Horror

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

0 Members and 2 Guests are viewing this topic.

polkablues

And if your frisbee lands in P's yard one more time, he's keeping it!
My house, my rules, my coffee

RegularKarate

Well, we chased Mod off so this year won't be as fun, but since I got a head start with Fantastic Fest, I'll brace myself for P-hate and get this rolling:

See other threads for Paranormal Activity 3 and Human Centipede 2.


PENUMBRA
Adrian Garcia Bogliano, Ramiro Garcia Bogliano - Argentina - 2011

A realtor shows an apartment to a man who is renting it for a cult ritual during an eclipse.
Won't waste too much time with this one.  Ten minute short film made into a full length feature.  Boring.  Skip it.


Livid
Julien Maury, Alexandre Bustillo - France - 2010

A young healthcare worker comes across an elderly woman living in a mansion thought to contain a treasure inside.  Her friends convince her they should break in and steal this treasure... like in most movies with this set-up, the plan goes swimmingly and they all become rich.
I was with this movie for about thirty minutes.  It's very visually engaging.  A pretty girl being surrounded by very creepy images.
Unfortunately, the story is a zero.  It makes little sense and after the initial introduction to the creepy mansion, the rest of the scares are cheap jump scares that usually don't work.  Eventually, it starts to feel like a Marilyn Manson music video.


Sleep Tight
Jaume Balagueró - Spain - 2011

The only thing that keeps the doorman at an apartment complex from committing suicide is making other people unhappy.  He goes to great lengths to do this, including lying under your bed until you fall asleep then chloroforming you so you don't wake up while he slowly ruins your life.
I haven't seen either of the REC movies this director made, but from what I understand, this is a very different kind of movie.  I would probably put it more under the "Thriller" category, but it's creepy enough to call "Horror" too.
I really liked this one.  It's that classic game of getting you to root for a complete psycho before realizing that you're a horrible person for wanting this guy to succeed.  Once you realize how awful he is, it's kind of too late to turn on him.


Last Screening
Laurent Achard - France - 2011

After the last show at a bankrupt cinema, the manager goes out at night and kills ladies.
This is very much a tribute to the 70s Giallo films, but it's got plenty french in it too.  It doesn't use the Argento style the same way you would expect every other asshole teenage wannabe filmmaker to use it.  It's patient, involved, and interesting the entire way.  It exists in the bubble of this character's life.  We don't follow a detective who wants to find the killer (one of the things that separates this from most of the Giallo movies I've seen) and we don't hear people talking about the "murders in the area".
This is a character who has a strong passion for cinema, but also a need to cut people up.  I'm sure there are at least four people on this message board who can relate.


You're Next
Adam Wingard - USA - 2011

Looks like Lion's Gate is going to sit on this one for a year.  I hope not, because this is one of the funnest horror films to come out in a really long time and it would be a shame to toss it out with the rest of the Saw and Paranormal Activity sequels next year.
This is a pretty straightforward home invasion movie.  It's like a much more exciting and action-packed version of "The Strangers".  It stays traditional enough to not feel like it's trying too hard to be different, but it changes things up enough to actually be different and stay engaging.
Directors Ti West and Joe Swanberg are in the movie and they're actually really good!  It doesn't come off as pretentious having them in it at all.
I really want this to come out sooner than next year because A: I want to see it again and B: I want the song that's played in it over and over again () to become available over iTunes, Spotify, etc... instead of only on Youtube.

Saw more, but that's enough for now.

matt35mm

A YEAR? I thought YOU'RE NEXT was coming out this Halloween for some reason.

:(

squints

Quote from: RegularKarate on October 04, 2011, 12:10:04 PM
Well, we chased Mod off so this year won't be as fun

i've been wondering. What happened to chase him off? Is he just too busy?

and speaking of lost members. Whatever happened to Cine?
"The myth by no means finds its adequate objectification in the spoken word. The structure of the scenes and the visible imagery reveal a deeper wisdom than the poet himself is able to put into words and concepts" – Friedrich Nietzsche

polkablues

Mod has, at last count, 27 1/2 jobs. He still lurks, he's just not posting for now.

As for Cine, I assume he went to whatever purgatory Hedwig and Hacksparrow are floating around in somewhere.
My house, my rules, my coffee

Reel

Everyone should see 'The Woman' while it's still horror season! It's Lucky Mckee's new film, he directed 'May'. I don't know how to describe it, was the trailer for me.

RegularKarate

Quote from: Reelist on October 26, 2011, 02:25:51 AM
Everyone should see 'The Woman' while it's still horror season! It's Lucky Mckee's new film, he directed 'May'. I don't know how to describe it, was the trailer for me.

Is it better than his other movies?

Also, you know that clip was a marketing stunt, right?

squints

The Trailer itself looks pretty cool. I like Lucky Mckee's stuff even though he hasn't really made anything up to par with May, this looks interesting. Is it streaming? Will it be another year before I can see it?
"The myth by no means finds its adequate objectification in the spoken word. The structure of the scenes and the visible imagery reveal a deeper wisdom than the poet himself is able to put into words and concepts" – Friedrich Nietzsche

Reel

Quote from: RegularKarate on October 26, 2011, 10:22:55 AM
you know that clip was a marketing stunt, right?

Yeah, I figured after reading the youtube comments. It worked really well! That guy is a good actor. How is it so obviously apparent though, I guess this shit just goes on all the time?

I don't think it's better than 'May' , the only other one I saw, but it's creepy and keeps you guessing and definitely does what it set out to do.

what else of his stuff would peeps recommend? Squints, I just dl'ed it. BRrip

Sleepless

RK has become Xixax's own personal grumpy old man with all the fakes he's busted recently lol.

Also, relatively on topic... Has anyone been watching FX's American Horror Story? I've been hearing good stuff about it and I see the first two eps are available to stream on FX's website. Can anyone else confirm it's worth checking out?
He held on. The dolphin and all the rest of its pod turned and swam out to sea, and still he held on. This is it, he thought. Then he remembered that they were air-breathers too. It was going to be all right.

polkablues

It's terrible, but in a really fun way. Watch one episode and you'll know whether it's for you or not.
My house, my rules, my coffee

polkablues

LATE OCTOBER HORROR ROUNDUP:

Okay, so last week I watched a handful of horror flicks that I had been meaning to see, and these are them.



This was the crown jewel of the movies I watched.  I didn't know much about it going in, and that's exactly the way you want to experience it.  DO NOT READ ANYTHING MORE ABOUT THIS FILM BEFORE SEEING IT.  I'm not a huge spoiler-crier, but this is one movie where having it spoiled will absolutely gut the experience of watching it for the first time.  Suffice to say, it seems like a standard slasher at first, then something happens, and it just keeps getting more amazing all the way to the end.  I've already said too much.  JUST WATCH IT.




Pretty standard "small group trapped inside a building with a monster outside" story, with the benefit of a good cast.  Shea Wigham is always great, Paulo Costanzo is always likeable, and the chick from the Mercury commercials is passable.  It makes the mistake of starting out with too few characters, so there's a lack of good kills, which is the whole point of a movie like this, but there's a decent amount of tension, the creature is creative enough, and the chick from the Mercury commercials looks good in a t-shirt.  Biggest gripe: as soon as Costanzo's character (a doctoral candidate in biology, plot-conveniently enough) figures out the nature of how the creature is tracking them, everything that happens after is complete bullshit, because THERE ARE A THOUSAND BETTER WAYS THEY COULD AVOID THE DAMN THING.  But whatever.  It was good.  It achieved what it had set out to achieve.




Michael Fassbender with an Irish accent and the evil redhead from Joe Wright's Pride & Prejudice (Kelly Reilly) star in a riff on a Texas Chainsaw Massacre/Hills Have Eyes/Wrong Turn trope, with the homicidal hillbilly family replaced by a group of conflicted young chavs led by a bratty sociopath.  A little unevenly paced, but universally well-acted and effective.  The genre twist of having the bad guys be wayward kids, rather than cartoonish psycho-killers gives it a realism and a resonance that it wouldn't otherwise effect with its fairly rote plot-line.  The real point of the film is Reilly's performance, which not only calls to mind, but manages to stand alongside Shauna MacDonald's in The Descent in terms of the depth of the character's transformation from beginning to end.  The movie falls short of classic status, but it's recommended nonetheless.




This isn't normally classified as a horror movie, but after watching it, I classify it as one.  Everything Stefen has said about it was right.  EDIT: Maybe Stefen didn't say as much about it as I thought he did.  But he seemed to like it, and that's good enough for me!  This is a great movie.  There are moments and images from this film that are still stuck in my head.  It starts out amusing and ends up haunting, and is awesome the whole time.
My house, my rules, my coffee

RegularKarate

Since Polka's doing it, I guess I'll get into more of my list:



Trick 'r' Treat
Michael Dougherty 2007

This was better than I had expected.  I had heard good things, but you can never trust horror fans.
It's a horror anthology tied together in a style similar to Creepshow.  The difference is that the icon of the film gets more involved than just being present between segments.  It's a lot of fun. 
The stories can get a little cliched at times, but they're all short enough that it doesn't matter.  The way all the stories unfold is pretty interesting as well, it makes it feel more like one piece than a bunch of unrelated segments.



The Keep
Michael Mann 1983

Oh boy, I had never seen this since it was never released on DVD.  I was super excited about a Michael Mann horror film.  What would he follow up Thief with?  Yuck... what a misfire.  This is pretty consistently boring and makes very little sense.  Visually, it's a little exciting at points and you get Tangerine Dream doing the soundtrack again, but it just doesn't work in the end.



Dahmer
David Jacobson 2002

These serial killer biopics are usually pretty bad.  I just watched this because Jeremy Renner stars.  I wouldn't call this a horror movie at all, really.  It's just a boring sequence of events with no real build-up or conclusion.  I don't know what they were going for because nothing really interesting ever happens.  You don't really get a look into his mind and you don't really get involved in his murders.  It's like they took two paragraphs from his wikipedia page and just reenacted them. 



The Burning
Tony Maylam 1981

This is a really fun, classic slasher.  A Nightmare on Elm Street borrowed from this movie.  An implied pedophile is tricked by some kids and he freaks out and catches himself on fire only to come back years later to get revenge on all of them.
Lots of bad dialog, teen sex, and people getting murdered.  Clean, stupid fun.



A Horrible Way to Die
Adam Wingard 2010

Very different than You're Next which is more of an exciting traditional horror movie.  This is definitely an indie film about a serial killer back to track down his ex-girlfriend.  It's not even really a horror film.
I liked it though.  It's very slow moving, but it kept my interest the whole way through.  It's pretty well acted and written if a tad "overly indie".
If you're going to see this and "You're Next", I would say see You're Next first since there are elements in this movie that might spoil elements of the other (hope that's cryptic enough).



Insidious
James Wan 2010

Better than you'd think from the director of Saw, but still not that great.  It's got some good scares in it and some creepy images, but mostly it's a series of creepy things happening while mostly ripping off Poltergeist.
It's about a haunted kid, which is kinda cool by itself.  When the creatures/demons/ghosts/whatever started showing up, I thought I was in for a good movie, but then it gets pretty convoluted with unnecessary added layers and twists.
Not a complete waste of time, but nothing great either.




tpfkabi

Quote from: RegularKarate on October 27, 2011, 02:11:17 PM



The Burning
Tony Maylam 1981

This is a really fun, classic slasher.  A Nightmare on Elm Street borrowed from this movie.  An implied pedophile is tricked by some kids and he freaks out and catches himself on fire only to come back years later to get revenge on all of them.
Lots of bad dialog, teen sex, and people getting murdered.  Clean, stupid fun.

That movie looks kinda interesting.

AMC Fear Fest showed The People Under the Stairs. I had never heard of this movie. It was so bizarre and funny at times. I think I will pick up the DVD if I see it. You got the guy from Twin Peaks in full leather running around shooting the walls while a guy Roach is running around like crazy in between the walls. Hilarious. I don't see how anyone could even come up with a story like that.
I am Torgo. I take care of the place while the Master is away.

Ghostboy

I'm queuing up a lot of horror titles for the weekend, and have selected a lot of sequels. So far I've watched both of the Poltergeist sequels. The second one is ridiculous, but has a few terrifying scenes, and the backstory about the preacher is sort of awesome. The third one is even more ridiculous, but actually works a little better, and the practical effects (which were done entirely in camera) are pretty fun. They're definitely not good movies, but they were fun and I'll remember them fondly.

Next up: The Exorcist II.