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Post by Neverending on Oct 20, 2023 18:41:38 GMT -5
DAY TWENTY: Body Parts (1991)**/**** Day 19 and Day 20: Child's Play 2 and Child's Play 3 — — — — — — BODY PARTS (1991) Remember the Halloween episode of The Simpsons where Homer gets Snake's hair transplanted on his head and then it takes over his mind? Yeah... that was a spoof of this movie. Jeff Fahey plays a guy who loses his arm in a car accident and then gets an arm transplant that has a mind of it's own and tries to go on a murderous rampage. It's a great concept, and there's a lot of great moments, but the script loses steam towards the end. It was obvious they didn't have much of a story to go along with the concept. Or the studio got in the way. This movie isn't exactly Idle Hands. It never gets TOO over-the-top and that may be the core issue.  Child’s Play was the first horror film I saw, so since next month is the 25th anniversary, I decided to reserve a spot for our favorite possessed doll. The movie begins with Brad Dourif being chased by Chris Sarandon in the streets of Chicago. He gets shot and then runs into a toy store. There, he grabs a Chucky doll and uses voodoo magic to transfer his soul into the toy. Then a few days later, we meet a single mom played by Catherine Hicks of Star Trek IV and 7th Heaven fame. She wants to give her 6-year-old son a Chucky doll for his birthday but they’re ridiculously expensive. They cost $100 in 1988 money. So she finds a hobo who sells it to her for $30. And although she saved a few bucks, it definitely wasn’t worth it because it comes to life and goes on a killing spree. Director Tom Holland (Fright Night) makes a good effort to make this concept work but it usually comes across as very stupid. What rescues the film is Brad Dourif’s vocal performance as Chucky. He makes Chucky the most multi-dimensional villain in contemporary horror movies. Even though the character is pure evil, you can still imagine yourself going to a bar with him and having ordinary conversations. And when the sequels came along, Chucky got strangely more normal with each one. The first sequel was released in 1990 and follows the aftermath of the original. Since a possessed killer doll is hard to believe, Catherine Hicks is put in a mental institute while her son is sent to a foster home. Then Chucky returns and we get a rehash of the original film. It’s underwhelming to say the least but we do get an excellent climax at the toy factory where the Chucky dolls are built. The third sequel, released in 1991, is directed by Jack Bender of Lost fame. This one takes place in the future where the son is now a teenage boy played by Justin Whalin, who you may remember as Jimmy Olsen on the Lois and Clark TV series. The setting for this sequel is a military school, which is a nice change of pace, but once again, we get a rehash of the original. Audiences, myself included, got bored of it and the movie flopped at the box office. So another Chucky, or “Child’s Play”, installment wasn’t released till 1998 which was the 10th anniversary. That’s when we got Bride of Chucky which is the second most successful film in the series. This one was directed by Ronny Yu (Freddy vs Jason) and focuses on the twisted love story between Chucky and his girlfriend Tiffany, who is played by Jennifer Tilly. Most people think it’s hilarious but I don’t think it’s very funny. I’m actually one of the very few people that prefers 2004's Seed of Chucky which is directed by Don Mancini, the sole screenwriter of every sequel. The reason this one works is because it fully embraces being a B-movie. Bride of Chucky is too mainstream while this one has John Waters, references to Ed Wood, and lots of Hollywood satire. Plus, I love how Chucky is now a husband and father. He went from a children’s toy that murders people to an evil spirit trying to become human so he can provide a better future for his family. That’s great dark comedy and it’s tempting me to say that Seed of Chucky is actually the best in the series. Anyway, while you wrap your mind around that statement, a new sequel has been released for the 25th anniversary. It’s titled Curse of Chucky and was made available directly to DVD, Blu-Ray, and digital platforms. I haven’t seen it yet so I can’t comment on it. So maybe next year. Is it 2017 already? Curse of Chucky (2013) / Cult of Chucky (2017) Chucky arrived late into the slasher genre’s heyday of the 1980’s and has limped along ever since. The fact they’re still making these damn movies without rebooting the series or making large compromises is astonishing. Chucky is like the X-Men of slasher films. In 2013 he returned from a 9 year hiatus in Curse of Chucky. It’s billed as going back to basics, but that’s a tad misleading. Most of the running time is spent on a dysfunctional family slowing being killed by Chucky in their home but by the ending it segways into camp. That leads into Cult of Chucky, released this year, which is not quite Bride of Chucky/Seed of Chucky level of camp but it's close enough and there’s no doubt any sequel will continue the trend of slowly returning to where the franchise was in 2004. On a technical level, Curse is better. The characters are more fun to watch and the story is simple enough that anyone can watch it without having to dive back into the series. Cult, on the other hand, is pure mythology. They bring back characters from previous installments, evolve Chucky and continue to expand on the saga. People have jokingly said that Chucky has the best continuity of any horror series... that isn’t too far from the truth. It’s impressive how much mileage they’ve given to a stupid movie to 1988. It’s intriguing and worth anticipating what comes next. Till then... HAPPY HALLOWEEN |
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Post by Neverending on Oct 20, 2023 21:28:54 GMT -5
BASIC INSTINCT (1992) Basic Instinct is an interesting movie. Director Paul Verhoeven (Robocop) did a remarkable job of creating an erotic thriller with Hitchcockian overtones. But the script by Joe Eszterhas is very problematic. It's about a novelist who is the prime suspect in a murder investigation. Did she use one of her books as a blueprint to kill her lover or is a psychotic fan using the books as inspiration? It's a very simple premise but the execution is very convoluted. If you sit down and think about it, much of it doesn't make sense and almost all of it is ridiculously outlandish. But let's be honest. No one is watching Basic Instinct for the story. Everyone is watching it for Sharon Stone's breakout performance, the softcore pornography and Jerry Goldsmith's memorable score. And since all of those things are exceptionally well-done, I consider the film a success. It's a messy success but a success nonetheless. A- --- --- --- Happy Friday the 13th Basic Instinct That Jerry Goldsmith score? Chef's kiss. This dude has a mirror on his ceiling to watch himself fuck Sharon Stone. This movie is set in San Francisco? Where are all the homeless people? "I wasn't dating him. I was fucking him." "Are you a pro?" "No, I'm an amateur." They didn't give this movie the Oscar? "It must really be something making up stuff all the time." "Yeah, it teaches you how to lie." Bruh. The famous leg crossing scene. Bruh. I didn't fall asleep. The movie is that good. Alright, so, Michael Douglas is investigating a murder. He learns that the victim's girlfriend is a novelist, and in her latest book, there's a scene in which a character is killed precisely like the victim. Is the girlfriend using the book as an alibi or is there a copycat? I've always loved this movie. Sharon Stone is fantastic. It's Hitchcockian. Great score by Jerry Goldsmith. But in the past I've had issues with the plot. Throughout the investigation, it is revealed that each book that Sharon Stone has written mirrors the death of someone in her life. She is also using Michael Douglas as inspiration for her new book. She lives the stories she writes about. But then the murderer turns out to be someone else. Although the movie lets us know from the getgo that Sharon Stone ain't exactly innocent. It's a tad convoluted. In this viewing, however, I didn't actually mind it. It might not make sense, but the emotions are right. BASIC INSTINCT 2 (2006) People shit on this sequel to Paul Verhoeven’s classic erotic thriller, but it’s not that bad. Actually — it’s not bad at all. Sharon Stone returns to the role that made her a movie star. This time she is in London (original took place in San Francisco) and once again in trouble with the law. But instead of dealing with a cop this time, her prey is a psychiatrist. As in the original, the man she is seducing has personal conflicts that she exploits in order to get away with murder and do “research” for her new novel. The script, performances and music (John Murphy replacing Jerry Goldsmith) are on par with the original. The original, however, did have a Hitchcockian feel and humor to it that are missing here. This one is straightforward and even a bit mean-spirited. Our protagonist isn’t quite a conflicted antihero like Michael Douglas. But that’s fine. It doesn’t need to be a carbon copy of the original. It did its own thing and arguably executed it well. |
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Dracula
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Post by Dracula on Oct 20, 2023 22:00:58 GMT -5
Film Twenty: No One Will Save You (2023)  No One Will Save You is a movie that sort of came out of nowhere with no festival buzz or major advertising to show up on Hulu and surprise a lot of people. It’s directed by a guy named Brian Duffield, who’s been a pretty successful Hollywood screenwriter but who has worked pretty anonymously up to this point, but seems to display a bit more ambition here than he has before. The film is about a woman whose been shunned by her town for reasons that aren’t revealed immediately and this isolation becomes apparent to her when one night pretty much out of nowhere she finds herself under attack by an alien. This alien home invasion is notable in that the movie does not really play the “hide the monster until the last minute” game. It’s like Signs if Signs just had a grey Roswell style alien busting into the farmhouse in the third scene of the movie, shich is certainly a choice given that these aliens are rendered in functional but imperfect CGI. The film is also notable for emphasizing the main character’s isolation by making it so there is no one around to talk to… at all, to the point where there basically isn’t any dialogue in the movie at all. That’s sort of neat but it ultimately comes off as more of a gimmick than something that’s actually all that thematic and enlightening. The bigger problem though is that I found the behavior of the aliens in this thing to be rather mystifying. These are highly intelligent lifeforms that have taken over a town with little effort but suddenly turn into The Three Stooges whenever they try to deal with this one woman. Their goals and motives are never made terribly clear and their decision late in the film feels unearned. Honestly I’m not sure if I just missed something because this all feels unresolved in a weird way. Still, the movie mostly works as a thriller and it’s general look and visual inventiveness mostly carry it.
*** out of Five
Bonus Film: Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988)  We like to romanticize the idea of people making cheesy genre films with tiny budgets but 9 out of 10 times the results of these things tend to be these unwatchable schlockfests. That’s why, when one of these things actually does come together it can be worth celebrating and that seems to be what happened with Killer Klowns from Outer Space, a film made entirely independently that actually turned out to be legitimately fun. The film was made by three brothers who spent most of their career before and after this movie working in practical effects departments on other people’s movies (this is their one and only directorial effort). The movie was made on the cheap to be sure but not necessarily on some unprecedentedly small micro-budget. $1.8 million was raised to make the film but they make that go a long way given the number of set pieces here. The film is something of a pastiche of science fiction movies from the 50s like The Blob, which in some ways allows them to get away with some cheesy acting and cheap effects, but it’s not necessarily a cinematic get out of jail free card either… parodying cheesy movies still requires a very careful control of tone and knowing how far to go to hit that sweet spot between “fun intentional corniness” and “just being bad.” This one gets that balance right and it also knows how to keep the audience entertained by giving them new stuff on a pretty regular basis. It doesn’t get stagnant and talky in its second act and it keeps coming up with new murderous alien harlequin themed sequences pretty much through the entirety of the movie. It’s certainly not a particularly innovative or important movie, on some level it’s just a low rent Gremlins, but for something that could have easily been MST3K fodder without a lot of skill and elbow grease it’s an impressive accomplishment.
***1/2 out of Five
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Post by Neverending on Oct 21, 2023 0:52:30 GMT -5
The last movie by William Friedkin that I watched whilst he roamed the Earth was that tremendous piece of garbage, The Guardian, from 1990, about an evil nanny and a supernatural tree. Man had gigantic testicles to talk smack about other people’s works considering his own filmography. The Guardian is lazy and boring. All concept (that came from a book) with no substance for the story and characters. Everyone involved delivered a product and then cashed a check. That being said, I can listen to William Friedkin all day long. Jade (William Friedkin, 1995)- 4/10  William Friedkin received such goodwill from French Connection, Exorcist, Live & Die in L.A., and to a lesser extent, Sorcerer, that he lived most of his adult life as a professional shit-talker. Meanwhile, his filmography was littered with works of questionable quality. Case in point: 1995’s thriller Jade, written by the same dude that wrote Basic Instinct and Showgirls. I’m too lazy to get the correct spelling of his last name. But you know who I’m talking about. Dude’s a legend in his own right. Anyhoo, Jade is about an Epstein type dude (minus the underage girls) that arranges wealthy men with prostitutes. He is murdered and the prime suspect is the chick from Men in Black and Dogma. Again. You guys know who I’m talking about. No need to look up spellings of people’s last names. David Caruso is the main star. I think he left NYPD Blue to make this movie and his career didn’t recover till CSI: Miami. Hilarious. The script seemed promising enough, but I don’t think Friedkin knew what to do with it. The man made Cruising but can’t figure out a Basic Instinct knockoff? Weird. He did do Killer Joe later on, which is quite good, but I don’t know what the fuck happened here. I think his wife ran the studio (Paramount) and probably remained in his best behavior. That said, there is a silver lining. Friedkin completed his trilogy of great car chase scenes. Dude certainly mastered that — and was within his right to shit-talk in that regard. |
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PhantomKnight
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Post by PhantomKnight on Oct 21, 2023 11:42:50 GMT -5
DAY TWENTY-ONE: Tucker and Dale vs. Evil (2010)
To be honest, I really wasn't quite sure what to expect from Tucker and Dale vs. Evil. Sure, I'd heard all of the positive buzz about it over the years, but still...horror-comedies can be one of the trickiest things to pull off, because they require knowing exactly what you want to do and how you want to do it. And fortunately, the makers of Tucker and Dale vs. Evil are aware of both of those things. Because, man, with this overall concept, this thing could have REALLY gone sideways, but not only does director Eli Craig get the tone just right, the movie also gets its fair share of legitimate laughs throughout. Not only is the sense of macabre escalation captured well -- making you both cringe and laugh simultaneously most of the time -- Tucker and Dale vs. Evil winds up being a surprisingly kind of sweet and even endearing little movie in its own right -- and that, really, is the secret to this movie's success. Because, yes, this movie delivers on plenty of outrageous and over-the-top scenarios (that naturally build off each other in this crazy world) that are legit funny, but it also puts these characters at the center of it all who are actually very likable and give this movie an unexpected dose of heart. It legitimately gets you invested in these guys both as individuals and as friends, not to mention a romance that blossoms between one of them and another character, and that serves to help bolster the comedy and horror elements. Granted, a lot of this is still fairly standard stuff, but it does come down to the execution. And the execution is very solid. Tucker and Dale vs. Evil doesn't achieve the heights of something like Shaun of the Dead, for instance, but it does get a lot out of its own premise and is certainly a lot better than it probably had any right to be.
***/****
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Dracula
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Post by Dracula on Oct 21, 2023 15:19:10 GMT -5
Film Twenty-One: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006)  The Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise mostly exists with stops and starts in that it’s a frachise with enough cache that they keep making installments but each one of those installments is disappointing enough that no one really wants to stick to one idea, making almost every “sequel” an official or unofficial reboot. The one exception to this came in 2003 when Platinum Dunes produced a full on remake of the original film and it became a surprise hit grossing over $100 million, making it one of the few franchise entries to spawn a full-fledged follow-up with the prequel The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning. Making an origin story for Texas Chainsaw is a perhaps questionable idea from the jump as this family is kind of scarier for the fact that it just exists, allowing your imagination to fill in the blanks as to how long they have and why, but if you do have an interest the film begins with the birth of Leatherface, then we flash forward to see Charlie Hewitt murder the only sheriff in this increasingly desolate town and take his car and uniform to set up the status quo. From there we flash forward again to what is essentially a redo of the Texas Chainsaw story we’ve seen several time with teenagers encountering this crazed family during a road trip and needing to escape with the (not overly important) distinction of this technically being Leatherface’s first major rampage. The film was directed by a guy named Jonathan Liebesman, who has had a notably lame Hollywood career giving us such “gems” as Battle: Los Angeles, Wrath of the Titans, and the Michael Bay produced Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and he mostly seems intent on re-creating the music video-meets-snuff film aesthetics of the remake. The film has a horrid reputation, holding the franchise’s second lowest Rotten Tomatoes score at 15%, which set my expectations for this very low to the point where it maybe at least slightly exceeded them. The film does more or less understand what worked best about that remake (namely the look, R. Lee Ermey’s performance, and the gore) and tries to focus in on them. That R. Lee Ermey character may well be one of the strongest non-Leatherface villains the franchise has seen so having a bit more of him was not unwelcome. The film with the lowest Rotten Tomatoes score of the franchise at 13% is Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, and I probably can confirm that that installment does have even less going for it than this one and aside from some weirdly amusing directions and in-retrospect interesting casting decisions I’d probably say that Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation is also a bit worse than this. So, with the bar set that low this the movie maybe sits in “it could be worse” territory but it’s pretty indicative of just how messy this franchise is that this could sort of be viewed as some degree of stability. Said stability would not last however. The movie didn’t do terrible at the box office given its low budget but it didn’t do good enough to inspire further installments of the remake franchise and the IP went back to the drawing board from there. *1/2 out of Five
Bonus Film: Ravenous (1999)  Ravenous doesn’t get talked about a lot, in part because Ravenous is a hard movie to classify. It’s nominally a horror movie because it’s largely defined by a battle against a supernatural creature, a cannibalistic wendigo, and yet calling it a horror movie feels a bit wrong because it’s not really trying to be scary. Nominally it’s also a western, albeit one about cavalry members rather than cowboys, and those always do feel a little distinct from your average western and it operates in different ways than westerns usually do. There’s also a bit of a satirical edge to the movie, or at least one suggested by its opening in which a quote from Nietzsche is juxtaposed with the quote “Eat me. – Anonymous.” That title card maybe sets you up for something more overly comical than what the film actually delivers, which is more of a slightly acidic metaphor for the shortcomings of manifest destiny, a message that I feel maybe works better in theory than in the way it actually plays out. This is by far the most notable movie that it’s director, Antonia Bird, ever made and its box office failure seems to have kind or wrecked her career in film (she would focus on television afterwards). That’s unfortunate but I also kind of see why it bombed: the way it treads genres likely made it hard to market and it kind of clashed with the general vibe of films in 1999 with the late 90s in general kind of being a commercial low point for the western as a genre. Personally, I thought it was pretty neat. It has some cool scenery and some interesting ideas, but it also seemed to be missing a certain something. I think it might be the leads, the hero and the villain, who I’m not sure pop off the screen quite like they need to. The ideas are there on the page but Guy Pearce and Robert Carlyle, two actors I often find kind of generic, don’t really make them sing like they need to.
*** out of Five
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PG Cooper
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Post by PG Cooper on Oct 21, 2023 20:52:51 GMT -5
I really like Ravenous.
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PG Cooper
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Post by PG Cooper on Oct 21, 2023 20:56:49 GMT -5
Day 21: Def by Temptation Def by Temptation is a mostly obscure horror movie that's recently scored a boost in visibility by being platformed on Criterion Channel and as part of their 90's Horror Playlist. The film refers to its villain as a succubus, but Def by Temptation is essentially a vampire movie. The monster in question is a sexy Black woman who seduces men in bars and brings them back to her apartment, only to kill and consume them after sex. She eventually comes across two brothers with different backgrounds, the secular K, and the deeply religious Joel. As the title implies, Def by Temptation takes temptations of the flesh (and particularly pre-marital sex) extremely seriously, and there's an added charge to that material given the film's release in the thick of the AIDS crisis. That devotion to spiritual and social issues is admirable and the film's efforts to adapt the vampire movie in the context of a 90s Black community does hold its rewards, but the overall filmmaking here is a mess. First-time director James Bond III struggles to tell his story in a coherent manner and the film quickly becomes repetitive with so many scenes set in the exact same bar. It doesn't help that Bond also plays Joel and his performance is quite bad. He comes off sleepy and uninterested on-screen and is upstaged by everyone else in the cast. Def by Temptation gains a lot from cinematographer Ernest R. Dickerson, who does a ton to elevate the production value beyond its meager budget. Whatever else you can say about the movie, it frequently looks great, with dramatic compositions, stylish lighting, and a rich visual atmosphere far beyond what you'd expect from a Troma film. I've rarely seen a movie lean so heavily on its cinematography and Dickerson absolutely rises to the occasion. It is, unfortunately, not enough to save Def by Temptation. I was doing my best to look past the flaws and appreciate the film's successes and ambitions, but by the time I arrived at the incredibly sloppy and vaguely confusing ending, I had to admit the movie was not working. D+
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Neverending
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Post by Neverending on Oct 22, 2023 0:05:12 GMT -5
DAY TWENTY-ONE: Tucker and Dale vs. Evil (2010)***/**** You’re full of surprises this year. |
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PhantomKnight
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Post by PhantomKnight on Oct 22, 2023 0:27:09 GMT -5
DAY TWENTY-ONE: Tucker and Dale vs. Evil (2010)***/**** You’re full of surprises this year. I like to try to keep things fresh, what can I say? |
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PhantomKnight
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Post by PhantomKnight on Oct 22, 2023 0:29:12 GMT -5
Def by Temptation gains a lot from cinematographer Ernest R. Dickerson, who does a ton to elevate the production value beyond its meager budget. Whatever else you can say about the movie, it frequently looks great, with dramatic compositions, stylish lighting, and a rich visual atmosphere far beyond what you'd expect from a Troma film. Sounds like a viewing of Bones is in your future. |
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Post by Doomsday on Oct 22, 2023 10:04:31 GMT -5
And now, Doomsday continues his ongoing series of watching horror movies he's never seen before for Halloween......Tucker and Dale vs. Evil
 Tucker and Dale are a couple of country bumpkins who want nothing more than to fish and clean up their new vacation home deep in the woods. Unfortunately a group of sassy, smart mouthed college kids are cramping their style by encroaching on their lake and finding odd ways to accidentally kill themselves. Tucker and Dale vs. Evil is an interesting and funny spin on the whole cabin in the woods, horny teenagers getting slaughtered motif that's simple but works as a straight forward comedy. The premise its actually quite absurd in that Tucker and Dale are your standard backwoods hillbillies and the college students really haven't done much of anything but death follows them at every turn. There's no 'evil' until the end of the movie and that evil is more of a result of the wildly wacky events that preceded it. It's a comedy that easily could have fallen on its face but a lot of the humor here works as it's a movie that's aware of what it's trying to do. It's not entirely a straight spoof of slasher films but is more using that framework to craft a comedy around it. It's not the deepest movie and doesn't go all in on taking down the horror genre but I found myself having a good time throughout and with a small comedy like this I judge its success by how many laughs it took from me. In this case there were plenty. B+ so says Doomsday
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Post by Dracula on Oct 22, 2023 11:55:31 GMT -5
Film Twenty-Two: Seoul Station (2016)  Seoul Station is an animated prequel to the film Train To Busan that only came out two months after that movie and is meant to fit into something of a loose cinematic universe with that movie. I don’t think the two movies have any characters in common or anything, they’re just meant to take place during the same zombie apocalypse which isn’t really that much of a distinction because the zombie infestation itself in Train to Busan was pretty standard issue. Similarly in this movie you get a pretty normal zombie narrative, which isn’t something very novel at this point so the film’s success was mostly going to come down to execution and the execution here is at best okay. Before this I don’t think I’ve had any experience with South Korean animation, which I’m told is called “aeni” and have no idea if this is at all representative of what “aeni” is normally like and if it is… well, then Japan doesn’t have a lot to worry about in terms of competition. Don’t get me wrong the animation here is perfectly watchable and functional and has at least some charm to it but it doesn’t look cool enough to be a style that can carry the movie, which is kind of needed here as it’s otherwise just telling three stories that will be very familiar to anyone who knows the usual beats of a zombie movie. **1/2 out of Five
Bonus Film: Hotel Transylvania 2 (2015)  Man, these Hotel Transylvania movies are so close to being things I can give a pass to. I’m historically a sucker for any sort of monster mash things that goofs around with the Universal Monsters pantheon and I’m in support of attempts to keep these monsters relevant for future generations. There’s a side of these movies that does do fun things with these monsters and has cool nods to the characters and I think the animation is pretty well done for what it is by director Genndy Tartakovsky (a dude who’s a pretty respected name in animation), but man, these things just pander so hard to basic-ass suburban idiots. This one picks up a bit after the events of the first movie and opens with Dracula’s daughter marrying the human doofus she fell for in the original film and then we cut to a year later and she’s having a baby, and then we cut another year forward and the kid has arrived. So apparently in this world vampires can sexually reproduce, which brings up a lot of questions, and when having these children with living humans apparently the children don’t come out as monstrous hybrids but instead either come out as fully human or fully monster and it’s not clear which one it is until they reach a certain age. From here we get the main conflict of the movie: Sandler/Dracula really wants this kid to be a vampire but the millennial parents say they’ll love him whoever he is. So we’ve basically got an allegory for grandparents wanting their grandkids to be hardened masculine heterosexuals when the parents want to raise them more progressively. That’s a concept with some potential but they just tackle it all in such a dumb sitcomy way that it just has no teeth whatsoever and it also just indulges in a lot of bad jokes and has some soundtrack drops that have aged like milk. All in all it’s not a terrible watch but bits of it are just kind of embarrassing in ways that sort of ruin it. **1/2 out of Five |
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Post by PhantomKnight on Oct 22, 2023 16:07:34 GMT -5
DAY TWENTY-TWO: The Boogeyman (2023)
When The Boogeyman, the latest in a long line of Stephen King adaptations, was announced as moving from a Hulu-only release to a theatrical one, my interest became piqued. After all, Disney/20th Century Studios did the same thing last year after similarly-positive test screening buzz for the horror thriller Barbarian, and that turned out to be one of the most pleasant surprises of last year (by the way, where is the physical media release for that movie, you cowards?). So, does The Boogeyman yield the same results? Well... It's not so much that this movie is awful or anything -- far from it -- but rather that it's just plainly mediocre overall. What can be said in its favor, however, is that I honestly think it's well-directed by Rob Savage. He's able to give this thing a true sense of dread and eeriness right from the opening scene, and that in turn lends the overall movie a strong sense of atmosphere. Savage is also able to stage a lot of the horror sequences quite well, and I admit that the movie had me fairly engaged for the most part while I was watching it because of that. But when I look past the trappings...there's not really a whole lot here to the script. Like most horror movies of the past few years, The Boogeyman tackles the theme of grief and uses that as its jumping-off point for all the horror, but I don't think it does a whole lot with its characters beyond some pretty basic development. The actors, at least, do their very best and perform their roles with a certain dignity, but there's just not a whole lot to these characters that feels terribly unique when compared to a bunch of others like them. Speaking of not feeling terribly unique...while the sense of atmosphere is certainly here, the movie kind of disappointingly falls back on jump scares a bit too much. It at least tries to weave them into the DNA of the scenes, but I dunno...maybe if the script here had been stronger, I wouldn't have minded so much. There are far worse horror movies than The Boogeyman out there, and again, it kept me reasonably engaged as I was watching it, working for me on a visceral level...but I don't think this is likely to stick around in my memory for very long.
**/****
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PG Cooper
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Post by PG Cooper on Oct 22, 2023 16:12:02 GMT -5
Alright. Day 22: The Boogeyman I was surprised when the trailer for The Boogeyman loudly declared it was "based on the short story by Stephen King" since the film looked like another in a long line of completely generic haunting movies that Hollywood has been pumping out since the 2010s. As it turns out, the monster here isn't a ghost, but that hardly matters, as The Boogeyman still bears the usual hallmarks of haunted house movies: long scenes of characters walking down dark hallways punctuated by jump-scares (legitimate and fake-out), the monster mimicking voices, objects moving on their own, etc. It's all very familiar, in fact one of the few distinguishing features of the movie's boogeyman is how it recoils from light, which results in scenes that feel like inferior re-runs of the set-pieces from Light's Out. And to make matters worse, the whole thing is a metaphor for dealing with grief and/or trauma. Huh. Look, on its own terms, The Boogeyman is not really bad. The movie is made with a fair amount of skill and a more casual audience looking for new horror movie will likely get what they're looking for, but it's repeating a lot of trends that I've had my fill of for the time being. D+ |
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Post by IanTheCool on Oct 22, 2023 21:33:01 GMT -5
October 22
Podcast Watchlist SelectionNew Nightmare
thebtskink brought this up on the podcast two years ago, and I am finally getting around to watching it. I liked it! Quite a bit actually. The meta aspect of setting it in the "real world" where the actors play themselves, and Freddy shows up anyway is a pretty cool idea. Heather Langdencamp is back as the lead, better than ever. Its also fun to see Englund, Saxon and Craven playing themselves as well.
The build-up to Heather believing Freddy is real is really good, playing on ideas like the children's song hook and random phone calls. The actual scare scenes with Freddy are really good. There's some great stuff with various fabrics creating corridors, and the scene where Freddy drags one of his victims up the wall and onto the ceiling is really good. The strike against these is that the final showdown was a bit too long.
This was a refreshing renewal on these movies. I think I liked it more than Dream Warriors, not quite as much as the first.
7/10
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Post by IanTheCool on Oct 22, 2023 21:58:52 GMT -5
I tried to corner Doomsday into watching this movie in Film Club, but he didn't bite. It's so much fun. I pre-ordered the blu-ray on Amazon minutes after I finished watching it on Joe Bob. Does the bluray have that awful rotten tomatoes sticker on the front? |
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Post by Nilade on Oct 22, 2023 23:07:55 GMT -5
In my experience, titties tend to explain themselves. They don't need my help. I was more baffled by someone finding susan sarandon attractive? She was hot in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. |
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Post by IanTheCool on Oct 23, 2023 7:47:40 GMT -5
I was more baffled by someone finding susan sarandon attractive? She was hot in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Oh yeah |
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Post by Neverending on Oct 23, 2023 12:18:11 GMT -5
She was hot in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Oh yeah |
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Post by PG Cooper on Oct 23, 2023 13:34:10 GMT -5
Day 23: Phantasm Phantasm is a horror movie I'd circled for a while before actually seeing. I was familiar with its poster, its villain, and its (awesome) theme song but had not actually seen the film. In hindsight it makes sense that I engaged with so many fractured elements given Phantasm a film of many interesting bits but a somewhat unsatisfying whole. Some of the film's imagery is pretty effective, as is The Tall Man as a horror monster. The dreamlike atmosphere, supernatural powers, and preying on children and teenagers also make the film feel a bit like a prototype to The Nightmare on Elm Street but without clearly defined rules. On the other side, the performances and dialogue are quite bad, and I also find the execution of some of the set-pieces a bit blunt and simplistic for what is such a mystic piece of horror. I'm definitely mixed on Phantasm but the good stuff does ultimately win out. I quite liked the ending too. C+
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Post by Dracula on Oct 23, 2023 16:35:05 GMT -5
Film Twenty-Three: Alucarda (1977)  For my fifth exploration into Mexican horror I will be looking at another movie from Juan López Moctezuma, specifically what is likely his most famous film Alucarda. That title implies some kinship with “Alucard” the Dracula pseudonym introduced in the 1943 Universal horror film Son of Dracula, though of course latinizing it with that “a” at the end kind of kills its effect as a reverse palindrome of the famous bloodsucker’s name. In a way though the film actually has more of a connection to the 1936 film Dracula’s Daughter as both are said to be riffs on the book “Carmilla,” a work of vampire fiction that actually predates Bram Stoker’s more famous work and is notable for its lesbian elements. But comparing it too closely to either of those is probably a mistake as this actually isn’t really a vampire film per se and actually deals more with demonic possession. That theme may well have been a direction it was inspired to go in because of the success of the 1973 film The Exorcist and there are also touches of The Devils and Rosemary’s Baby and the film’s ending bears some resemblance to Carrie. More specifically the title refers to a character in the film named Alucarda who is an orphan living in a 19th Century convent and sparks a very close friendship very quickly with a new orphan there named Justine. The two of them encounter a weird Romani man who is probably Satan and suddenly the two are sucked into a satanic trance and begin behaving oddly. Like The Mansion of Madness this was filmed in English but its setting is perhaps more identifiably Mexico given the adobe buildings even if they don’t come out and specify what country it’s set in. It’s also perhaps a bit more identifiably Mexican in that the production values are generally quite a bit lower than The Mansion of Madness’ are to the point where I might go so far as to call them a bit shoddy. The acting is inconsistent at best and he sets and costumes look cheap and the makeup for that Romani guy is kind of laughable and the music is kind of wack. The movie makes up for a lot of this with sheer transgression. The film uses nudity rather liberally (some might say exploitatively, though it’s borderline) and there’s this satanic orgy scene that is quite the sight. Meanwhile when the possession stuff happens the movie is generally pretty ambiguous about what’s going on and while I implied earlier that this may have been inspired by the success of The Exorcist it doesn’t feel like a ripoff. There are also hints of lesbianism to be found that can only barely be called subtext and its writhing nuns give this a hint of “nunsploitation.” On a more thematic level the film gets pretty into the debate between science and faith while kind of finding both lacking in their ability to solve whatever Alucarda’s problem is. It’s kind of a wild movie with elements that go in every direction quality-wise. I’m not sure exactly what to make of it, but I’m certainly glad I watched it. ***1/2 out of Five |
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Post by Neverending on Oct 23, 2023 16:46:18 GMT -5
Day 23: PhantasmPhantasm is a horror movie I'd circled for a while before actually seeing. I was familiar with its poster, its villain, and its (awesome) theme song but had not actually seen the film. In hindsight it makes sense that I engaged with so many fractured elements given Phantasm a film of many interesting bits but a somewhat unsatisfying whole. Some of the film's imagery is pretty effective, as is The Tall Man as a horror monster. The dreamlike atmosphere, supernatural powers, and preying on children and teenagers also make the film feel a bit like a prototype to The Nightmare on Elm Street but without clearly defined rules. On the other side, the performances and dialogue are quite bad, and I also find the execution of some of the set-pieces a bit blunt and simplistic for what is such a mystic piece of horror. I'm definitely mixed on Phantasm but the good stuff does ultimately win out. I quite liked the ending too. C+ — — — — 31 DAYS OF HALLOWEENPHANTASM (1979) One day Don Coscarelli watched Dario Argento's Suspiria and thought to himself, "yeah - I can do that too." Can you, Don? Can you? Phantasm is about a boy, who's grieving the death of his parents, encountering a bunch of weird stuff and no one believing him. Turns out, a strange old man is turning corpses into dwarfs and ordering them to kill everyone. Seriously. That's the plot. It's presented in a nightmarish and Argento-esque style, but it mostly comes across as nonsense. That being said, for a low-budget and independently made film, Phantasm is REALLY well done. If someone told you it was made by a major studio, you'd believe it. The cinematography, the locations, the special effects, the editing and music are fantastic. And now, it has been remastered by J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot and it looks spectacular. I highly, highly, highly recommend it. Although keep in mind, it is a stupid movie. Argento's work is also really stupid. I'm not pitting American vs Italian. This is just a reminder that this is a film you watch for the visuals and music. Don't expect a good script and good characters. Just sit back or lay back and immerse yourself. Deexan PhantomKnight SnoBorderZero Justin PG Cooper My first introduction to Phantasm was watching part II with my older brother when I was 10 or so. The eeriness, dreamlike quality, and trick ending blew my young mind. My first introduction to Phantasm was watching part II with my older brother when I was 10 or so. The eeriness, dreamlike quality, and trick ending blew my young mind. Yeah, Phantasm II was my first introduction to the franchise at about the same age. It was such a fun and different horror film, and blew my mind as well at the time. So many unique and wtf elements, the spheres, the dwarfs, the gas mask guy, the Tall Man. It was crazy, didn't make a lot of sense, and was so much fun. I think I need to revisit this series. Yeah, Phantasm II was my first introduction to the franchise at about the same age. It was such a fun and different horror film, and blew my mind as well at the time. So many unique and wtf elements, the spheres, the dwarfs, the gas mask guy, the Tall Man. It was crazy, didn't make a lot of sense, and was so much fun. I think I need to revisit this series. So you guys are saying Doomsday should watch Phantasm II? Doomsday , go watch Nightmare on Elm Street 4, The Adventures of Ford Fairlane and Phantasm II. But what about Bram Stoker's Dracula and Rocky Horror?? Pfft. Lesser movies. And add Sleepaway Camp II into the fold for your line of questioning. Movies for Doomsday to watch: 1. Sleepaway Camp 2. Sleepaway Camp II 3. Nightmare on Elm Street 4 4. Phantasm II 5. The Rocky Horror Picture Show 6. Bram Stoker's Dracula Then in November watch Ford Fairlane, the Rock n Roll detective. Movies for Doomsday to watch: 1. Sleepaway Camp 2. Sleepaway Camp II 3. Nightmare on Elm Street 4 4. Phantasm II 5. The Rocky Horror Picture Show 6. Bram Stoker's Dracula Then in November watch Ford Fairlane, the Rock n Roll detective. Such a solid list. Impenetrable. Such a solid list. Impenetrable. We did good work today. |
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PhantomKnight
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Post by PhantomKnight on Oct 23, 2023 17:59:13 GMT -5
DAY TWENTY-THREE: Totally Killer (2023)
Totally Killer is the latest horror-comedy that looks to emulate the success of something like Happy Death Day -- appropriate, seeing as how Jason Blum is a producer on it -- but unlike the previous attempt, Freaky, this one just doesn't cut it simply by way of being not very funny, nor very suspenseful. And that's honestly kind of a shame. Because the director, Nahnatchka Kahn, has done some things that I've generally liked and have thought were funny...but I think it's ultimately the script that lets her down here. It just feels like a script that has only the most basic understanding of what it wants to try to do and not enough of a strong/unique voice behind it to really help bring it home. Sure, the movie attempts to critique/comment on the behavior and societal norms of the 80's, but the jokes all feel obvious and really rather stale. A couple of chuckles maybe make it through here and there, but they feel pretty few and far between, with the most consistent laughs perhaps coming from Kahn's sense of visual comedy and gags that she manages to sprinkle in throughout. This script really could have used as stronger voice, though -- not to mention sharper comedy. As it stands, it all just feels really bland (not to cast stones too much, but the fact that one of the screenwriters on this is the writer of Hocus Pocus 2 makes a certain degree of sense). And on the opposite end, the horror elements aren't too inspiring, either. Not that this movie needed to be very terrifying, but Scream at least had a sense of menace (a movie that Totally Killer shares some broad parts of its DNA with), and Happy Death Day managed to make its horror aspects feel fun. Totally Killer, by contrast, is just a blah amalgamation of different parts from other, better genre movies, and the end result feels more totally filler than killer.
*1/2 /****
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Post by Neverending on Oct 23, 2023 22:36:48 GMT -5
PG Cooper claims to be a James Bond fan but everyone knows that is a lie. The man said his favorite James Bond movie is The Hunt for Red October and is favorite James Bond actor is George Clooney. YouTube should demonetize his channel. But I know the rest of y'all are fans of 007, so you are in for a treat today. BLACK BELLY OF THE TARANTULA (1971) Starring Giancarlo Giannini (of the Daniel Craig Bond movies), Claudine Auger (Thunderball) and Barbara Bach (The Spy Who Loved Me), Black Belly of the Tarantula is a giallo about a killer that paralyzes his victims with poison prior to murdering them. It has a fairly standard script that is enhanced by Giannini's character and the score by Ennio Morricone. Giannini plays a detective that has become overwhelmed by the violence around him. He intends to quit after coming across one dead body too many, but this latest case sends the killer right to his doorstep. It's fairly engaging (and the score helped a lot) so it is mildly recommended to anyone that has a passing interest in the giallo genre - or James Bond movies. WHO SAW HER DIE? (1972) George Lazenby burned a lot of bridges when he abruptly quit his role of James Bond after only one movie. So much so that this giallo from 1972 is only his second movie since quitting 007 three years earlier. As you can tell from the image above, he looks awful. This is 1972, folks. Had this man not quit, he would have been James Bond in 1972. And people have the audacity to criticize Sean Connery in Diamonds Are Forever. He was a stud in that movie compared to Lazenby. Anyhoo, Lazenby shows up here, and he's dubbed by the way, as a father working in Venice, whose daughter is murdered by a serial killer. Adolfo Celi (Thunderball) co-stars. The movie is quite somber for a giallo. The Venice setting is haunting. Most of the runtime is spent on Lazenby searching for answers. This a man whose child was murdered. It has a different tone to it than a Mario Bava or Dario Argento type thriller. Some people have argued that it inspired Don't Look Now (1973) but I'm not sure how true that is. Lazenby slander aside, it's worth checking out. It plays out more as a drama than your standard giallo. This is one I'd recommend to anyone that isn't particularly interested in these types of movies. It's a potential gateway to the genre. It also features a good Ennio Morricone score.
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