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March 28, 2024, 04:56:54 PM

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Horror films

Started by dr_christian_troy, October 24, 2019, 11:05:02 AM

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Watched What Ever Happened to Baby Jane tonight.
Cwoar! That was fabulous! Gently funny and deliciously twisted. Smiled all the way through.

Custard

That's a truly great film. Really disturbing

Yeah,
Spoiler alert
when she was kicking her sister around
[close]
, I was like fucking hell! Imagine the impact of that at the time!
Bette Davis was amazing and Victor Buono too, I really liked him.
Joan Crawford was a bit melodramatic and silly, I'm assuming she wasn't intentionally playing it for laughs, but alls well that ends well.
yeah, I loved it. Perfect.

Junglist

The Night House is nothing new but Rebecca Hall carries it well.

Now time for VHS 94.

Junglist

Okay so Timo Tjahjanto, the guy who did the God tier Cult section of VHS 2, has a section in this and it is up there with the most inventive, wonderful stuff I have ever seen. Just absolute top tier.

frajer

Quote from: Junglist on October 06, 2021, 01:55:12 PM
Okay so Timo Tjahjanto, the guy who did the God tier Cult section of VHS 2, has a section in this and it is up there with the most inventive, wonderful stuff I have ever seen. Just absolute top tier.

Oh that's terrific news. The cult section of 2 still pops into my head from time to time, especially the brief but terrifying moment after it all kicks off and
Spoiler alert
they encounter the chap standing stock still who calmly shoots himself in the head.
[close]
Very much looking forward to checking out 4.

Junglist

Aside from that segment it is typical VHS fodder, average if decent shorts, but that bit still has me going wild. Watched it twice now.

SteveDave

The only bit of "VHS 94" I liked was the Christian terrorist group because it wasn't immediately apparent what was happening. All the others were a bit blunt in their premise or just boring as arseholes like the all night wake one.

zomgmouse

Quote from: ImmaculateClump on October 06, 2021, 01:12:11 AM
Watched What Ever Happened to Baby Jane tonight.
Cwoar! That was fabulous! Gently funny and deliciously twisted. Smiled all the way through.

all-timer this one

Quote from: Junglist on October 06, 2021, 01:55:12 PM
Okay so Timo Tjahjanto, the guy who did the God tier Cult section of VHS 2, has a section in this and it is up there with the most inventive, wonderful stuff I have ever seen. Just absolute top tier.

Quote from: Junglist on October 06, 2021, 02:13:21 PM
Aside from that segment it is typical VHS fodder, average if decent shorts, but that bit still has me going wild. Watched it twice now.

was wondering whether to give this a go or not, a lot of the time with these recent anthologies (VHS, ABCs) I just pick and choose based on the directors, so looks like the same applies here


zomgmouse

At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul. My first foray into the world of Coffin Joe. A pretty extraordinary character by all accounts - fiercely misogynistic, sexually violent, narcissistic... so it's supremely satisfying when he gets his own towards the end.

Bug Buster. Low-bu(d)get schlock in which Teen Girl Katherine Heigl's parents buy a resort lodge in a town that starts being plagued by deadly bugs whose Sheriff James Doohan can't control the situation even with the help of Scientist George Takei and eventually they need to call in the services of Wacky Exterminator Randy Quaid and kill the Mother Bug Doug Jones. Not without its charms but it's really really bad.

Anguish. A creepy man under the spell of his mother (the ever enchantingly unsettling Zelda Rubinstein) have an obsession with eyes and want to steal everyone's eyes. And then it is revealed this is actually a film that an increasingly queasy audience is watching in a cinema... delectably odd and, as a result of the twin storylines, masterfully tense viewing.

Jakob's Wife (2021). Barbara Crampton is a dissatisfied minister's wife who encounters an eerie entity which causes an awakening of empowerment as well as perhaps... a taste for blood... lots of blood... there's some fun moments in this and a campy elegance, but it does go a bit hamfisted at times.

and the Tjahjanto segment of V/H/S/94 was as promised really good! thanks for the heads-up Junglist

neveragain

Quote from: SteveDave on October 06, 2021, 10:28:08 PM
The only bit of "VHS 94" I liked was the Christian terrorist group because it wasn't immediately apparent what was happening. All the others were a bit blunt in their premise or just boring as arseholes like the all night wake one.

I enjoyed all four stories, but found the framing device intolerable. The wake had a weak ending (but I thought great atmosphere) and the storm drain one - for the first section - didn't make sense as raw footage, as the report was introduced as if broadcast. I loved the news bits and commercial in that one though.
The other two (mad scientist and Christian militia) I enjoyed very much.
One last niggle: the gore became oddly samey as the film went on.

holyzombiejesus

I watched one of the new Blumhouse Presents things on Prime last night. It was called The Manor and it was, unsurprisingly, utter shit.

purlieu

The Empty Man. A mixed bag, starts with a really wonderful and bizarrely long pre-credits sequence (22 minutes!), then goes into a pretty naff Candyman-ripoff segment, then goes into an 'investigating a weird cult' area, before the twist ending. There's not much especially original in there, but it's mostly done pretty well. There are a number of memorable visual moments,
Spoiler alert
the group in a field at night bit being genuinely chilling,
[close]
and the score and sound design really, really impressed me. No masterpiece, but has enough confidence to be worth a watch.

Gregory Torso

I watched V/H/S/94 tonight and was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it. The last one (Viral) was utter shite, so I didn't have high expectations, but yeah, lots of fun. As with the other films, the wrap-around section is completely fucking awful and pointless, this particularly though had some of the worst acting I've seen outside of the Horror Channel at 2 am, but the shorts were good. I actually really liked the funeral home short,, it felt quite old fashioned and creepy and enjoyed the last one with
Spoiler alert
the militia and their secret weapon although it was let down by some shitty effects at the end
[close]
, cool idea. Timo Tjahjanto, who co-directed the best part of the second VHS, Safe Haven, has been getting all the praise for his bit, but, while I liked
Spoiler alert
all the mad cyborg shit, once it turned into a 1st player video game with some terrible CGI gunfire effects,
[close]
I wasn't that into it. And that's my review of anthology horror film, the V/H/S/94.

I do like a horror anthology, and they're often quite shit, but I hope they make more of these. They should ditch the connecting stories, though, because they're always bad. Also, seeing the
Spoiler alert
weird little commercial in this one
[close]
, I'd love it if they did a sort of Amazon Women On The Moon type thing and threw in some little segments like that, to give the feeling of watching an actual tape.

Three stars, some funny bits.

I watched it as well. Yeah, I really enjoyed it too! It's always a mixed bag with them anthologies, it's usually a total roller-coaster, but this was much more solid and steady, nothing too amazing, but all decent, not a dud among them, I didn't think. The wake one could have been half the length but the end was fun.

Yeah, I too wasn't immensely blown away by the "killing floor" bit, although it was nicely done, everything had a very cliched look and feel. Like you say, a first person shooter horror game. The visual style felt very flat and unimaginative, like it was all just borrowed ideas magpied from other places. Good fun though!

I really like horror anthologies, you often get at least one segment that you really like and if ones particularly bad, you at least know that it's not going to last an hour and a half.

I kind of want to mention the ones I've really liked to find out which film they came from, but it'd be full of spoilers!

zomgmouse

over the weekend had a "creepy Spanish orphanage with ghosts" double over a couple of days with The Devil's Backbone and The Orphanage. Liked both in different ways - I think The Devil's Backbone has a better overall tone, though it seems less engaging in the second half once the
Spoiler alert
explosion
[close]
happens and
Spoiler alert
the ghost boy mystery
[close]
becomes a little drably inevitable. The Orphanage manages to keep the grief and intrigue going

Halloween II. It's not bad but it feels a bit pointless when the original exists. Very watered down.

A Cat in the Brain. Meta horror comedy from Lucio Fulci where he plays himself terrorised by his own imagination, from being affected in his daily life by associations with the horrors he's cooked up over the years (e.g. not being able to look at meat in a restaurant after watching rushes) to a serial killer recreating deaths from Fulci's films. A little too much footage from his previous films (though it is integrated pretty well, and I'm unlikely to watch any of them - these are the late 80s straight to video works like Sodom's Ghost) but apart from that it's a fun premise and Fulci plays his part extremely well.

The Nest. Another independent bug horror, this one's at least a little competent (compared to Bug Buster) and the bugs are plentiful and icky. Decent creature work towards the end.

zomgmouse

Patchwork. Three women wake up sewn together and have to figure out how they got there. Decent enough premise and opening but falls sadly flat in the execution.

Doesn't really count as a horror film I suppose but I found out about horror anthology Into the Dark with different horror directors doing feature-length episodes (one of which was done by the director of Patchwork, but I didn't want to watch that following my viewing) including Nacho Vigalondo, who directed the episode "Pooka!", in which a struggling actor takes a role as a Christmas mascot and the mascot starts to take over. Fun and chilling enough, particularly when the madness kicks in.

Count Dracula (1977 TV film with Louis Jourdan). Incredibly dry (albeit, in boing so, incredibly faithful) but Jourdan is a wonderful choice for Dracula. And really nice to see some location shots at Whitby. Some of the effects haven't aged well but it does do the Gothic Ambiance well. Also fun to have Frank Finlay as Van Helsing.

I watched that Night House a couple nights ago and I reckon it's a two bagger.
I think it was a film that lived or died on the strength of it's central performance and I don't think the main actress was good enough to carry it. Perhaps she just wasn't right for the part or badly directed, but she never felt convincingly like she was living this or giving too much of a shit about any of it, just acting in front of a camera.

Brundle-Fly

Finally watched Midsommar (2019). I thought it was very entertaining, not fantastically original, but it made up for that by looking beautiful. It was well written, directed and acted with genuinely disturbing moments. Also quite funny.  Half an hour too long though. I never expected to witness Chidi from The Good Place
Spoiler alert
getting knocked unconscious with a mallet and then sodomised by a deformed inbred wearing a skin mask of the face of the guy from Black Mirror.
[close]

It's great, innit? :D
Spoiler alert
That mirroring thing they were doing when she was crying, despite it being a bit cold and robotic and surface level, a bit creepy and almost mocking, it was a lot closer to genuine empathy than she'd been getting from her friends.
Would you have stayed? Bearing in mind that you get to dance around like a princess with a crown of flowers on your head, off your tits on shrooms, and burn your ex alive! :D
I think it's the best representation of hallucinogenics on film I've seen. It was restrained and subtle in a way that it never is.
That bit where she's starting to freak out and then they start holding her hands and bringing her out of herself and getting her heartrate up and dancing around and looking at others and connecting and laughing.
i wanna watch it again now.
like you say, it's a bit long. I heard there was a directors cut that makes it even longer!
[close]

Brundle-Fly

Yes, spot on with the
Spoiler alert
shroom visuals.
[close]
It felt like 2003 all over again.

druss

Also just watched Midsommar.
Spoiler alert
At first I thought it was a bit tight to only give the locals the drug that would mean they felt no pain when being burnt alive and leave Christian to feel it all. But it turns out they were bullshitting and whatever they fed them did fuck all. Elders were real jerks.
[close]

zomgmouse

Two 2021 horrors yesterday:

The Medium. Faux documentary about spiritual beliefs in Thailand following one particular case of spooky possession. Some of the eventuation is a little standard but it has such a wonderful sense of place and culture that it takes it to another level, and the way it's played so straight gives it a fine unsettling edge. Plus some bonkers scenes.

Coming Home in the Dark. More of a thriller really but this NZ abduction film is super tense and thought-provoking, excellent genre storytelling with murky moral fable underpinnings. Beautiful to look at and well-acted, well-edited. Liked it a lot.


Custard

Quote from: ImmaculateClump on October 13, 2021, 06:58:55 PM
It's great, innit? :D
Spoiler alert
That mirroring thing they were doing when she was crying, despite it being a bit cold and robotic and surface level, a bit creepy and almost mocking, it was a lot closer to genuine empathy than she'd been getting from her friends.
Would you have stayed? Bearing in mind that you get to dance around like a princess with a crown of flowers on your head, off your tits on shrooms, and burn your ex alive! :D
I think it's the best representation of hallucinogenics on film I've seen. It was restrained and subtle in a way that it never is.
That bit where she's starting to freak out and then they start holding her hands and bringing her out of herself and getting her heartrate up and dancing around and looking at others and connecting and laughing.
i wanna watch it again now.
like you say, it's a bit long. I heard there was a directors cut that makes it even longer!
[close]

There is indeed a director's cut. 3 lovely/horrific hours it is

Tokyo van Ramming


zomgmouse

Chopping Mall. Killer security robots terrorise a group of teens throwing a nighttime party in a mall. Bit of a disappointment, I knew it wasn't going to be a masterpiece but even then it felt a little one-note the whole time.

Sisters. This is why we love De Palma. Truly masterful suspense work. The split screen in this is top tier, the mystery always teasing and twisting, nice Herrmann score, a kind of knowing tone to the whole thing, shot very very well, great cast, superb ending. Fantastic stuff.

Witch Hunt (2021). Alternate present day where witchcraft is real (and illegal). Very obviously allegorical and an interesting premise but it's not really particularly potent or engaging, though I suppose it feels like a YA film so maybe the expectations are different.

Custard

Antebellum (2020)

Janelle Monae is good as the lead in this, and it's a film that's very clearly been inspired by Get Out (with a hearty dollop of 12 Years A Slave and Django Unchained), and it looks great, but it doesn't have quite the impact of those films and feels a bit rushed.

If you do give it a go, do avoid any trailers or SPOILERZ, as I didn't know anything about it going in, and was very surprised at some twists n turns

3 bags

Junglist

History of the Occult

Low budget Argentinian film about the last episode of an investigative television show and how it could reveal the biggest conspiracy known to man - linking the government to an actual covern.

Really well told, intriguing. Been hearing about it for a while and it definitely lives up to its hype

Junglist

Up next: Red Screening.

Working my way through some South American horror.