Horror

[Reel]

The kills weren't very creative, this one was the worst

[Drenk]

I don't like Scream 4 for the kills. And this scene is very funny.

I love how they make us think it's a reboot with new young actors. But it's not. The meta aspect is fun too. And it has a great ending about teenagers who only want to be famous. Very creepy. 

"One generation's tragedy is the next one's joke."

[Lottery]

Mama (possible spoilers)

Watched Mama, was pretty enjoyable. Showed too much off near the end and the film became more of a supernatural family drama, last 15 mins were particularly meh. But the way they weaved in the short film was really cool.
Crazy ghost was a bitch though, didn't deserve the little feral one but I guess the little feral one didn't mind.
Also the kids were really quite good in this. The little one especially, that little feral cutie.

[jenkins]

i visited one. i visited john carpenter's in the mouth of madness and enjoyed it

"it's cane's story and it'll spread with each new reader. that's how it gets its power."
"what about the people who don't read?"
"there's a movie."
"ah yes, of course."

enjoyed the movie's study of pop culture and its obsessions with fantasy stories. how i can relate to the problem! it was interesting to see a story about fiction becoming reality (that's its theme). thought it was well shot and edited. fabulous horror movie montages. and today i read about michael de luca, whom i can't believe i haven't read about before!

so right now it's my favorite october personal discovery. glad i made the trip. soon i might see endangered species and chopping mall. those could be somebody. those could be contenders

[Kellen]

Someone just posted this on my facebook feed:

Totally Fucked Up: Films That Disturb and Offend


It isn't all horror flicks but maybe theres something on there someone hasn't watched/heard of yet.

[Reel]

someone beat you to the punch. I like that list, though. It introduced me to Ichi, which I bought but haven't watched yet. It can't be more violent than Itchy and Scratchy, right?

Reminded me to rewatch Midnight Cowboy, which was great. How did I forget about that film for so long? Turkish Delight I need to see, Spetters as well ( own it ). Confirms my secretly held belief that Cronenberg is the king of disturbing imagery.

[jenkins]

!!!!

tbh that's my favorite fulci movie. he has many more and this might not be your favorite, but it is mine. black christmas, classic. squirm! please tell me. popcorn, what is that, please tell me. maniac cop, great. excited for you!

[Reel]

Popcorn is the one I'm most excited about based on the back of the box:

"A campy movie marathon turns into an endless night of terror when a crazed killer decides to make a horror movie of his own. Inspired by the gruesome scenes on screen, he stalks the theater for victims to "Star" in his murder masterpiece. Assuming that it's all just part of the show, the eager audience cheers him on, unaware that any one of them could be next!"

Only Fulci movie I've seen is 'The House By The Cemetery' and I fucking loved it, think I will all of his movies. Black Christmas is the only one I've seen and could be my favorite slasher. Squirm is just undeniable for that cover, worth the price of admission, featured prominently in 'Rewind This!'


I think this could be the beginning of an addiction...

[ElPandaRoyal]

There's nothing stupid about that Fulci pic. It's so dirty and plain wrong it's great.

OK, it's also really stupid, but that makes it even better.

[Mel]

I collected some zombie movies (loosely categorized) for marathon: Pontypool, REC 2, The Return of the Living Dead, Let Sleeping Corpses Lie. This time picks turned out to be much better than expected, it was fun.

Pontypool

Low budget production, which overcomes money with great ideas. We don't see any "zombies" for 50 minutes. Instead we're trapped together with crew inside the small local radio station, which is reporting on outbreak. We (as audience) share same confusion and disbelieve with characters: what is going on / is this for real? Much is left to our imagination - nice to see something else than gore fest.

SPOILERS - skip further paragraph if you didn't see a film. What comes next is big mind fuck - it requires a lot of trust from audience. I can see falling it apart easily if questioned too much at that time - it works better if left alone for the time. It explains ambiguous opening, which serves as reminder to "pay attention to words". Pontypool is heavy on allegories, it has social commentary (wink to Romero), which is a bit obscured and abstract. Infected words - some topics avoided in politics? The Herd, "You're shooting at scared people" - political protests? Mixed with mostly ignorant media - radio, which is more interested in shocking than informing.

Pontypool feels very refreshing, definitely worth seeing, even if film doesn't succeed in 100%.

REC 2

For still unknown reasons for me, I was sure I've seen it before.

Introduction of anti-terrorist unit could be fatal to the film: those guys shouldn't have much problem with killing the zombies, right? Ending of previous movie is explored to the full extend. This way, well trained and well equipped unit feels very vulnerable , probably even more that protagonists from original REC.

I hate shaky cam, when it is used as mere gimmick. I didn't have problem with it in REC 2 - it is used as convention and POVs shots are often very energetic. It fits story well and doesn't fell forced at all. That mixed with dosed gore gave me few chills.

Well made zombie flick, there aren't many more recent movies that get better than this.

The Return of the Living Dead

Classic. I did see it on pirate TV station (those are long gone now), when I was twelve or so. I did remember beginning and ending, not much in between - I was quite surprised by naked chick and few other things I forgot about. It was time to refresh my memory.

It is still fun to watch - especially well made montage sequences. It pays its tribute to Romero, yet diverges from that universe very quickly, when first zombie is disemboweled. Both humans and survivors are well organized, which is in a stark contrast compared to most of the film in genre.

Hard to say anything else, beside that film is more a black comedy than zombie flick - which is good thing.

Let Sleeping Corpses Lie

Again something else. First 50 minutes is just a back story - more than in any zombie film I can think of. This is kinda important, because film takes quality over quantity, so audience should care for characters. After first victim of zombies if found, police investigation starts. Police of course treats it as murder, which it reasonable and quite fun to follow.

Way the dead started rising is quite original to say at least. Ending is also very European, which I liked a lot.

Summary

I can endorse any position on this list. It was one of the best horror marathons I did - one great film after another.

[jenkins]

this scanners iii: the takeover scene questions free spirit



this silent night deadly night part ii scene evaluates bullying's potential harm

[Mel]

I stumbled on blog written by Stuart Cohen, co-producer of "The Thing" (John Carpenter's version). There is so much interesting stuff there. I have seen "The Thing" twice since then and this is by far the horror I have watched the most (probably two digit number through all years). I'm always amazed how nicely work of Carpenter ages and I'm not speak only about "The Thing" - for comparison "They Live" with its low budget gained a lot of charm for me over time.

SPOILERS!

The most interesting topic I found on the blog: off screen deaths of Fuchs and Nauls. According to blog, original material didn't work and Carpenter didn't have time or money to fix that. Death of Fuchs was shoot over 3 hours time frame or so, which is kinda amazing. I won't go "how he died?" route - fans of the film like to argue about this, instead I'm more focused why this works at all? He died at the right time. On one hand modus operandi of the thing is establish till then, on the other hand rest of the outpost's crew doesn't have time to investigate. Film accelerates after than and it is pretty much action sequence after action sequence. Still it takes a lot of guts to kill two characters off screen.

Other interesting bit (not sure how I missed that): Wilford "Blair" Brimley didn't go to British Columbia. That is one of the reasons why we don't see him in any outside scene: "Where is Blair?".

[Lottery]

The Thing is pretty perfect. And though not entirely horror, I think Cameron's Aliens is the only film that came after that can stand alongside it in that 'survival action horror' sort of niche.

[Mel]

The Thing is pretty perfect. And though not entirely horror, I think Cameron's Aliens is the only film that came after that can stand alongside it in that 'survival action horror' sort of niche.

Both have many similarities: isolation, alien form, crew that cannot be trusted. I also wonder if flamethrowers have anything to do with the current status of "Alien" and "The Thing"? On that level they can be compared.

[Mel]

Fear on Film - roundtable from 1982 with David Cronenberg, John Carpenter and John Landis.

Looks like it was shot before release of "The Thing", Cronenberg was working on "Videodrome" and Landis... well that Helicopter accident. That was bad year for all of them I guess.