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Good Horror Movies

Started by Hank Venture, August 19, 2013, 11:37:32 PM

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St_Eddie

Quote from: Avril Lavigne on May 31, 2018, 05:37:52 PM
Slow-paced, gothic, heavy on atmosphere and visually beautiful.  Vampires preferable but not a must.

The preferred types of a dating profile, right there.

Quote from: Mister Six on June 01, 2018, 01:57:46 AM
I hadn't seen Society for, ooh, 15 years and remembered it to be an eerie, dreamlike affair with a fucked-up ending. Which it is for 50 percent of its runtime, but the other 50 percent is an absurdly camp, Porkys-esque teen comedy...

Aye, the majority of Society is uninteresting, in my opinion but that ending makes the entire film worthwhile.

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: Avril Lavigne on May 31, 2018, 08:36:14 PM
I'm pretty new to Ken Russell's filmography, is The Devils his best?

I'd say so. Also The Lair Of The White Worm (1988) is some stylish unhinged fun.

TRAILER
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRdjfhCHG70

purlieu

Quote from: Mister Six on June 01, 2018, 01:57:46 AM
I'm kind of loathe to talk about The Invitation too much because I think it probably works best if you're as confused and unsure of what's going on as the main character. Even saying that it's probably more of a psychological thriller than a horror movie feels like it might be too much. The very impressive screenplay is dense without feeling overwhelming, and it manages to scale up the tension to a fever pitch without ever seeming outlandish or betraying its own internal logic or indulging in schlock. I particularly like how it (spoilers) remains grounded in a real world through and through, with nobody developing silly slasher-movie powers of springing back from the dead or suddenly becoming invulnerable to otherwise fatal attacks.
Absolutely astonishing film this. As you say, at no point does it really bely its reality, so it works as a real gut punch. Absolutely horribly tense and uncomfortable to watch.

BlodwynPig

Quote from: purlieu on June 01, 2018, 12:42:12 PM
Absolutely astonishing film this. As you say, at no point does it really bely its reality, so it works as a real gut punch. Absolutely horribly tense and uncomfortable to watch.

I loved this, as I can't watch jump scare movies it worked really well. Similar recommendations?

bgmnts

I thought Hush was quite good.

Mister Six

Quote from: St_Eddie on June 01, 2018, 06:56:38 AM
Aye, the majority of Society is uninteresting, in my opinion but that ending makes the entire film worthwhile.

I dunno, I actually found it interesting because of that mashing up (shunting?) of two very disparate styles. It's so broad and goofy with its humour, then it gets brutal, then it does goofy and horrific at the same time. The incongruity makes the film a lot more compelling to me than if it were a more straight-laced, conventionally shot horror film.

Annie Labuntur

Quote from: bgmnts on June 02, 2018, 12:24:20 AM
I thought Hush was quite good.

Same here. The ending was perhaps a little hard to take, or would have been if everything else before it hadn't been so good.

St_Eddie

Quote from: Mister Six on June 02, 2018, 01:27:31 AM
I dunno, I actually found it interesting because of that mashing up (shunting?) of two very disparate styles. It's so broad and goofy with its humour, then it gets brutal, then it does goofy and horrific at the same time.

I guess that I'm just a bit ambivalent towards everything prior to the last act.  There's still plenty to enjoy in the first two acts, to be sure (the shower scene and everything involving Blanchard are two particular standouts).  It's just that the film fails to truly grab my attention until the shunting commences, at which point, I find myself rewinding and rewatching that section, over and over again.

Annie Labuntur

Quote from: BlodwynPig on June 02, 2018, 12:23:34 AM
I can't watch jump scare movies

Avoid this year's Insidious 4: The Last Key, which has some very unsubtle and annoying ones. Worst in the series, probably not surprisingly, and Elise's two ghosthunter accomplices are still not remotely funny as comic relief.

Avril Lavigne

Quote from: zomgmouse on May 31, 2018, 11:43:07 PM
The Dracula Saga
Maybe some stuff by Jesús Franco if you like lots of nudity along with the above
Bava's Black Sunday

I'll look into these, thanks!

Quote from: Brundle-Fly on June 01, 2018, 12:31:15 PM
I'd say so. Also The Lair Of The White Worm (1988) is some stylish unhinged fun.

TRAILER
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRdjfhCHG70

This looks awesome! Stylish & Unhinged is one of my favourite combinations.

I keep thinking about rewatching It Follows but I kinda feel like it squanders its premise a little and becomes pretty generic by the third act.  I'd love to watch a better version of that movie if such a thing exists.

Sambob

The only horror I've seen recently that stayed in my mind is Unsane (2018) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7153766/?ref_=nv_sr_1

It's more of a thriller than a horror, but I personally find insanity and mental hospitals in general to be terrifying, and the hospital staff are all delightfully horrible. Some good perfomances from the three main leads. Also for some reason it was all filmed on an iPhone.

I give it 7.5 scary skulls out of 10.

Now I think about it Throroughbreds (2017) was pretty good too, more creepy-weird than creepy-scary, but anything involving horse-mutilation is going to be a bit scary. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5649108/?ref_=tt_rec_tt

7.2 pumpkins out of 10.

Custard

The Monster Squad (1987) - Good fun. Daft, nutty, proper 80's fun.

Altered States (1980) - I'm not quite sure what I just watched, but 'tit was very engrossing

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: Shameless Custard on June 07, 2018, 10:21:32 PM

Altered States (1980) - I'm not quite sure what I just watched, but 'tit was very engrossing

Now you know what influenced this 1990 UK top twenty pop video?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHn-BlvbDZY

Talasour

It's been a while since i posted on this thread but I recently watched a movie called Friend Request.

The movie is based on a girl called Laura who accepts a social outcast on a website that looks awfully like Facebook and then unfriends her once realizing that she's pretty edgy and gets a bit too clingy.

if you haven't seen it I would suggest it for shits and giggles but don't expect anything spectacular.

Here's the trailer;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDNgs0dgjj4

Mini

I may be getting these the wrong way round but I think I found Friend Request weaker than that other Facebook-based horror movie Unfriended, which has the slightly (very slightly) interesting USP of taking place entirely on a computer screen.

iamcoop

Quote from: Mini on June 15, 2018, 04:03:05 PM
I may be getting these the wrong way round but I think I found Friend Request weaker than that other Facebook-based horror movie Unfriended, which has the slightly (very slightly) interesting USP of taking place entirely on a computer screen.

Unfriended is quite good fun if I recall correctly. Throwaway but worth a watch.

neveragain

Yes I quite enjoyed the computer-screen one.

Z

When I was 16, I bought Altered States on the basis of "this is written by the guy who wrote Network!" Hadn't the slightest notion who Ken Russell was and was beyond pissed off with what I got.

In retrospect, I find this hilarious.

Steven

#1968
Quote from: iamcoop on June 15, 2018, 11:37:46 PM
Unfriended is quite good fun if I recall correctly. Throwaway but worth a watch.

And now THERE's A SEQUEL!!!

I like that the trailer shows you pretty much the entire movie, no need to watch it now, sweet.

Shaky

Not sure you could class it as horror (it's more deeply unsettling than horrific), but I watched 2004 Austrian film Hotel last night and enjoyed it. Very Lynch-influenced with it's ominous, lingering shots of relatively mundane objects, creepy woods containing some nebulous threat, a young woman out of her element and a droning soundtrack.

Recommended if you like slow mood pieces where not a huge amount happens.

purlieu

Finally got around to The Autopsy of Jane Doe, which was rather good. Didn't feel like a modern horror at all, other than a couple of jump scares. Nice tense atmosphere that builds throughout, and even a couple of the obvious tropes (girlfriend being accidentally killed, it all turning out to be witchcraft felt almost like a homage to older horror films rather than unimaginative. Enjoyed that.

BlodwynPig

Quote from: Steven on June 17, 2018, 03:36:13 PM
And now THERE's A SEQUEL!!!

I like that the trailer shows you pretty much the entire movie, no need to watch it now, sweet.

The first was one of my favourite comedies of that year. This looks hilarious.

purlieu

#1972
The Void. Superb. Wonderful '80s Cronenberg-esque vibe to all the visual FX, particularly the gore and the monsters, excellent atmosphere throughout, brilliantly creepy first act, very strong Lovecraft vibes and a ton of Hellraiser stuff too. Definitely a homage to all its influences (one of the monsters was blatantly inspired by Xtro), but also a wonderful film in its own right. Creepy, fucking weird, and a lot of fun too. I even liked the ending (I bet a lot of people didn't).

And on the completely different end of things, Creep, which wasn't my kind of thing in general and ended up a bit unsurprising, but up until the final section I thought it was good. I enjoyed the false ending, and Mark Duplass is incredibly good at playing really unpleasant human beings.

purlieu

Lake Mungo, what a great little film. Slow and atmospheric with only a touch of horror, then the phone video section which was really fucking chilling. Strong overall for a low-budget film, the documentary format is convincing. Wears a strong Twin Peaks influence without being derivative. I own the Murcof album the bulk of the soundtrack was taken from which was a bit distracting, but otherwise I enjoyed that.

I also watched Escape From Tomorrow, which has been described as a horror but I wouldn't call it that in any sense at all. It's a surreal arty film with a few creepy moments. While its guerrilla filming hook (made almost entirely at Disneyland without permission) makes it quite interesting, it's also not a particularly good film. Mostly just falls flat.

zomgmouse

Quote from: purlieu on June 21, 2018, 11:59:27 PM
Lake Mungo, what a great little film. Slow and atmospheric with only a touch of horror, then the phone video section which was really fucking chilling. Strong overall for a low-budget film, the documentary format is convincing. Wears a strong Twin Peaks influence without being derivative. I own the Murcof album the bulk of the soundtrack was taken from which was a bit distracting, but otherwise I enjoyed that.

I know Duke is a big fan of this and he first recommended it to me. I've borrowed it from a friend but have yet to watch it.

Junglist

I really, really dislike Lake Mungo and do not get it in the slightest.

St_Eddie

Quote from: Junglist on June 22, 2018, 01:32:08 AM
I really, really dislike Lake Mungo and do not get it in the slightest.

You're not the the only one.  I'm happy for the people who enjoyed it but I just don't get the appeal myself.  Personally, I thought it was dull, tedious and about as scary as a clump of belly button fluff.  It honestly made me wonder if I'd watched the wrong film by mistake and perhaps there was another film titled Lake Mungo, which is really scary and engaging but there is not.

Brundle-Fly



Watched The Lazarus Effect (2015) last week. Excellent cast line up including horror thread favourite, Mark 'Creep' Duplass, Donald "Childish Gambino" Glover, Evan "American Horror Story" Peters and Olivia "Bojack Horseman" Wilde.

Another Cert 15 supernatural yarn from the Blomhouse stable. A sort of Reanimator (1987) meets Carrie (1976). It has some creepy moments for sure, but didn't quite coagulate. It wasn't awful but I was merely whelmed.

Sambob

The Endless (2017) - I enjoyed this, crazy cults and strange goings on. Made by the same guy who made Resolution. I give it 7.2  out of 10. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3986820/?ref_=nv_sr_1

Incident in a Ghostland (2018) - A bit of a mish mash of different horror tropes, lots of twists and turns, the villains are a bit OTT post-TCM types but it kept me entertained, and bits of it are in French so you feel all sophisticated like. 6.8 out of 10. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6195094/?ref_=nv_sr_1

I also rewatched a film called End of The Line (2007) - People on the underground encounter some Crazy Christians who want to 'save' them with their knives. Lots of smiling and stabbing. Good scary fun. 7 out of 10. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0494224/?ref_=nv_sr_4

purlieu

#1979
As Above, So Below
Being claustrophobic, that had me on edge for the whole 90 minutes. All the found footage tropes are there - carrying on when any half-sensible person would have gone back, carrying the camera when it should have been dropped ages ago, turning around and turning back for a monster-in-the-face jump scare - and there were way, way too many undeveloped ideas going on rather than a single consistent story. And the ending was a fucking joke. I was waiting for them to get back to Paris only to find they'd gone the full 750 feet under and were in an inverted hell version of Earth, which would be obvious but an excellent way to end it, instead they survive and, what, show the video to people to prove demons exist? Found footage can't survive that kind of thing, it just doesn't work in the real world. Really, the 'abandon hope all ye who enter here' moment got me excited - the idea of a physical manifestation of hell is something I'm quite fascinated by and don't see often enough in horror films.

Despite all that, there was a good 60 minutes of them basically being forced to go deeper and deeper into horrible tiny tunnels with all hell breaking loose and horrible, deafening noises, which is basically my worst nightmare, so it still managed to scare the shit out of me, despite making no sense and having a really disappointing ending.

Apparently the lead male actor was claustrophobic. Why would you agree to start in a film made entirely in the Paris catacombs if you were claustrophobic?


edit: I just watched this video which goes into some detail about the parallels between the film and Dante's Inferno, and now it seems a bit better.