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Oh lord I forgot there was going to be one of these in May. Given the time table, I'm going to shoot for just hitting the Fran Challenges. I feel like people had some lists for the horror shorts challenge last time around - does anyone have suggestions or a link?
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May 18, 2021 22:45
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 22:57 |
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Fran Challenge 1.) Short Cuts I like short horror a lot! It feels like a lot of longer horror media consists of one or two oogy scenes or creepy visuals which resonate with the creator, and then the project is about finding a skeleton to house the core elements. A good short contains the one strong image or idea without the surrounding scaffolding, which is a great way to try out a concept before expanding it, or to deliver on an idea which lacks the elements which would merit a longer treatment. The Quiet (Youtube, 21m) Turned out to be a good choice when testing out a new speaker configuration for my laptop. This was fine, but would have punched harder with some trimming. My House Walkthrough (Youtube, 12m) When discussing this with my partner, I compared it to "a paragraph without punctuation." Very fun. The monotony and lack of obvious beats encourages a viewer's attentiveness - a good gimmick which makes use of the brevity of a short film. Apartment 41 (Youtube, 6m) We are all haunted by the ghosts of our past deeds but also possibly by actual ghosts. Didn't really connect with me due to some weak dialogue and iffy choices on sound issues. The Nurse (Youtube , 2m) Apparently aiming for a "Conjuring" feel. Leaving aside whether that is an admirable goal to shoot for, I feel like it sticks the landing in one of the hallway shots but is otherwise unremarkable. Miner's Mountain (Youtube , 17m) Found this by the very scientific method of clicking a youtube rec on one of the other shorts. Feels more like a trailer or pitch than a complete concept (or an addition to the wider Larry Fessenden Cinematic Universe), but no complaints here. POKOPOKOPIKOTAN (Youtube , 4m) Same creator as My House Walkthrough, this is also in the vein of "creepy atmospheric experience". Excellent use of sound and color and viscosity. Fran Challenge 2.) Sometimes they Come Back PET SEMATARY (2019) (Watched on Amazon via Prime)  What horrors lurk in the dark and uncharted corners of rural Maine? The titular sematary is suitably eerie and unearthly, seemingly hundreds of miles from anything, and I like the masked procession at the start. The storytelling here isn't going to surprise anyone, but it's competent, and the spooky vignettes and character flashbacks keep things on point: This is a story about how people deal with death, in various forms. I don't remember the '89 outing very well, so my ability to compare the two is limited. Were the dream sequences and incidental hauntings in that one? So what happened to your dog, Jud? Fran Challenge 3.) Camp BLOOD Madman (Watched on Amazon via IMDBTv)  A delightfully standard spooky-story opening, already a mainstay by 1982, and to be thoroughly lampooned in the years to come. Madman runs mostly by the numbers - it'd make good background noise with company, but isn't of much interest to just sit and watch, considering how crowded the field is. One thing stood out, though - what in the absolute heck is going on with the weirdo fireplace scene? Why are these people hanging out in a tesselated person pile? The behavior of these counselors is far more unsettling and alien than the titular madman. One by one, you'll start to fall. Before night's over, I'll get you all. Watched: 1.) Various Shorts [FC1: Short Cuts] 2.) Pet Sematary (2019) [FC2: Sometimes they Come Back], 3.) Madman [FC3: Camp BLOOD]
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May 20, 2021 01:54
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Fran Challenge 4.) Movie of the Month Vampyr (Watched on Youtube)  This has been on the list for a long time, but scheduling has never really worked out. There's a wonderful playfulness to the cinematography here, including inventive little bits which remind me of some early short effects features (Melies, etc.) Gray's a credibly haunted, awkward, and sensitive protagonist to wander through this spooky little landscape - his nervous disposition justifies several slow, lingering shots and curious angles. It ends up looking great, composed of a series of memorable images and sequences which show how mature the medium was by the early 30s. A strong recommendation if you haven't checked it out already. Whole families, even entire villages, are thus brought under the curse. Watched: 1.) Various Shorts [FC1: Short Cuts] 2.) Pet Sematary (2019) [FC2: Sometimes they Come Back], 3.) Madman [FC3: Camp BLOOD], 4.) Vampyr [FC4: Movie of the Month] Debbie Does Dagon posted:8. Harvest Lake - Tubi(US)
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May 21, 2021 00:29
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Fran Challenge 5.) Cinco Curandero (Watched on Amazon via rental)  Some random searching led me to this, and my interest was piqued by Letterboxed reviews comparing it to "somewhere between mexploitation and Barker", calling it "the movie we all wanted Constantine to be", and then there's this:  Which, well, at that point you almost have to watch it, don't you? This was fun, but definitely uneven, opening strong in the effective pre-credits but with the seams starting to show once you hit the one-hour mark and the storytelling implodes. Even the quality of the camera work starts to suffer, moving away from some fairly quirky (if somewhat indulgent) shots to a pretty feeble visual palette. You can see where there's a desire for the atmosphere and texture of one of Barker's urban occultoscapes, but it doesn't quite arrive, and the decision to portray Carlos's visions using rapid, shaky flashes of gooey effects is pretty harmful - the longer, sustained visions are far better, and even if the effects aren't very good at least they're not shy or squeamish about letting us see them. Curandero is going to stick in my memory. It's not great, but it swings for the fences (demons! shootouts! literal buckets of blood and gore!) and that counts for a lot. They yank out spinal cords, chop up bodies... You want some dessert? Watched: 1.) Various Shorts [FC1: Short Cuts] 2.) Pet Sematary (2019) [FC2: Sometimes they Come Back], 3.) Madman [FC3: Camp BLOOD], 4.) Vampyr [FC4: Movie of the Month], 5.) Curandero [FC5: Cinco]
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May 22, 2021 07:24
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Fran Challenge 6.) Playing With Power Resident Evil: Afterlife (Watched on Netflix)  The RE game franchise has been a great companion to our household during lockdown - we ended up playing through about five of the games. The movies have always been pretty bad (the first being the most tolerable), but I'd dead-ended after the dire third. It seemed like it was time to circle back and see how deep the subterranean lab complex goes. Practically every stupid element of the film franchise is in the games, but here they are extremely unnecessary (leading to an opening scene which resets our protagonist back to baseline, which IIRC they basically did in the previous movie as well.) There are more Alices than zombies in the first thirty minutes of the movie, which did not begin our time together on a good note. The torchlit cell block isn't a bad little setting, one which "fits" the RE mold, and things pick up once there are more cast members and things have reverted to humans-besieged-by-zombies. Once Wesker's back in the picture things become decidedly, wonderfully, profoundly dumb, although primarily by lifting straight from RE5.  Watched: 1.) Various Shorts [FC1: Short Cuts] 2.) Pet Sematary (2019) [FC2: Sometimes they Come Back], 3.) Madman [FC3: Camp BLOOD], 4.) Vampyr [FC4: Movie of the Month], 5.) Curandero [FC5: Cinco], 6.) Resident Evil: Afterlife [FC6: Playing With Power]
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May 22, 2021 19:25
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Fran Challenge 7.) Mother's Day Goodnight Mommy oder Ich Seh Ich Seh if that's how you roll (Watched on Tubi)  I felt like I'd seen this on several streaming services and just never considered watching it. Spooky twins doubt the woman claiming to be their mother is the genuine article. This takes a bit to get going, consisting mostly of lingering shots and awkward or ominous exchanges. The ending is strong and unsettling, and frankly I felt like this could be a short film without doing any violence to the result. It's not bad, but it certainly seemed to meander. Having the least twisty of twists imaginable didn't help in that regard. Wo ist unsere Mama? Fran Challenge 8.) Dead & Buried Cat Girl (1957, featuring the late Barbara Shelley, watched on Tubi)  Cat Girl takes us back to scenic MCMLVII, a simpler time, where men were men and women were women but also leopards. This is an entry in the (surprisingly) larger corpus of cat people horror, which I'm not really armed to discuss. Shelley's Leonora is drawn back to her estranged (and cursed) family, with her scumbag husband and useless friends in tow. With typical early film efficiency, we get the core of the cast and their various connections and disagreements fired at us before the end of the first scene. There's some wonderful skulking about in candlelit hallways and reading ominous prophecies in old tomes. Older films are a definite "sometimes" food for me, but the theatrical mannerisms and dialogue are a lot of fun, and Leonora is, if not particularly nuanced, at least as passionate and intense a figure as other horror leading roles of the era. I don't know that we should hold Cat Girl up as a high point in feminist film, but there's something to be said for how patronizing, dismissive, and insensitive basically every single named male character is - it doesn't seem accidental. As with the 1960 Leech Woman, though, Leonora's justified resentments are paired with stock murderous female jealousy, disarming the possibility for or necessity of reflection on the behavior of the male cast. "The touch of your hand makes me feel almost myself again, as though it never happened." "That'll be the sedative working." Watched: 1.) Various Shorts [FC1: Short Cuts] 2.) Pet Sematary (2019) [FC2: Sometimes they Come Back], 3.) Madman [FC3: Camp BLOOD], 4.) Vampyr [FC4: Movie of the Month], 5.) Curandero [FC5: Cinco], 6.) Resident Evil: Afterlife [FC6: Playing With Power], 7.) Goodnight Mommy [FC7: Mother's Day], 8.) The Cat Girl [FC8: Dead & Buried]
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May 24, 2021 06:27
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A double dose of (spooky) documentary for today. Fran Challenge 10.) Behind the Mask Nightmares in Red, White, and Blue (Watched on Amazon via Prime) A little behind the curve on this one, which I seem to recall the main horror thread checked out a while back. I enjoyed the little personal anecdotes from various creators, especially when they placed their exposure to the genre in the timeline of horror history. Ultimately, though, I don't think a decade-by-decade periodization is a convincing or useful way to really get a pulse for the various "threads" which make up the spooky tapestry. The segments for the 70s-90s were the most coherent and had the most clear continuity between arguments. (The book this draws from is from 2004, so while the documentary is 2009 it's not really armed to know what the 00s would look like.) Fran Challenge 9.) Scream Queen Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street (Watched on Amazon Prime via Shudder)  Again, I feel way late on this one. Glad to have gotten around to it, though - it was spectacular. Beautifully shot and staged, great sound, with the narrative broken into coherent phrases. A strong recommend as a documentary in general, even outside the narrower category of horror doc. Any bio is going to have to map a story onto the senseless and often inconclusive and unsatisfying events of real life, which is part of why Sholder and Chaskin's squirmy and noncomittal contributions are so drat frustrating - they break a viewer's stride. Still, while this is a rough and aggravating watch at times, the earnest and emotional beats from Patton and the fandom are ultimately about progress and discovery. That's what movies do - they manipulate people. Watched: 1.) Various Shorts [FC1: Short Cuts] 2.) Pet Sematary (2019) [FC2: Sometimes they Come Back], 3.) Madman [FC3: Camp BLOOD], 4.) Vampyr [FC4: Movie of the Month], 5.) Curandero [FC5: Cinco], 6.) Resident Evil: Afterlife [FC6: Playing With Power], 7.) Goodnight Mommy [FC7: Mother's Day], 8.) The Cat Girl [FC8: Dead & Buried], 9.) Nightmares in Red, White, and Blue [FC10: Behind the Mask], 10.) Scream, Queen! [FC9: Scream, Queen]
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May 25, 2021 06:00
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 22:57 |
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Well, that's that. 13 Movies, including 13 challenges complete! Thanks to everyone for your reviews - you've added several things to my watch list going forward, and thanks to Fran for the challenges, which always lead me to something I wouldn't have watched otherwise. Fran Challenge 11.) Myths & Legends The Lure (Watched on Amazon via Rental)  Seeing this so strongly praised in the thread pushed it onto the roster. Very quirky, visually striking, and with a great soundtrack. This runs toward the magical realism vein, with events unfolding in a timeless and weightless world, one anchored by emotional and sensory impressions. It occupies a weird place - not particularly horrific, too strange to really place on the roster of "put this on in the background at events", and so on. Lure's more of an experience - it's unique, though for comparison my partner and I were thinking of in terms of things like Lo and Inhuman Kiss - both for the romantic content and for tone and storytelling. Definitely check it out if you have a chance. Fran Challenge 12.) Cavalcade of Creepiness Scare Package (Watched on Amazon Prime via Shudder)  The last time I watched an anthology, it was also for a Fran Challenge. I'm not sure why - I enjoy short horror, but most anthologies seem to have weak or actively terrible segments drag the whole thing down. This is "an anthology, but all of the shorts are trying to be the quirky, self-referential one". I honestly think the quality of the segments is about even, with no standout hits or awful misses. That said, the unfortunate issue is that the consistent level here is just too low. You get a lot of horror-comedy shorts, and none of them end up being particularly inventive or rising above "kinda funny." (Although, writing this out, it occurs to me that this would be perfectly adequate cut up to serve as intermission bits in, like, a hosted TV horror marathon.) So if we went to the library and asked for newspaper clipping regarding horrific events which occurred on the property...they wouldn't have any? Fran Challenge 13.) Horrible Holidays April Fool's Day (Watched on Amazon via Prime)  This definitely sets a land speed record for "make the cast so miserably unappealing the audience will be looking forward to their grisly deaths." (Shame they have the audacity to survive, the jerks.) Like Madman, this runs pretty much by the numbers. I think I'd rank it a bit higher than Madman in terms of creating scenes and giving a sense of place, though it lacks a striking killer. (As a small thing I liked, there's a bit in the parlor scene where Deborah Foreman's Muffy indirectly apologizes to another character, and the interaction is conveyed using camera placement and body language and not dwelled upon - it's not "subtle" but it shows a confidence in the audience which is unusual in this sort of thing.) Watched: 1.) Various Shorts [FC1: Short Cuts] 2.) Pet Sematary (2019) [FC2: Sometimes they Come Back], 3.) Madman [FC3: Camp BLOOD], 4.) Vampyr [FC4: Movie of the Month], 5.) Curandero [FC5: Cinco], 6.) Resident Evil: Afterlife [FC6: Playing With Power], 7.) Goodnight Mommy [FC7: Mother's Day], 8.) The Cat Girl [FC8: Dead & Buried], 9.) Nightmares in Red, White, and Blue [FC10: Behind the Mask], 10.) Scream, Queen! [FC9: Scream, Queen], 11.) The Lure [FC11: Myths & Legends], 12.) Scare Package [FC12: Cavalcade of Creepiness], 13.) April Fool's Day [FC13: Horrible Holidays] STAC Goat posted:58 (66). The Undead (1957) Do I remember correctly that the "medieval" characters speak in blank verse?
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May 29, 2021 00:25
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