their own farm equipment - one even includes an incredible jump cut, from a guy falling into some kind of thresher (off-screen, of course) immediately juxtaposed with some kind of berry syrup getting plopped onto a plate. That one made me bust out laughing.

The rest of it, though, is just kind of tedious. More small town mystery than a true horror story, we spend a lot of time watching the leader of the group - a small, petty man in a postal workers' uniform, hinted as a drunk and slyly referenced as a possible pedophile himself - start to come apart at the seams. Charles Durning is fine in the role, but I was expecting more scarecrow action, and possibly more Larry Drake action than what we got. This one is fine, but not what I was hoping for from the poster; maybe it's not fair to hold that against it, but what are you gonna do?

:ghost:

#39. Dr. Giggles (Digital copy)

_{An escaped mental patient nicknamed "Dr. Giggles" returns to his hometown and begins killing off the townsfolk in revenge for the death of his father, the old town doctor. Along the way, he becomes fixated on a young girl with a heart condition, as he attempts to clear his father's name with an untested, experimental heart transplant therapy.}

Well, if DNotS was a letdown on the Larry Drake front, Dr. Giggles sure as poo poo wasn't. This whole thing was a Larry Drake Overload - he's the star of the show, and he's gonna relish in it. The film itself is a fun, heightened reality slasher in the vein of A Nightmare on Elm Street 4, with the weird energy, overabundance of kill scenes, and ridiculous, over-the-top death scenes. There's a surprising lack of actual gore, with most of it being either implied or abstracted, but what's shown definitely works in making you squirm. Plus there's that scene - you know the one, where the villain, as a young boy, gets smuggled out of the house in his mother's corpse, so he has to cut her open from the inside in order to escape, in a weird birthing scene - that is going to stay with you, no matter what you think of the rest of it.

The leads - and most of the cannon fodder too - is pretty meh, but the film doesn't care about that. It just wants to delight in the carnival ride atmosphere of it all, the sheer dizzying thrill of coming up with some bizarre imagery and executing on it. I think it goes to show you how good the film is that I, an avowed hater of puns and cheap humor, am delighted by Larry Drake getting to strut around and make weird doctor jokes before he kills some hapless teens. Highly recommended.

:ghost:

Anisocoria Feldman posted:

Outside of the goop and a young Shawnee Smith pre-Saw, there�s probably not much of a reason to check this out.

How is that not reason enough?

Class3KillStorm fucked around with this message at 19:13 on Oct 28, 2020

# ¿ Oct 28, 2020 19:10

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > October Horror Challenge 2020: PRIZES. FINALLY.

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