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Servoret
Nov 8, 2009



STAC Goat posted:

That probably is the intent but I don't know what the response managed to say. "The apocalypse would suck"? Its even more confusing because of the way he ends the film.

Isn’t there no mist in the last shot? I seem to remember the scenery being pretty lush and green. So more likely a fantasy than any tangible hope?

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Servoret
Nov 8, 2009



STAC Goat posted:

The matchups have been posted all along on the bracket and I've been teasing next week's in the first post of the thread all along. I just thought it would be fun to move that tease into the new post each week. The movie draws still stay hidden until Friday. But if people would prefer to just stay entirely clueless unless they seek it out I can not do that again. I just thought it might be fun.

I'm always tinkering.

I enjoy the previews. Nice to have something to speculate about.

Servoret
Nov 8, 2009



STAC Goat posted:

I think Otto would have been an easier sell if it hadn't been up against a movie that also seemed to have something to say and connected with people in a visually unique way.

What does Possessor have to say? Asking because it didn’t really connect with me. (I was also an Otto voter.)

Servoret
Nov 8, 2009



STAC Goat posted:

Having read quite a bit about Noe and this film I am convinced the point of this film is to lure people in with the gorgeous display and technical craft of its experimental success in order to subject them to as many triggers and ways to cause distress or offense as Noe could possibly conceive of fitting into his story.

I felt like Noe didn’t go far enough in that regard to satisfy me. My nervous system was so jacked in to the film when I saw Climax in the theater that he really could have hurt me if he’d decided to, but what he went for was relatively tame IMO.

I don’t know about the bug movie, but in regards to racism I thought Climax was a little suspect. IIRC all the violence is committed by black people against non-black people, and at one point two black guys are yukking it up talking about something distasteful they’d really like to do— I don’t remember, are they salivating about rape? It’s been a couple years since I’ve seen the movie so I don’t remember specifics, I just remember that scene putting me off.

Terra Formars was terra-bad and I quit watching it forty minutes in because I felt like a fool giving any time to it. I’m at least thirty years older than its target audience and I didn’t see the point. An easy vote for Climax despite my misgivings.

STAC Goat did a good job summarizing the ways in which The Guardian is such a mess. An easy vote for The Descent there.

Edit: I guess the bug people are all giant brown brutes? That didn’t register to me while I was actually watching the film.

Servoret fucked around with this message at 06:43 on Apr 20, 2021

Servoret
Nov 8, 2009



For me, Climax was more about the exuberance and confidence of youth coming up against experience. There’s a lot of hope expressed in the interviews and rehearsals and then a small variable turns their plans into poo poo really quickly. I don’t know if that’s a nihilistic idea, but that’s reality.

Servoret fucked around with this message at 17:19 on Apr 20, 2021

Servoret
Nov 8, 2009



Do you include only free streaming services in your availability run down? Because Ghosts of Mars and The Sacrament are both available for rental on YouTube.

My local library system has five copies of Near Dark on DVD, so I’m happy that I’m able to legit vote on that match-up this week. If Near Dark was up against the first Chinese Ghost Story, the latter would easily win for me probably. Fun movie, worth checking out on its own even outside the contest.

Servoret
Nov 8, 2009



The Sacrament

I was skeptical going into this because The House of the Devil really didn’t work for me— not enough burn to sustain basically nothing going on until the last fifteen minutes of the film. But the slow burn worked for me with The Sacrament, with my foreknowledge of what was to come amping up the dread. The found footage angle didn’t really add any value for me, since there was no mystery to uncover with the premise blown for me by my watching the trailer and being old enough to recognize the source material. There’s a lot more time dedicated to the climax here than in The House of the Devil, but it got to the point where I was ready for the film to wrap up sooner than it did. 3.5/5

Ghosts of Mars

I don’t know what there is here to re-evaluate. It’s a straightforward action movie without the rich subtext of Halloween/The Thing/They Live. No one’s ever going to write a book about this film. If I wasn’t watching this for the match-up, I wouldn’t have finished it. If I had seen this in a theater when it came out, I would have felt like I wasted my time watching such generic material. 2.5/5

Obviously voting for Ti West here. Very unfortunate draw for Carpenter— just about the weakest possible outside of maybe Vampires.

Servoret
Nov 8, 2009



Near Dark

A rewatch for me. Seems like it bites from Blade Runner a lot. Atmospherics, pacing, and score, plus the vampire family seems derived from the replicant gang: amorally childish, superhuman yet abject at the same time. 3.5/5

A Chinese Ghost Story II

I adore this period of HK cinema. The energy of it, production values and stars— Leslie Chung is great. This doesn’t have a ton to do with the first movie but is a fun adventure. 4/5

Voting Chinese Ghost Story this week.

Servoret
Nov 8, 2009



Shocker:

Fun in spots, but I wouldn’t have finished it if I wasn’t watching it for the tournament. I can understand why this sort of flopped and failed to produce a franchise. It’s full of surprises, but the villain has too much going on and isn’t really mythic the way Freddy was. He’s a generically superhuman serial killer/demon who can possess people/guy with electrical powers who can go into and out of TVs, like pick one of those things. If I could give this a 2.75 I would, but I guess I’m going with 2.5/5.

The Secret of NIMH:

A re-watch for me; I saw this in the theater when it was originally released. Pretty dark stylings for a kid’s movie, with stabbings and other gruesome deaths, even if some of them are only implied. But yeah, this isn’t really horror, and I don’t remember being traumatized by it as a kid the way I was freaked out by some of the animations in Dragon’s Lair and Space Ace, also Don Bluth productions. I thought this was charming and still watchable for an adult. 3/5

I’m voting for The Secret of NIMH. I enjoyed it more and it’s got the nostalgia angle for me. I don’t think generic determinations have been a big factor in the tournament so far, so I don’t feel guilty about not voting for the “real” horror movie in this case.

Servoret
Nov 8, 2009



Burying the Ex

Maybe someone feels like doing an effortpost ripping this apart, because the sexism was notable. It even ends on a catcalling bit where we’re supposed to be laughing along with the dudebro doing it. This is another one I wouldn’t have finished if it weren’t for the tournament. Still technically competent and watchable even though at points I really wanted to shut it off, so I guess 2.5/5?

Thirst

A re-watch for me. I didn’t enjoy it as much as the first time I saw it. For whatever reason, I was really feeling the length. I even had to stop around 80 minutes in and take a nap because I was starting to doze off. It still has some good bits though, especially the ending. 3.5/5

Voting for Thirst. I think it has a chance to sweep this week, depending on how objectionable other people find Burying the Ex.

Servoret fucked around with this message at 10:59 on Jun 19, 2021

Servoret
Nov 8, 2009



I’ve seen both Dagon and Body Snatchers relatively recently, so I’m not going to rewatch them. I’m also in the camp of thinking that Dagon is “pretty decent” and not getting the fuss about Body Snatchers. Body Snatchers had huge boots to fill for me since the ‘78 Invasion of the Body Snatchers is both the first horror movie I ever saw and the first horror movie I ever saw in the theater. I found the military base setting bland compared to the funk of 1978 San Francisco, and for me the ‘93 version lacks the relatability and paranoia of the ‘78 version. So I’m voting for Dagon in this matchup.

Servoret
Nov 8, 2009



I didn’t really understand The Devil or Girl Walks Home, but I was more engaged watching The Devil (constant histrionics vs the mellow vibe of Girl) so it gets my vote.

Servoret
Nov 8, 2009



STAC Goat posted:

Maybe I'm missing key historical context or metaphor and maybe that's on me.

The bit with the Prussians partitioning Poland and the puppet king seemed like an obvious allegory to the Soviets and the puppet communist regime in Poland. What some of the other stuff, like the troupe, was a specific reference to, I don’t know. I guess the conclusion is basically that the political situation in Seventies Poland is completely dire, what with the one sincere revolutionary being completely ruined and compromised. The fellow members of his cadre have all sold out to the invaders.

Servoret
Nov 8, 2009



I wasn’t blown away by The Resurrected. Not that it wasn’t enjoyable, but I just didn’t get a rush from it— especially the whole catacombs sequence didn’t engage me the way I felt like it maybe could have. I’m actually voting for Romero here, mostly out of my fandom for the Dead movies. Land of the Dead was a disappointment for me back in 2005 as a follow up to the original Dead trilogy, but it had ambition and it’s not bad in comparison to the Dead movies that followed.

As far as Blood and Black Lace versus Tower of London goes, Tower of London didn’t work for me nearly as well as Corman’s Poe movies do; whereas Blood and Black Lace is beautifully filmed, with one particular kill sequence that I still think about all the time (the one with the mirror and the spiked glove). So Bava gets it handily for me this week.

Servoret
Nov 8, 2009



Toolbox Murders was an improvement on the original, which I found almost hatefully pornographic in its depictions of the killing of women. The remake’s not much of a slasher; mostly just Angela Bettis wandering around being creeped out in a crappy apartment building. But that’s OK, because Lily C.A.T. is mostly people standing around delivering exposition. By the time something potentially interesting might have happened, I was too checked out to notice. Hooper wins easily for me here.

I saw Raw and It Follows both in the theater when they came out. It Follows was practically ruined for me by months of hype beforehand leading to big expectations, whereas I went into Raw mostly blind and came away with a nice surprise. So Raw wins, since I’m not going to force myself to reevaluate It Follows now.

Servoret
Nov 8, 2009



married but discreet posted:

I struggle to find a better hypothetical one that wouldn't be John Carpenter against himself.

Texas Chain Saw Massacre vs Night of the Living Dead for me. I probably would have had to abstain.

Servoret
Nov 8, 2009



STAC Goat posted:

If neither is horror can I just skip them both?

Nausicaä is lovely. Can you just not handle characters with big eyes?

Four quality movies this week, all of which I’ve seen multiple times except for In the Mouth of Madness, which I only saw once a few years ago. I don’t really get the hype for In the Mouth of Madness, so I’m tempted to watch it again to see if I missed something. But The Night of the Hunter is a legitimately great film so I doubt I’m going to vote against it. I actually predict In the Mouth of Madness will win the match-up regardless of how I vote.

Mr. Vengeance vs Nausicaä is a tossup for me. I think I’m going with Nausicaä on the basis of nostalgia and appreciation of its worldbuilding. As an actual film experience I think it has pacing problems, not helped by the fact that Miyazaki was adapting a story too lengthy to tell in one go. Yeah, it’s not actually a horror movie (although I love the shot at the beginning with the fire giants) but neither is Mr. Vengeance.


Edit: Rewatched Mouth of Madness. Still don’t think it’s Thing-level, voting for Night of the Hunter.

Servoret fucked around with this message at 00:04 on Jul 31, 2021

Servoret
Nov 8, 2009



I ended up voting for Stuck over Good Manners. Good Manners fell off for me in the second half, and I’m ultimately not really sure what it’s about. Whereas Stuck zips along nicely and has a grim moral outlook I enjoyed.

I don’t really like Season of the Witch or Shock, but I much prefer Romero’s films to Bava’s in general, so Season of the Witch gets my vote. I’m not sure how Romero can win the tournament with only Night of the Living Dead left among his big guns. I guess he could also pull Creepshow versus a weaker movie?

married but discreet posted:

For your convenience, the remaining teams (thanks to STAC the Spreadsheet Wizard)

Looking at this list, I’ve already seen over 90% of what could potentially come up. I miss the odder selections from earlier rounds that I would never have sought out on my own.

quote:

Angst in the final isn't gonna go over well

I don’t understand what this means. Do horror thread regulars have some sort of problem with Angst?

Servoret
Nov 8, 2009



STAC Goat posted:

I'll just say this, I'm voting against Stuck on principle. Take an actual man's murder and turning it into a whitewashed, trashy joke just kind of pisses me off.

Whitewashed? In the real life case, the driver was black and the guy she killed was white. I guess it would have been interesting to keep that racial dynamic. The driver was caught because she bragged about killing “this white man” at a party. But covering reverse racism would probably have turned off audiences, so I dunno.

I don’t see how Stuck turns the incident into a joke. It has a pretty serious moral behind it? The gallows humor amplifies the grim take on the dehumanizing effect of power structures. It’s actually kind of tragic. The nurse is compassionate on the job; it’s a waste that she turns herself into a villain under pressure.

Servoret
Nov 8, 2009



Franchescanado posted:

I love Donovan's song. I think it has a weird curse to it, though. Every time I hear it pop up in a movie, the movie tends to be lame? Scary Stories to Tell In the Dark, Season of the Witch, and maybe some others I can't remember.

To Die For ends with it.

Servoret
Nov 8, 2009



Tarnop posted:

I think Angst is worth a watch both as an insight into Gaspar Noe's biggest influence as well as one of the earliest examples of a film that seeks to destroy the mystique around serial killers.

I found value in Angst both for the mystique destruction (I hate it when films like Silence of the Lambs or Wolf Creek try to give killers mythic qualities), and also in the way it treats the killer’s obsessive inner monologue. It’s a poignant moment at the end when the killer finally gets what he thinks he wants (I think it’s during the killing of the final victim) only to find out that it’s not satisfying in any way. He’s still completely hollow. I have a lot of problems with anxiety so I kind of took it as encouragement to see past/set aside my own inner monologue.

Angst didn’t really faze me but it is tragic and unfun so I don’t blame anyone who wants to skip it. It wouldn’t bother me to see Hooper advance by default— he’s the director of what’s probably my second favorite horror film of all time. (I’m happy to see Gordon advance today too, as Re-Animator is also probably in my top five if I had to make a list.) I’m probably going to vote for Angst though unless Crocodile is unexpectedly fun.

Servoret
Nov 8, 2009



I checked out Crocodile. It’s competent but unexciting. Not really anything interesting going on in it; it’s pretty much just a Jaws derivative. So I’m voting Angst. And on the other side of the bill, I’m going Knife+Heart. I tried watching Mimic a while back and didn’t even finish it.

Servoret
Nov 8, 2009



I have nostalgia for The Dark Crystal (it’s one of the first movies I remember seeing in the theater), and it still works for me as an adult. But yeah, Ganja & Hess is the superior picture. It’s too bad Duane Jones didn’t star in more films.

And Black Sabbath is one of the few Bava movies I like, so I’m voting for it over Eater, which didn’t do much for me. I love the behind the scenes bit with the faked horseback ride.

Servoret
Nov 8, 2009



A sizable chunk of the worthwhile horror movies in the Forties were produced by Val Lewton. I guess you could assemble a team from what’s left? If you leave out the Universal films, you’ve got Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Carnival of Sinners, The Return of the Vampire, The Uninvited, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Dead of Night, The Spiral Staircase, The Queen of Spades, Yotsuya Ghost Story… That’s a decent pool to pull from.

Servoret
Nov 8, 2009



I almost certainly won’t be voting for Bava in the final. Watching Kill, Baby… Kill! kind of soured me on him. Great visual set pieces, but frequently the pacing between those sequences lags and the story is weak. His three movies with “black” in the title I like, but everything after that that I’ve seen, not so much.

Servoret
Nov 8, 2009



Franchescanado posted:

Dunno if it applies, but I find streaming is a bit unkind to Bava.

I guess not in my case— Kill, Baby… Kill! I saw on the big screen. I’ve also seen A Bay of Blood in the theater on 35mm, with the same takeaway.

Servoret
Nov 8, 2009



Needs More Goop posted:

Strange Color is maybe the weakest film on QaiFY

Funny you should say that, as Strange Color is the one Cattet and Forzani film I’ve seen talked up ever since it came out. I’m not a big fan of their style after seeing three of their films (including Let the Corpses Tan on the big screen), so my vote might be a straight ticket for One and Dones, depending on how I feel about Def by Temptation after I watch it.

Servoret
Nov 8, 2009



Great video! Thanks for everything, STAC Goat!

Servoret
Nov 8, 2009



What does completing the challenge entail? Posting write-ups for every film?

Servoret
Nov 8, 2009



Going to be pretty tight for me but I’ll try. I’m going on vacation next week, so I have 6 and a half days to watch 16 movies on top of the 2 a day I’m doing for Hooptober right now. Good thing I don’t have a job, I guess.

Servoret
Nov 8, 2009



STAC Goat posted:

Yeah, I’m expecting to see Uwe Boll’s whole catalogue this October. The stuff I get myself into…

Having seen all the films now, I think you’re safe. Seed opens with footage of minks being skinned alive. Hopefully that should dissuade ironic voting.

Servoret
Nov 8, 2009



OK, can I just drop my first 16 write-ups here, then? Logging them in the challenge thread is against the rules since they were all watched before the 1st.

Servoret
Nov 8, 2009



OK, I don’t think these are great write-ups, but a challenge is a challenge. They get increasingly perfunctory as we go down the list. I really struggled to have anything to say about a few of these. Ratings are purely a measure of how engrossed I was in a viewing; I don’t think I’m any arbiter of quality.

It Stains the Sands Red:
Borrows a page from Joss Whedon in making a protagonist out of a character that normally would be treated as a disposable joke in an exploitation movie. Molly is a coke addicted stripper traipsing through the desert in a ridiculous outfit of fake cheetah fur coat, leather bustier, leopard print stretch pants, and platform heels. We find out later that she’s an absentee mother who’s such a bad mom that she doesn’t know her own child’s age or even keep a picture of him to remember him by. But It Stains the Sands Red humanizes her and casts her as a survivor, someone who sees herself as a good person who’s just had bad experiences in life.

I can understand people turning on the film over the rape scene halfway through, but I think it follows the function of humanizing a “soiled” character and casting her as a survivor. We sympathize with her as her later encounters with other survivors are colored by her earlier trauma. And it provides another counterpoint to the way Molly’s type would be treated in an exploitation film— in the Seventies, a rape scene would be an excuse to inject a little T and A into a movie, whereas here she’s very much not sexualized in the scene and it doesn’t serve to gratify the audience at all (at least not until the point where her rapist meets a bloody demise).

I was worried that the gimmick of a two hander with an inarticulate zombie as the other lead would get old fast, but this held my attention throughout. (3.5/5)

As Above So Below:
Felt very artificial and video gamey, from the Lara Croft-esque protagonist to the puzzles she has to solve and the dungeon environment she interacts with. Characters act like idiots frequently to move the action from set piece to set piece, and they’re all kind of cyphers, there in sufficient numbers to supply a body count. So the film never got under my skin to provide scares the way that seems intended.

I don’t really get this “as above, so below” stuff. Lara Croft gives us about six different interpretations in one speech. Wikipedia suggests the phrase reflects an archaic belief in cosmic and earthly hierarchies. Modern day occultists apparently use it to justify belief in the literal efficacy of magic powers. The filmmakers? “As I believe the world to be, so it is” is metaphorically true in some senses, I guess. But the profundity they seem to find in the phrase didn’t really transmit to me. (2.5/5)

Alice:
A dreamlike narrative, but everything on the screen has a wonderfully substantial, tactile quality. Nothing is plastic or artificial; props are real items, made of wood, metal, glass, cloth. Creatures in this world aren’t cartoons, but are made of fur and skin and bone. The stop-motion process itself gives the proceedings a natural, handmade quality even as it animates creatures and objects moving in absurd, impossible ways. These disjunctions produce a total fit for the uncanny, contradictory world of the source material even as they go beyond it into something idiosyncratically Švankmajer’s. (4/5)

Howling Village:
Has a few decent scare moments (the opening in the titular village, a surprise suicide, the deaths of some people trapped in a phone booth), but a lot of this is a slow burn with the horror supposed to be coming from spirits who are just people standing in corners who can only be seen by the main character. They appear and then the camera cuts away and then cuts back to show that they’ve disappeared. This happens a lot. Most of the spirits in the film are represented by actors just wearing a little greasepaint. Maybe all this is spooky if you actually believe in ghosts?

I started to nod off around the eighty minute mark, which unfortunately is the point where the slow burn ends. So my memories of the climax are kind of impressionistic. But it resolves mysteries that it turns out weren’t very complicated or interesting. And then there’s another ten minutes of wrap-up before a kind of goofy gotcha at the end.

Not terrible, but not as entertaining as the director’s earlier Ju-on: The Grudge. (3/5)

Island of the Fishmen:
Unexpectedly classy for an Italian exploitation movie called Island of the Fishmen. This isn’t a horror as much as it is an adventure story. And the adventure part is pretty exciting, actually, but it’s backloaded into the last twenty minutes. The second act takes up an hour and it’s just the hero being held captive while the villain monologues at him a lot. So unfortunately not as watchable as it could have been. (2.5/5)

Sweeney Todd:
I like Sondheim, but wasn’t much into Burton’s overwhelming aesthetic. Honestly, I nodded off a lot watching this one. I think I would enjoy seeing the live musical in a theatrical environment where I could be fully present as an audience member, though. (2/5)

The Company of Wolves:
I’ve been watching way too many movies lately. I first watched this less than six months ago but I retain no memory of that viewing. Looking at the credits, I was like, Angela Lansbury is in this?! I guess the film was too dream-like and diffuse to remain in mind. At a certain point on this rewatch I lost the thread and my attention trailed off. Unfortunately, six months from now I probably won’t retain any memory of this viewing either. (2.5/5)

The Purge:
Didn’t quite work for me because it was a thriller where I wasn’t really invested in the safety of the protagonists. Them being the “nice” rich people wasn’t enough to get me on their side. The politics of this seem weirdly muddled too; the idea that purging “undesirables” from society would create an economic boom is just a fascist myth, but here it actually works even though the filmmakers are trying to position themselves as anti-fascist? (2.5/5)

Servoret
Nov 8, 2009



The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires:
This is supposed to be a Hammer Dracula film. Where’s Christopher Lee? And this is set in Hong Kong, but the vampires don’t hop? Oh well. Kind of an ungainly hybrid. It has HK fight choreography being sold by UK cinematography and editing, and it just doesn’t land correctly. Also, the way Dracula goes out at the end is hilariously cheap. (2.5/5)

Relaxer:
A little like looking into a mirror, as I sat powering through my eighth film of the day trying to complete STAC Goat’s challenge under my own ridiculously stringent conditions. I wasn’t repulsed by the cartoon of the bachelor lifestyle on display here; to me it just felt relatable. (3/5)

Alive:
Terminally dreary. Everything on the screen is green and black and brown because it’s 2002 and The Matrix is still in, I guess. I mean. it’s supposed to be oppressive because it’s set in a prison, but this was so dour and static that I just wasn’t interested. Oh, and this is about an imprisoned protagonist getting Neo-like superpowers because it’s 2002 and The Matrix is still in, I guess. (1.5/5)

Seed:
Kind of charming that this starts with a disingenuous title card about the filmmakers’ good intentions, straight out of the playbook of the original exploitation films. What are the odds that Uwe Boll makes it onto the Criterion Channel someday, given that they’re showing Herschell Gordon Lewis and Doris Wishman films now? (1/5)

The Complex:
A bit of a let down compared to Ringu. The narrative wasn’t as strong and it lacked any scares that could compare to the strongest images from the latter film. And the only twist wasn’t really a surprise. (2.5/5)

Tales from the Crypt:
This wasn't as bad as I was fearing it would be. It's fine, competently made, and it has its moments, but it is very slow and silent. It's ironic that this film relies heavily on sequences with no dialogue at all. The original EC horror comics that it's based on are some of the most overwritten comics of all time. Their standard format was to include a very verbose caption over each individual panel that was usually completely superfluous to enjoying the story. Bill Gaines employed the best artists in the business but for some reason distrusted their storytelling abilities very unnecessarily.

Without all those words, this is a portmanteau composed of really simple stories. Person does a bad thing, is then gruesomely and often excessively punished. It's largely missing the gleefully trashy tone of the original comics, although the segment with Joan Collins rushing around trying to cover up her crime is pretty good in that respect. Instead of the Fifties modern pop of the comics with their punning horror hosts, here we get a literal ancient crypt and Ralph Richardson playing a dour judge in a medieval monk's cowl.

I thought the segments that worked best were the ones that kept closest to the original comics' concern for social justice, especially the third sequence, with Peter Cushing playing a sympathetic widower in a part that seems like it was written to reflect the sad events that had recently occurred in his personal life. There's a sort of a theme of punishment for venality linking the stories, but sometimes it's really tenuous. The second segment is by far the weakest, with Ian Hendry ending up tortured for all eternity for the hideous crime of... running out on his wife? (3/5)

Hostel:
I was put off of watching Hostel for a long time due to the “torture porn” label. When it came out on DVD, my local indie video rental store had a big post-it note stuck to the cover saying “Not funny!” like it was an extreme content advisory. Except, Hostel actually is sort of funny? And the torture scenes and gore are really minimal; hardly anything I couldn’t take. Hostel’s mostly a thriller, it turns out, and it’s fine for what it is? (2.5/5)

Halloween H20:
Maybe the only thing I really liked about the 2018 Halloween was the way it inverted the Freudianism of the original’s climax. In the 1978 Halloween, Laurie and Dr. Loomis try to use phallic weapons against Michael Myers and none of them stop him for long. I think that could be a reading for why Laurie keeps dropping the knife: as a woman, she can’t match The Shape in his role as the avatar of cis-male violence. So in 2018, he’s defeated with yonic weaponry: snared in a trap and smothered in flame. And I guess you could make a reading in H20 for that too, if you want to stretch things a bit, but The Shape’s dispatch doesn’t really resonate with me in the same way. Myers is trapped under a car and, charitably, symbolically castrated by Laurie, because the head is an appendage, I guess? But it mostly reads to me like the franchise is exhausted and they just couldn’t think of another way to make sure that Myers was no fooling finally dead. Which of course he isn’t four sequels later, which weakens H20’s ending further. (2.5/5)

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Servoret
Nov 8, 2009



I’m done at last with the challenge. 31 not-great write-ups delivered! For the next Bracketology, I just want to do the Forties one-offs team that I mooted earlier in the thread, if that’s OK.

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