Horror

Started by TenseAndSober, April 22, 2003, 05:01:56 PM

0 Members and 2 Guests are viewing this topic.

polkablues

All right, you twisted my arm.

Black Mountain Side

Low budget done right. A slow-burn low-key riff on The Thing, with a hefty pinch of Lovecraft for flavor. Might have benefited from a touch more ambition, but it succeeds at what it's trying to do.

The Other Side of the Door

The first of two features in the post written and directed by Johannes Roberts, who made the sadly underappreciated film The Expelled, and the rightly underappreciated Storage 24. This one is closer to the former than the latter, with reasonably well-drawn characters, solid actors, and a gut punch of an ending. Leans a little too hard on the "non-white cultures are inherently scary" trope.

In the Deep

The other Johannes Roberts movie. It has its moments, and it's better overall than the other scary shark movie I'm about to list, but the dialogue is atrocious, most of the acting is bad (Mandy Moore is out of her depth, pun fully intended, and Matthew Modine continues his journey of making me question whether he was ever even a good actor to begin with), and it completely wusses out on what WOULD have been a gut punch of an ending that would have redeemed a lot of its other faults.

The Shallows

The other scary shark movie. You may recognize this as the movie in which Blake Lively attempts to prove her legitimacy as an actor while also reminding us that she's extremely attractive. She is largely successful in both endeavors, but the movie itself is a dumb dull dud. My Close Personal Friend Brett Cullen gets to LITERALLY phone in his role as Blake's dad, which I imagine was a career goal he's been striving toward for years.

The Blackcoat's Daughter (aka February)

This one kind of came out of nowhere and surprised me. Visually stylish and relentlessly atmospheric. Has some Lynchian aspirations which don't quite pan out, but it successfully maintains an off-kilter rhythm of its own. Kiernan Shipka continues her evolution from annoying child actor on Mad Men to best actor on Mad Men to goddamn force of nature. Worth watching for her performance above all else.

Most Likely to Die

I loved the director's previous film, Last Shift. I hated his new film, this piece of shit.

Dead Set

Charlie Brooker's miniseries about a fictional season of Big Brother that is interrupted by a global zombie outbreak. Charlie Brooker wrote it, of course it's great. Not much else to say.

Jeruzalem

As far as I know, the first found footage horror movie to use a Google Glass equivalent as the vehicle for how the events of the movie are being filmed. The idea is cool, two American friends vacationing in Jerusalem when a gate to hell breaks open and the city is under siege by supernatural forces, and the fact they actually shot in Jerusalem lends a gravitas to the proceedings that the filmmaking itself doesn't otherwise earn. But on the whole it's just too disjointed, the acting too spotty, and the overall movie too forgettable to fully recommend.
My house, my rules, my coffee

matt35mm

Every year around this time, Adam Green (who made HATCHET, FROZEN, and does The Movie Crypt podcast) makes a goofy no-budget just-for-fun Halloween short. Here's this year's, which, ahem, I edited!!!!! Features Chase Williamson from JOHN DIES AT THE END, and Sid Haig from a whole buncha stuff!


modage

Oh hey guys, sorry I'm late. As usual, Polka puts us all to shame with his deep dive into the indie horror world. I've been watching some films as well, some stuff I've never seen as well as revisiting some classics with my wife who has never seen them. Let's run 'em down...

Rewatch

Rosemary's Baby: Still the greatest. One of the first horror films I showed my then-gf-now-wife who when we met said she hated horror movies (but now has seen most of the classics) and still probably her favorite. Criterion Blu-ray looks really nice. The more Cassavetes films I see, the crazier it is to me that he's in this.

Crimson Peak: So gorgeous. With Pac Rim and this, we've reached peak del Toro.

Don't Look Now: Only my second time watching this one and I gotta say that I don't think I'm a fan. I appreciate the editing and atmosphere but not sure it works for me as a horror movie. I'm sure I'm in the minority on this one.

Suspiria: This was my first Italian horror film and it is still so great. Actually kinda looking forward to the remake because I think with all the waves of horror subgenres that have come back into vogue over the last decade or so, no one has really attempted to bring back this kind of super stylized, insane lighting, Argento-influenced horror. (Crimson Peak maybe comes closest just for sheer beauty, and Neon Demon looks like it may be attempting this but I haven't seen it yet.) Am I forgetting something, polka/RK?

Monster House: I loooved this when it came out and found myself kinda okay with it now. The weirdest part was just the CGI itself which at the time (motion capture!) felt state-of-the-art and now feels like a 1990s computer game.

The Witch: One of my favorites of the year. Not traditionally thrilling in a horror movie sense but far more unnerving, the finale may be an all-timer.

First-Timers

Prom Night: Unremarkable, post-Halloween slasher film with Jamie Lee Curtis, a I Know What You Did Last Summer-style premise and disco-inferno tinged finale. Less fun than it sounds.

Sleepaway Camp: Despite having received the Netflix disc the past few Octobers, I finally watched this and somehow had never seen it. If I had discovered this in high school (a la Blood Diner) I could see loving it for its WTF finale (which was really the only reason I watched it, despite knowing what was going to happen), but without the shock of the twist, there's not much there.

Leviathan: Basically a B+ Alien/The Abyss rip-off from the director of Tombstone and Cobra, the writer of Unforgiven and 12 Monkeys, starring Robocop (Peter Weller), the old dude from Rambo (Richard Crenna), the black dude from Ghostbusters (Ernie Hudson), the dude from Home Alone (Daniel Stern) and the British chick from The (original) Flash TV show (?). Oh and with special creature FX from Stan Winston! Director is clearly channeling James Cameron and doing a decent job of it until the Monster is revealed and looks pretty not great (despite having been designed by Winston, it's all about how you shoot and light that sucka), but I still really enjoyed this.

Hush: It's fine! Yet another home-invasion thriller with a man in a mask trying to get into the house, in this one the woman in the house is deaf, which in some more clever hands could've been a really original thriller (completely silent?) but instead is really not utilized at all besides the setup/finale payoff. The tension is drained when the killer takes off his mask (which is pretty early). A minor shame because I liked Oculus, previous film from this director which is also set in one location with just a couple actors but whose premise is a lot more creative.

Alice Sweet Alice (aka Holy Terror): I had never heard of this one until it started popping up on Best Of Horror lists a few years back so I jumped when I had the opportunity to see this in 35mm at the Nitehawk in BK. Notable for the mask and the first appearance of Brooke Shields in a film (she was around 10 at the time), the director was "inspired" by Don't Look Now and makes the killer a small person/child? (no spoilers) in a raincoat and mask who runs around knifing people. Notable also for its scenes of the fat creepy pedophile neighbor which are disturbing because they feel like they belong in a different much broader, cheaper, snuff-film type movie.
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

polkablues

The Ones Below

A really top-notch psychological thriller. Pulls off the rare trick of letting the audience figure out exactly where it's going very early on, but still surprising them with how it gets there. Would make a great triple-feature with L'intérieur and The Babadook -- three examinations of maternal anxiety told through the lenses of three completely different horror subgenres.
My house, my rules, my coffee

modage

Update: Day 23, 23 films so far.

First-Timers

The Sentinel: Tarantino had talked about if he ever did a horror movie possibly adapting the book this was based on, which came out around the same time as the Exorcist, because this adaptation was not-so-great. It's about a young woman who moves into an apartment building that might be the doorway to hell. She meets a bunch of her neighbors (including Burgess Meredith and young Beverly D'Angelo) and learns that they're all actually dead murderers. Things it had going for it: young Christopher Walken AND young Jeff Goldblum! (And bonus young Chris Sarandon.) It's definitely dated in that 70s way that not great movies are but has a couple good creepy scenes and a finale featuring a horde of actual disformed/disfigured people that was apparently controversial when it came out.

Best part was seeing it in the theatre and there's a scene when the woman goes upstairs to the abandoned apartment to investigate some noises, comes upon some kind of dead person and starts screaming "Why are you doing this to me?!" With perfect timing, a girl in the theatre said, "You're in HIS apartment" and everybody laughed. Normally I kinda hate people for ruining the movie but this was pretty good.

The Gate: In the 80s movie canon of kids movies that are way-too-terrifying for kids, this PG-13 horror-lite features a super-young Steven Dorff as a kid who discovers a gate to hell in his backyard. Some cool stop-motion animation and creepy imagery. Didn't see this one as a kid, but if I had, I can imagine it leaving a permanent scar the way that some other 80s movies did.

Ghosts of Mars: The last time John Carpenter will probably ever work with a real budget or make a studio film, which is a shame but I can't say not totally earned by this film which feels like he was just going through the motions behind-the-camera. I actually found it sort of enjoyable for how analog this is, considering it's only 15 years old but may as well have been made in the 80s or 90s. It's all big sets, monster makeup but a random group of actors (Pam Grier! Jason Statham! Natasha Henstridge! Ice Cube!) that only could've been assembled in early 2000s.

Martin: I've heard a lot about this over the years as being Romero's underrated film (or even his best) and while it comes nowhere close to his Zombie trilogy, it's interesting for bringing vampires out of gothic castles and into modern day about a decade before films like Lost Boys and Near Dark attempted a similar feat (to more success). The opening assault/rape is also incredibly creepy and uncomfortable and the use of needles to sedate reminded me of Let The Right One In. Not great but worth a viewing if you're curious.

Blair Witch (2016): I've been up and down on Wingard/Barrett (down on You're Next, up on The Guest) and I guess I'm down again on this. Blair Witch Project was interesting for its time and place, it pretty much invented a new language of filmmaking and so could get away with less because what you were seeing felt so new and dangerous. But after a decade and a half of found footage both good and bad it's hard to go back to the well and essentially remake the original film without coming out of it with a shrug. The most interesting part about the film was the A+ marketing job hiding this from the public, calling it the Woods, screening it at Comic-Con and revealing it on the spot) but man, no one seemed to care because the film itself just isn't very good.

The Purge: Election Year: I really like The Purge series. The first one is a contained, home invasion thriller and the sequels have been more sprawling John Carpenter Assault On Precinct 13/Escape from New York style affairs. They're basically exploitation movies but competently made, infused with just enough social commentary to be interesting and always contain a few moments of truly striking nightmarish images.

The Earth Dies Screaming: B film with A production values (produced by 20th Century Fox, directed by Hammer vet Terrence Fisher), this 62 minute film barely qualifies as a feature and the title is much more memorable than the film.

Rewatch

Evil Dead: Still the greatest. Watched with a few people who had never seen it and despite its shortcomings (shoddy acting, low budget FX) the thing still works like gangbusters.

Evil Dead II: Dead By Dawn: Ditto that. I go back and forth between this and the original for which one is my favorite, I was sure it was this one until this most recent viewing, now I might be leaning back towards the original.

Cabin In The Woods: The first time I saw this, I liked it but I was definitely a little disappointed because as a horror-comedy, it kinda fails in the horror department. I think it wants to be scary and funny but only really succeeds at the latter. But over the past few years I've seen it like half a dozen times and think I can forgive that and just enjoy it for what it is, which may be kind of a minor classic.

The Descent: I hadn't seen this in a decade, where I had watched a bootleg copy (a year before it came out in America). I remembered it as one of the best horror films of the past decade but since I'd only seen it once, was hoping I hadn't been wrong. Nope, this thing holds up. I love movies that start as one movie and then take a turn into a completely different kind of film so I watched this with 3 unsuspecting people, and told them it was a claustrophobic thriller. So when the real carnage starts in, they were as unprepared for it as I was during my first viewing. It was also my first time watching the real/European ending which is a major downer. I kinda wish the characters were a little more distinguished from each other, you kinda get about 3 of the 6 personalities in 2 dimensions but whatareyougonnado.
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

Ghostboy

We did our annual Halloween marathon last weekend. Our lineup this year was a little shorter than in the past because we watched THE SHINING, which a few guests had never seen, and also because we made a trip to the revival theater to see VIDEODROME in 35mm.

The list was...

What We Do In The Shadows
Pet Semetary
Housebound
Trick R Treat
Videdrome
The Shining
House (1977)
Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2
We Are What We Are
Sleepaway Camp
Shaun Of The Dead
Martyrs

I had seen almost all of these except for Trick R Treat, House, Housebound and Martyrs. What I really wanted to come here to say was that I was not expecting to enjoy Martyrs or even appreciate it, but I kinda came away loving it. We watched Inside in a past marathon and had a blast with it, but there's nothing fun about this one whatsoever, as anyone who's seen it can attest to. However, it has a ton of integrity and it earns its extreme nihilism. It's hard to recommend but at the same time I'm glad I had that experience.

polkablues

I will spend my life evangelizing for Martyrs as not only one of the great horror films, but one of the great films, period.
My house, my rules, my coffee

ElPandaRoyal

I kind of had a hard time watching Martyrs, maybe it was too much for me, but as time has passed, it kind of stayed on my mind more than I thought it would. I do remember enjoying The Tall Man a little bit more, though.
Si

modage

Finished up my marathon with a total of 40 films, which might be my record. (And if it's not my record, it's at least my record since I was in college in the early Xixax days.) Here's the rest of what I saw.

First-Timers

The Exorcism of Emily Rose: I remember this having pretty good reviews when it came out and in light of Doctor Strange coming out this week, thought it would be good to catch up with. A really strange legal thriller with horror flashbacks, I wasn't really sure what to make of this one other than I'm surprised it went over as well as it did since it doesn't seem like it really delivers for horror audiences.

Elvira, Mistress Of The Dark: This was fun. I had grown up in the 80s very aware of Elvira without ever having seen her in anything, she was just a horror icon on shelves like Freddy or Jason and all kids kinda knew who they were regardless of if we had seen the films. Kept thinking that if Tim Burton had directed this instead of Pee Wee's Big Adventure, even with the same script, it would've been a much better film.

Maniac (1980): I had seen the Elijah Wood starring POV remake a year or two ago but hadn't seen the original until now. I would place this in the category of horror that is a little too grimy and real to be fun, thus not my particular cup of tea, despite it being really well made. I thought this would've been more of a down and dirty exploitation film but the filmmaking was actually pretty good. And the last 5 minutes or so which delve into the surreal, elevate the whole film for me.

Ouija: Origin of Evil: Didn't see the original but decided to check this out because the reviews were good, it seemed to stand alone, and it was basically the only horror film in theatres in October, which, WTF Hollywood. The retro touches (Universal logo, cigarette burns) are cute and it's definitely a step up from Hush, but it's good without ever being anything truly special. Interesting to note that we are definitely in the middle of the James Wan era. Where even films that aren't directed or produced by him carry his signature. I like his style but am now sorta waiting to see what's next.

Halloween: Resurrection: Spent the past few years going through the entire Halloween series, most of which I had never seen besides the first two, H20 and Rob Zombie's god-awful remake. This was the last of the original series, and the one with Busta Rhymes, it follows the events of H20, which I liked at the time, but wasn't actually very good upon re-inspection. This is also not very good but almost charming how quaint it is already, it came out in 2002 but seems to be closer in style and filmmaking to the 80s and 90s sequels than films today. There is a very early-internet concept, influenced by the rise of The Osbournes and reality TV and probably the POV cam of the Blair Witch Project but otherwise it's business as usual. And business is not very good.

Seeding of a Ghost: This was INSANE and the big surprise of the season for me. Playing as part of the brand-new Brooklyn Alamo Drafthouse's opening series In The Mood For Gore, this was an early 80s film by the Shaw Brothers that begins as a slow burn but becomes gross out insanity by the last act. The basic setup involves a cab driver who almost hits a gypsy with his car and whose wife is having an affair before she is murdered by street toughs, so he goes to the gypsy to seek revenge on whoever is responsible for his wife's death. It contains some insane fight scenes, soft core slow-motion nudity, ghost fucking and tentacle monsters. I have never really seen anything like it. Watching it I could see shades of Evil Dead, The Thing and Dead Alive, and wondered if Raimi, Carpenter or Jackson had seen this film before making theirs. ATTN: Polka, RK, Ghostboy.

Masque of the Red Death: Roger Corman basically doing his American-ized riff on Hammer films but boy, is it gorgeous. Another one of my favorite discoveries. It may be low-budget but you would never know it. Beautiful design, costumes and sets and a great central Vincent Price performance. Watching this (and rewatching Suspiria) this year, I would love to see a return to lush, stylized, gorgeous design in horror films. Only Crimson Peak comes close.

Death Spa: Part of the secret lineup of Dismember the Alamo, I had been aware of this because of How Did This Get Made, and it is indeed awful and hilarious.

Halloween II (2009): This will be the last Rob Zombie film I will ever see.

Eden Lake: More of a thriller than horror but an effective one. Early Fassbender and Jack O'Connell and Kelly Reilly (whose name I always hear in my head pronounced like the hushed tones of "Mary Reilly" from the Mary Reilly trailer. The director just did one of the new Black Mirror eps.

Rewatch

Army Of Darkness: Still the greatest. Maybe the third-best Evil Dead movie but the best, most fully realized version of Ash, almost every line is a catchphrase now. My ideal double-feature would be this and Big Trouble In Little China, both featuring lead characters who think they are amazing but are actually blowhard idiots.

The Gate: Got tickets to Dismember the Alamo, their secret lineup 4 horrro movie marathon, and decided to make the trek all the way up to Yonkers just to do it. But because of the secret lineup, all month whenever I would put on a movie I would think, "God, I hope this isn't playing at Dismember The Alamo." But with literally thousands of horror films and only 4 films playing the event (with about 25 films I would be watching throughout the month), odds would be in my favor that it would not happen. So imagine my horror as the lights went down and the first movie to play was one that I had watched for the first time literally a week ago.

Deathdream: ...And the second movie was one I had seen on my only previous visit to the Alamo Yonkers two years ago as part of a double-feature with Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein. Wasn't a fan of this the first time, liked it a little better on the second perhaps due to the engaged audience response. But good god, the print of this looks like the film was shot through a pitcher of pink Kool-aid, it is so faded it's practically pink and white. And now I've seen that print, twice. There are films that I love that I've only ever seen once. And yet. This. On 35mm. Twice.

Event Horizon: The final movie of the Dismember marathon was this one which I remember scaring the shit out of me when it came out and hadn't seen since the 90s. It definitely has some dated 90s-isms but some of the nightmare imagery definitely stuck with me over the years. And Sam Neill and Lawrence Fishburne still make it worth revisiting.

Phantasm: Remastered: Great job on the 4K remaster, Bad Robot. Maybe my 4th or 5th time seeing this and I still don't know what to make of it, but now that the Halloween series has been completed I think I'm gonna go through the Phantasm sequels next.

Hocus Pocus: I was a little old when this came out but thought it'd be worth showing my 6 year old niece. It's a little broad and Disney-fied at times but I appreciated that it was probably the last live-action scary Halloween movie aimed at kids. What the fuck happened, America?

Monster Squad: I saw this at the Alamo on Halloween and believe this to be the perfect Halloween film. The big 5 monsters, a great fast paced script by Dekker and Shane Black, great designs by Stan Winston, great score, fun, scary, everything. 12 year old kids cursing, firing guns, 14 year old kids smoking, drinking beer, and firing guns. This could never happen today. Stranger Things seems closest in terms of tone but the thing about 80s movies like Monster Squad is they not only starred kids, but were aimed at kids as well. Where Stranger Things stars kids but as far as I know is only watched by adults. Someone needs to resurrect the scary kids movie. Your move, Ghostboy.
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

RegularKarate

Heard on that Seeding of a Ghost rec. I'll check it out!

I didn't get a chance to watch many horror movies this month.

-Bought the Universal Monsters box set and made it through three monsters (Drac, Wolf, and Mum). I'm late on this, but the restorations look amazing and I love the score Philip Glass did for Dracula w/ Kronos Quartet

-Also re-watched the 78 Halloween with my GF who had never seen it... of course it's great, but it prompted me to watch the Rob Zombie remake since I had never seen that.... OOOOOOOOOOOUCH! So much wrong with it, but most of all it's clear the man hates women. Some people have told me that the second one is "so much better", but I don't know that I can ever watch another Rob Zombie movie again.

- Rewatched Exorcist 3. I still think this is an underrated Gem, but now I'm just super curious about the recent bluray release that includes the "directors cut". He was forced to make a lot of changes and it shows. The movie starts so smart with some sharp dialogue that attaches you to those characters fast, but this drops about a third way into the movie and you're left with one good character kind of bouncing around between scares.

- Halloween night I watched A Nightmare on Elm Street 3. I had remembered this being the best of the sequels. I was either wrong or all of the sequels are fucking terrible (Part 2 is a delicious kind of terrible for sure). Still fun to watch. Heather Langenkamp delivers all her lines like she just learned them a minute before Action was called and until the dreams begin everything looks Student Film budgeted, but once the dreams/kills start, it gets pretty fun pretty fast. I forgot how soon in the movie the Freddy worm shows up!


polkablues

The Monster

Bryan Bertino has had an oddly quiet career since debuting with The Strangers, a modern classic. This is only his third film, and while it doesn't all work, the parts that do work are so goddamn good my other complaints become largely irrelevant. It's a solid suspenseful monster survival movie, but the real core of the film is the fractured family drama between Zoe Kazan's alcoholic fuck-up character and her daughter, played by Ella Balentine, who is SUCH A RIDICULOUSLY GOOD ACTOR YOU GUYS HAVE NO IDEA. These two are so good, and the scenes of their broken relationship so strong, the monster stuff almost feels like a whole different movie butting in on the one I really wanted to see. But it's 100% worth watching for these two actors who should be getting magnitudes more attention and accolades for how great they are in these roles.

My house, my rules, my coffee

wilder

There's a new streaming service called Shudder with a pretty wide selection for $5/mo

polkablues

Yeah,  I've had Shudder as an add-on subscription to my Amazon Prime for a while now. Nice mix of old and new, big-budget and indie. My only issues with it are if you're already well-versed in horror, you're going to run out of movies to watch pretty quickly, and a lot of what's on there is not in HD. But it definitely feels worth the 5 bucks a month to me.
My house, my rules, my coffee

Garam

Prevenge is very very good and funny but definitely front-loaded. DJ Dan stuff was the highlight for me but the whole thing had some great lines. Keen on the idea that no one called 'Josh' would ever refrain from grassing

jenkins

2017 Beyond Fest
Tix on sale tomorrow
Please note: lots of smaller premiere screenings are free, and for some reason Slumber Party Massacre 1+2 are free

29 September
BRAWL IN CELL BLOCK 99
7:30pm 2h 15' Egyptian Theatre
West Coast Premiere
S. Craig Zahler, Don Johnson, Vince Vaughn & Udo Kier in Person

29 September
ICHI THE KILLER: The Digitally Restored Director's Cut
11:55pm 2h 10' Egyptian Theatre
West Coast Premiere

30 September
THE GRAPES OF DEATH (Les Raisins de La Mort)
500pm 1h 30' Shudder Theatre @Egyptian
Co-presented by Kier-La Janisse and Cinematic Void!

30 September
BEST F(R)IENDS
7:30pm 1h 35' Egyptian Theatre
World Premiere
Tommy Wiseau, Greg Sestero and Justin Macgregor in Person
Double Feature with THE ROOM

1 October
PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE
400pm 1h 40' Egyptian Theatre
Paul Williams, Ed Pressman, Paul Hirsch in Person

1 October
SUSPIRIA - 4K RESTORATION
700pm 1h 40' Egyptian Theatre
LA Premiere – 40th Anniversary
Dario Argento in Person

2 October
SUSPIRIA - 35mm Italian Cut
7:30pm 1h 40' Egyptian Theatre
LA Premiere – 40th Anniversary
Dario Argento in Person
Double Feature with OPERA

4 October
HOWARD THE DUCK - 70mm
7:30pm 1h 50' Egyptian Theatre
Lea Thompson in Person
Double Feature with NAPOLEON DYNAMITE – THE BOOTLEGGED EDITION

5 October
PREDATOR - 35mm
7:30pm 2h 30' Egyptian Theatre
30th Anniversary
Arnold Schwarzenegger in Person
Double Feature with THE RUNNING MAN

8 October
Car Chases, Collisions & Conversation: An Evening with Edgar Wright and Walter Hill
7:00pm 1h 30' Egyptian Theatre
Edgar Wright & Walter Hill in Person

9 October
JEAN-CLAUDE VAN JOHNSON
730pm 1h Egyptian Theatre
Theatrical World Premiere
Jean-Claude Van Damme, Peter Atencio, Dave Callaham, Kat Foster, Moises Arias in Person

10 October
THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER
915pm 1h 40' Egyptian Theatre
West Coast Premiere


Related trailers --