Horror films

[holyzombiejesus]

And, controversial I know, I really enjoyed the sequel, although I believe it got absolutely slated.

Which one? Never saw the Book of Dreams or whatever the fuck it was called but the recent remake with a spooky monster in it wa dogshit.

The original BWP is probably the scariest film I've ever seen on release. Fuck. Thinking of that staring at the wall and the handprints. Then again, I thought Paranormal Activity was great too.

[SteveDave]

Witch in the Window is really good. The bit where

Spoiler alert

the 'mom' rings the dad to say that the son has got home ok when he's sitting there right next to the dad

[close]

felt quite fresh, as was the bit where

Spoiler alert

they saw the back of someone's head in the chair and walked over and it didn't vanish or turn out to be a football or a sausage or antyhtnign.

[close]

.

I really liked this too. A refreshing lack of "DUNN!" whenever the woman appeared.

[Brundle-Fly]

Witch in the Window is really good. The bit where

Spoiler alert

the 'mom' rings the dad to say that the son has got home ok when he's sitting there right next to the dad

[close]

felt quite fresh, as was the bit where

Spoiler alert

they saw the back of someone's head in the chair and walked over and it didn't vanish or turn out to be a football or a sausage or antyhtnign.

[close]

.

Seconded. Very good.

[holyzombiejesus]

Did either of you see anything in the magic eye picture?

[Brundle-Fly]

No. I paused it for about ten minutes but I saw nothing. Put it down to middle-aged ropey retina focusing skills.

[Dave The Triffids]

Following a recommendation on here, I watched Terrifier on Shudder at the weekend and was very impressed.  It's a really effective, properly nasty 1980's-style slasher film - it has a few genuine shocks, a scary villain and successfully captures the somewhat off-kilter weirdness a lot of movies of that era possess.  To me the ending

Spoiler alert

very much reminded me of something from "Tales of the Unexpected" and while predictable, it fitted very well with the films overall look and mood.

[close]

[Brundle-Fly]

Art, the clown was also in All Hallows Eve (2013)

Here's a similar character in a quite nifty horror short

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLHjyGNmm5U

[Artie Fufkin]

Which one? the Book of Shadows

Yep. That one.

[Moribunderast]

Sputnik - a recent Russian sci-fi/horror was pretty decent, I thought. Cosmonaut returns from space but is being kept in isolation and studied due to the incident that led to his return, is a spoiler-free premise for it. A slightly more spoily premise, though not giving anything away past the first ten/twenty minutes is

Spoiler alert

Man returns from space but he may have brought back a dangerous extraterrestrial companion.

[close]

It's not amazing by any means but I like sci-fi/horror and it was an entertaining outing in that genre.

And please, nobody waste your time with 1BR. It was recommended on some "Best Horror Films On Netflix" article I saw and it is fucking atrocious. The answer to the question: What if The Tenant but terrible?

[ImmaculateClump]

I didn't care for either, found them both very generic and flat, but I think I'd recommend 1BR over Sputnik if someone said they HAD to watch one or the other.
Opinions!

[zomgmouse]

October's coming up, is anyone doing any horror challenges or anything?

I'm planning to watch 31 horror films over the course of the month.

[mjwilson]

Is UK Shudder good at the moment? I had a trial ages ago and there wasn't that much on it.

[neveragain]

Host - a very thin story but that's the only negative criticism I can make. Acting, tension and scares sublime with a couple of laughs and good use of Zoom's functions/glitches. Also, the references to lockdown life didn't feel crowbarred in and will be interesting to viewers in the future (if any).

[ImmaculateClump]

Great, innit? :D Relentless once it gets going, really tense. Great use of the narrow angle lenses on laptops and phones to make everything feel too close and claustrophobic.
Only an hour as well. It's a lean beasty.
There are a couple of things you could pick at, but why would you? Great fun.

[Noodle Lizard]

Is UK Shudder good at the moment? I had a trial ages ago and there wasn't that much on it.

Shudder was great in its early days, as it also tended to carry some relatively obscure films that you couldn't even rent anywhere else (like The Devils, the 1989 Woman In Black). They also had what seemed to be a pilot episode of a documentary series by Rodney Ascher (Room 237, The Nightmare) called Primal Screen, which dealt with people collectively being traumatised by something they saw on TV as a child - in this instance, the trailer for the Richard Attenborough movie Magic. That was promising, but it appears to have been abandoned.

While you still occasionally get something like Wake In Fright or One Cut Of The Dead turning up on there, their selection seems more geared towards almost SyFy-quality horrors now, as well as their Originals which are largely quite poor, and they seem to have very short licensing deals so things appear and disappear constantly.

That said, it's quite inexpensive and will occasionally provide the goods. I've got it as an Amazon Prime Channel, so I can start/stop my subscription easily as needed.

[Noodle Lizard]

I just recently watched a few alien horrors, as I was in the mood for watching a few alien horrors. I thought I'd more or less seen all of them that were worth seeing after my last hankering, including the truly excellent Fire In The Sky. But I found a couple I'd not yet bothered with:

First was Altered by Eduardo Sanchez of Blair Witch Project fame. I love BWP and had a lot of respect for his later film Lovely Molly as well, so I trusted his judgement when it came to doing alien horror. Sadly, it was really shit. I think discussing it at all would be an instant spoiler anyway, so I won't bother. Poor acting, poor direction, not scary, not interesting.

Second was Phoenix Forgotten, a found footage alien jaunt based on the real-life Phoenix Lights incident. It's one of those half documentary half found footage films, similar to Lake Mungo or Savageland (which is well worth your time), concerning the "filmmaker's" teenage brother and his friends who've gone all missing whilst trying to find aliens in the Arizona desert. Predictable as you like, but had a few nice touches. For once, the old camcorder footage actually looks authentic, and the acting is mostly quite good for a film of this sort. There are a lot of shit things about it too, mind, but it's worth a look watch.

Then Dark Skies, the biggest of the bunch (in terms of production value anyway). I remember seeing trailers for it and laughing at how rubbish it looked, so I never investigated any further. It wasn't quite as bad as the trailers had made it seem, but ultimately it's Insidious with aliens, right down to the ... twist? Can you call it that? Its attempts to be scary are comical more often than not, with the occasional well-judged moment or idea. I like that it incorporated a lot of "real world" information about grays, UFO encounters etc. but really it's everything you'd expect from a modern "haunted family" film: marital issues check, financial trouble check, troubled grumpy adolescent check, younger kid with imaginary friends and creepy drawings check etc. They even go and consult an "expert", played with tangible boredom by J.K. Simmons, who explains everything that's already happened and everything that's about to happen around the start of the third act. Generic as all fuck. That being said, I didn't not enjoy watching it.

[Noodle Lizard]

Also, speaking of the Blair Witch Project, I rewatched Book Of Shadows for the first time in god-knows-how-long. It's not as bad as I remembered, but that may partly be down to just how terrible the more recent attempt at a sequel was.

It's about the same quality as any of those other late 90s/early 00s horrors, yer House On Haunted Hill and The Haunting remakes and such - very of-its-time, and it has similar problems to those examples because of its inherent connection to its source material. In and of itself, though, it's sort of fine - perfectly watchable. I found some of the characters quite likeable, and I liked that you mercifully never see "the witch" or anything like that (could've done without the zombie kids and flashbacks, mind). It's easy to see the "twist" as kind of hacky, but I suppose at the time it wasn't quite as ubiquitous as it is now.

If it had just been its own film, without any mention of The Blair Witch Project or Rustin Parr or any of that, I think it would've fared a lot better. Of course, without those things, you wouldn't get the piss-warm "meta-commentary" on media and violence and such that the filmmaker was so proud of, but that stuff was utter bollocks anyway. I can't imagine how fucking furious I'd be if I were one of the creators of the original Blair Witch Project.

Also, there's no book in it and not even that many shadows.

[purlieu]

Then Dark Skies, the biggest of the bunch (in terms of production value anyway). I remember seeing trailers for it and laughing at how rubbish it looked, so I never investigated any further. It wasn't quite as bad as the trailers had made it seem, but ultimately it's Insidious with aliens, right down to the ... twist? Can you call it that? Its attempts to be scary are comical more often than not, with the occasional well-judged moment or idea. I like that it incorporated a lot of "real world" information about grays, UFO encounters etc. but really it's everything you'd expect from a modern "haunted family" film: marital issues check, financial trouble check, troubled grumpy adolescent check, younger kid with imaginary friends and creepy drawings check etc. They even go and consult an "expert", played with tangible boredom by J.K. Simmons, who explains everything that's already happened and everything that's about to happen around the start of the third act. Generic as all fuck. That being said, I didn't not enjoy watching it.

Oh Christ, this was terrible. I remember it being one of the first things I watched when I had Netflix. As you say, utterly generic.

[BlodwynPig]

Also, speaking of the Blair Witch Project, I rewatched Book Of Shadows for the first time in god-knows-how-long. It's not as bad as I remembered, but that may partly be down to just how terrible the more recent attempt at a sequel was.

It's about the same quality as any of those other late 90s/early 00s horrors, yer House On Haunted Hill and The Haunting remakes and such - very of-its-time, and it has similar problems to those examples because of its inherent connection to its source material. In and of itself, though, it's sort of fine - perfectly watchable. I found some of the characters quite likeable, and I liked that you mercifully never see "the witch" or anything like that (could've done without the zombie kids and flashbacks, mind). It's easy to see the "twist" as kind of hacky, but I suppose at the time it wasn't quite as ubiquitous as it is now.

If it had just been its own film, without any mention of The Blair Witch Project or Rustin Parr or any of that, I think it would've fared a lot better. Of course, without those things, you wouldn't get the piss-warm "meta-commentary" on media and violence and such that the filmmaker was so proud of, but that stuff was utter bollocks anyway. I can't imagine how fucking furious I'd be if I were one of the creators of the original Blair Witch Project.

Also, there's no book in it and not even that many shadows.

Destroys the mythos. I liked the snow.

[C_Larence]

As the nights are starting to get darker earlier I've been on a horror kick.
Last week I whizzed through the A Nightmare On Elm Street series, having never seen any of the movies before. In my opinion:

A Nightmare On Elm Street > ANOES 7: Wes Craven's New Nightmare > ANOES 3: Dream Warriors > ANOES 4: Dream Master > ANOES 5: Dream Child > ANOES 2: Freddy's Revenge > ANOES 6: Freddy's Dead. I haven't watched the remake yet but I assume it will be much closer to 6 than 1.

My main issue with the series as a whole is that I find Freddy to be a very boring character. Whether it's the more reserved version from the first couple of movies, or the wisecracking nonce from the later ones (excluding New Nightmare), I couldn't care less about his motivations. The "son of a hundred maniacs" origin story is hilarious though. God bless whoever said "yeah that'll do" on that one. "Welcome to prime time Bitch", on the other hand, is absolutely shite patter. It was all downhill from there.

Now I'm working my way through Friday the 13th. I've seen 4, 5, 6, 9 and X before, with 9 being far and away my favourite of those. despite it being regarded as the worst entry by pretty much everyone. I'm extremely looking forward to watching it again. So far I've made it through the first three relatively painlessly. The jump scare at the end of the first one is amazing, but the attempts to replicate it in the sequels cheapen it somewhat.

I watched Possession the other week too. No complaints there.

[ASFTSN]

I just recently watched a few alien horrors, as I was in the mood for watching a few alien horrors. I thought I'd more or less seen all of them that were worth seeing after my last hankering, including the truly excellent Fire In The Sky. But I found a couple I'd not yet bothered with:

I laughed at the way the aliens twatted the abductee in this. They were proper brutes.

[Brundle-Fly]

They also had what seemed to be a pilot episode of a documentary series by Rodney Ascher (Room 237, The Nightmare) called Primal Screen, which dealt with people collectively being traumatised by something they saw on TV as a child - in this instance, the trailer for the Richard Attenborough movie Magic. That was promising, but it appears to have been abandoned.

Yes, I was a bit nonplussed about that. Really enjoyed the one I saw expecting other episodes of various peoples' screen fears but nada.

[McChesney Duntz]

I expect that that was sort of a follow-up/expansion of this short he put out just post-ROOM 237:

https://vimeo.com/18332484

[Noodle Lizard]

It would've been great. I'm not sure if there ever were plans for more, but it certainly seems that way from the title/presentation.

[Noodle Lizard]

I expect that that was sort of a follow-up/expansion of this short he put out just post-ROOM 237:

https://vimeo.com/18332484

That's so strange - when I told a friend of mine about the Magic one, he mentioned how he'd had a similar shared experience with a friend being scared of that logo growing up.

[Brundle-Fly]

Watched Nightmare Cinema (2018) on Shudder last night and had a Phantasm ball. It's an anthology affair that are often hit and miss but I thought NC mostly hit the target. It's very silly in parts and the horror story themes are a little stock (except for one conceptual segment which was my fave). The movie fashionably pays homage to eighties horror  (with a nod to Amicus) but that's never a bad thing for me. Good name directors and some surprising cameos too. If you want a goofy Masters Of Horror,  Tales From The Crypt, Creepshow type of experience then this will be for you.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Berberian Sound Studio started life as a short film that was expanded to feature length and, boy howdy, does it ever feel like it. What seems like an hour of Toby Jones chopping up cabbages, while the sound and cinematography try vainly to suggest that it's all very disturbing. Eventually, it gets to the firework factory and lights up a couple of Roman candles but I barely cared by that point.

Just my interpretation, of course, but it seemed to have a pretty conservative message about desensitisation.

But it didn't have jump scares, so it's obviously a masterpiece.

[SteveDave]

Berberian Sound Studio started life as a short film that was expanded to feature length and, boy howdy, does it ever feel like it. What seems like an hour of Toby Jones chopping up cabbages, while the sound and cinematography try vainly to suggest that it's all very disturbing. Eventually, it gets to the firework factory and lights up a couple of Roman candles but I barely cared by that point.

Just my interpretation, of course, but it seemed to have a pretty conservative message about desensitisation.

But it didn't have jump scares, so it's obviously a masterpiece.

This was exactly my take on it. A lot of nothing happens.

[BlodwynPig]

Berberian Sound Studio started life as a short film that was expanded to feature length and, boy howdy, does it ever feel like it. What seems like an hour of Toby Jones chopping up cabbages, while the sound and cinematography try vainly to suggest that it's all very disturbing. Eventually, it gets to the firework factory and lights up a couple of Roman candles but I barely cared by that point.

Just my interpretation, of course, but it seemed to have a pretty conservative message about desensitisation.

But it didn't have jump scares, so it's obviously a masterpiece.

Well, you are of course wrong. It is a somnolent nightmare. Falling asleep in your grandmother's house in 1979 in autumn and waking at dusk with all the adults gone and just a faint sense of dread and a nodding dog souvenir on the mantlepiece for company. An giallo horror flickers to life on the Grundig and you never return to sanity.

[BlodwynPig]

This was exactly my take on it. A lot of nothing happens.

May I suggest Caddy Shack or Herbie Goes Bananas.