Horror films

[Glebe]

I'm going to see this at the cinema this Sunday - first time on the big screen. One of my favourite films ever, really looking forward to it.

Jealous AF. Enjoy that mate. Cinemas closed again here in Ireland.

Btw, New Rockstar's breakdown is worth a look.

[TrenterPercenter]

Have you seen Spider's Labyrinth? https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095728/ It's

This is recommended too (Dark Waters (1993 one) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109550/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_7 It's literally lovecratian and seems totally overlooked. How many films must be called dark waters though lolz?

THis is a great giallo film too https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072662/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0  such a great title, The Killer must Kill again, and a freaking great premise to it, too.

Haven't seen any of these but gave Dark Waters a go last night.  Wow! this film does so many things right.  Was reading about its troubled production due to what had happened in Ukraine previously.  Would be an excellent film to remake but the casting is sublime and haunting.  I'm a lovecraftian fan but I often find the water-theme not really that scary - they could really get around this with a modern adaptation that goes a bit more into a paganistic element demonics.  Anyway really good thank you for that.

I will try and check out the others : )

[JaDanketies]

I thought Mandy was fucking whack. It was like two films superglued together.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Indeed. I found the inciting incident so genuinely disturbing, that following it up with what's basically Evil Dead 2 on acid seemed unpleasantly flippant.

[ASFTSN]

Mandy and Colour Out of Space just made me want Nicholas Cage to stay as far away from horror as possible.

[zomgmouse]

More delving into the Ju-On/Grudge series, getting to the American ones now:

The Grudge 1 & 2 were adapted/remade by Takashi Shimizu who did the original Japanese Ju-On films, so they've still got that grounded and unsettling touch that made the Japanese ones so memorable and effective. The transposition to an American sensibility made a lot of sense with that in mind. I actually think these films were a little ahead of their time with the whole recent trend of "melancholy horror", which they definitely embody - especially the first one. 2 was clearly not as good as 1 but still had much to like, and introduced the "geographical spreading" element.

The Grudge 3 - maybe the weakest of the series so far. Some good atmosphere horror but the characters aren't very well rounded or particularly well acted either. And none of it ties together especially well. Though it should be noted the director of this, Toby Wilkins, also made three shorts that were released alongside The Grudge 2, which were quite good but not great - though the bit with

Spoiler alert

the guy pulling hair out of his throat

[close]

was one of the best examples of the apparition I think. Has anyone seen Splinter? Is it worth it?

The recent 2020 one was done by Nicolas Pesce, director of The Eyes of My Mother and (the much inferior but still interesting) Piercing. I think your enjoyment of this one depends on how much you enjoy the series as a whole and the concept of the series itself. Which I do. So I liked this interpretation of it. I also think the criticisms of it being "more of the same" are a little disingenuous, as it's almost like the nature of the curse itself - and so it then becomes about seeing how the particular situations play out and how each new iteration of characters respond to it. I didn't think this was amazing but it added some things to think about, which I appreciated.

Plus I watched a couple of straight-to-video Japanese ones, Black Ghost (very stale and below average) and White Ghost (rather well done and I enjoyed

Spoiler alert

the introduction of a cursed audio cassette tape

[close]

).

I think that's me done for now - maybe next year if I get around to the Ring series I can read and watch those and then see the "Ring vs Grudge" crossover from 2016, as well as the 2014 and 2015 "reboots".

[JaDanketies]

Watched Ginger Snaps yesterday. Fun horror, I can definitely see why teenage girls loved it so much.


We watched the Grudge not so long ago (the US one with Sarah Michelle Gellar) and we still do the creepy Grudge noise at each-other.

[Jerzy Bondov]

I introduced my 2 year old son to the creepy Grudge noise by doing it at him really suddenly in the dark. He absolutely shat himself. Very funny.

Watched Savageland today and enjoyed it. Some of the photos are really fucked up.

[Noodle Lizard]

I introduced my 2 year old son to the creepy Grudge noise by doing it at him really suddenly in the dark. He absolutely shat himself. Very funny.

Watched Savageland today and enjoyed it. Some of the photos are really fucked up.

Yeah, I'm not sure if I ever mentioned that one here, it's very good for what it is. Its budget/inexperience shows at times, but there's plenty to enjoy. Some of it is genuinely creepy.

[phantom_power]

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) - pretty much a masterpiece of paranoid horror. The bit where they are all asleep and the pods start forming is body horror that Cronenberg would be proud of,  Leonard Nimoy plays the smuggest man on earth and it has the best ending of all the 70s grim endings.

[badaids]

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) - pretty much a masterpiece of paranoid horror. The bit where they are all asleep and the pods start forming is body horror that Cronenberg would be proud of,  Leonard Nimoy plays the smuggest man on earth and it has the best ending of all the 70s grim endings.

I remember the first time I saw this scene, just flicking through the channels and falling across it and absolutely scared the living shit out of me.  It still creeps me the fuck out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7YntoZAOpE

[Hand Solo]

I remember the first time I saw this scene, just flicking through the channels and falling across it and absolutely scared the living shit out of me.  It still creeps me the fuck out.

*Banjo Sting*

[phantom_power]

I remember the first time I saw this scene, just flicking through the channels and falling across it and absolutely scared the living shit out of me.  It still creeps me the fuck out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7YntoZAOpE

That's the 90s Abel Ferrera version

That dog is fucking creepy but doesn't really make sense in the context of the film

[Hand Solo]

That dog is fucking creepy but doesn't really make sense in the context of the film

The beardy man is a busker with a dog who's playing a banjo or something near the start, the implication is they both got podded together and somehow melded, hence the dog's face and the completely crazy banjo sting when it appears to remind you who he was.

[zomgmouse]

Happy Birthday to Me. Pretty dull and way too drawn-out, even if there's an okay enough idea at its core. Having said that, it features perhaps the greatest killing perhaps ever?

Spoiler alert

Not the kebab one on the poster but rather the one with the weights.

[close]

And the moment of the

Spoiler alert

"birthday party"

[close]

was pretty good as well, even though the subsequent

Spoiler alert

"twist" with the sister

[close]

was completely moronic. But yeah, much, much longer than it needs to be.

[zomgmouse]

the creepy Grudge noise

one of the great creations of cinema I think

[petercussing]

Haven't seen any of these but gave Dark Waters a go last night.  Wow! this film does so many things right.  Was reading about its troubled production due to what had happened in Ukraine previously.  Would be an excellent film to remake but the casting is sublime and haunting.  I'm a lovecraftian fan but I often find the water-theme not really that scary - they could really get around this with a modern adaptation that goes a bit more into a paganistic element demonics.  Anyway really good thank you for that.

I will try and check out the others : )

Ooooh, someone listened to me! Glad you liked it. An update would be great, but i don't think it'd look as nice with cg. It's not the greatest, but it's pretty good film, innit.

PM if you can't find Spider's Labyrinth and i'll help you out (and the Killer must..)

[purlieu]

one of the great creations of cinema I think

Although less scary when you can't stop thinking it's just the opening of Free Radicals by the Flaming Lips.

[Junglist]

If you like horror anthologies, then The Mortuary Collection on Shudder is fantastic. Best since Trick r Treat.

[basterfeldt]

There's a great new indie horror movie thing playing as part of Frightfest today called The World We Knew. Not sure if it's got distribution yet but I saw an early screening and it was fantastic.

[zomgmouse]

Brain Damage. Good bit of fun, enjoyed this a great deal more than Basket Case for some reason. Puppet was fantastic (with a wonderful voice), nice camp energy.

The Sacrament. Decent but not West's best, kind of treats the whole Jonestown element a little bit too surface-level unfortunately.

[Helvetica Scenario]

If you like horror anthologies, then The Mortuary Collection on Shudder is fantastic. Best since Trick r Treat.

Agreed, good, daft fun. Very much in the tradition of 80s anthology films without actually aping them. Also features an appearance from former CaB comedy insider, James Bachman!

[zomgmouse]

Blood Hook. Knowingly schlocky 80s fishing horror, distributed but not made by Troma, unfortunately even the knowingness doesn't really save it from being a bit shit.

Horrors of Spider Island. Terrible. No wonder it ended up on MST3K (which isn't where I watched it). 80% an excuse to show off women's bodies, 20% some freaky shitty giant spider puppets.

The Grapes of Death. My first Jean Rollin. Surprised at how bleak, depressive and contemplative this is compared to other Euro horrors e.g. Jess Franco. Really dug it and must check out more Rollin.

Night Feeder. DIY SOV DTV from 1988 featuring post-punk band The Nuns and a string of mysterious deaths where people's brains have been sucked out. The final five minutes are really the only part of this that are worth it really, and good golly are they worth it!!! Actually it's all surprisingly more competent than it could be, but is also very far from being good.

Cat People (the original 1942 one). Rather underwhelming all things considered. Some effective sequences but overall did not connect with it much.

Rapture aka Arrebato. Kind of entrancing drug trip with (possible vampires??). I liked it.

[Jerzy Bondov]

If you like horror anthologies, then The Mortuary Collection on Shudder is fantastic. Best since Trick r Treat.

Thanks, I love anthologies. Anyone watched Nightmare Cinema, also on Shudder? It's got one brilliant segment from David Slade. The rest is okay, but the framing device is very poor. Joe Dante's segment is about cosmetic surgery gone wrong, and is immediately followed by an appearance from Mickey Rourke, which does everything the segment was trying to do in about one second.

[Famous Mortimer]

Virgin Among The Living Dead
My favourite Jess Franco, and one of my favourites of anyone. Masterpiece of mood and atmosphere.

Monster Mash: The Movie
Bobby Pickett rode that Monster Mash song for his entire adult life. This is a movie of a stage play Pickett wrote and performed in the 60s, called "I'm Sorry the Bridge is Out, You'll Have to Spend the Night", and for some reason not only is Mink Stole in it, she sings one of the songs. It's awful, the sort of thing that people who've never met a child think kids will like.

[neveragain]

If you like horror anthologies, then The Mortuary Collection on Shudder is fantastic. Best since Trick r Treat.

The partner and I watched both of those back to back. Sad to say we were disappointed with Mortuary Collection. The stories were reasonable but it felt too drawn out, particularly the framing device which suffered badly from not ending. Trick or Treat was just about perfect, the simultaneous stories device worked very well.

[TrenterPercenter]

I've just watched K-Shop and throughly enjoyed it.  It's film about a man who works in a Kebab shop in a typical binge drinking seaside town (it's actually filmed in Bournemouth) who after his dad is murdered begins making kebabs out of the locals (ala Sweeny Todd). Its Film4 style (reminded me a bit of attack the block for some reason) and budget, but it does well, and the cast, especially the lead are great. I'm sure many here will enjoy it.  Really suprised I hadn't heard of it as it's a little gem.  Give it a whirl it's on Prime at  the moment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtT8sKCH_mQ

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Monster Mash: The Movie
Bobby Pickett

We won a quiz this evening, in part thanks to me seeing this earlier. Thus were your sufferings redeemed.

[zomgmouse]

The Frighteners. Some good old Hollywood-funded Peter Jackson horror fun. Bit of a bloated mess in some respects but it never really lets up the silly haunt energy.

Tam-Lin. Wild curio, directed by Roddy MacDowall, stuffed full of notable cast members (Ava Gardner, Ian McShane, Cyril Cusack, Sinéad Cusack, Joanna Lumley, Bruce Robinson). Very loose adaptation of the Tam-Lin folk song/poem brought forward to the Swinging Sixties. Truly odd. Hardly a horror film really, even the final sequence is more of an extreme trip than a horror sequence. But I suppose it's got a tinge of the old folk horror about it all the same.

The Masque of the Red Death. Classic Corman Poe Price which I'd never seen. Excellent menace and chaos. That dance and unmasking towards the end... genius. Didn't realise till the credits that it was shot by Nicolas Roeg, fabulously excellent visuals.

[shagatha crustie]

Watched Hellraiser for the first time last night. Enjoyable tosh, some terrible direction. I think it only really endured because Pinhead is such a striking image - used to jump right out at me in Blockbusters when I were a kid.