PG Cooper
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Post by PG Cooper on Oct 24, 2024 21:08:42 GMT -5
Day Twenty-Four: Andy Warhol's Flesh & BloodFlesh for Frankenstein In the mid-seventies, Andy Warhol produced back-to-back Frankenstein and Dracula adaptations (loose adaptations mind you) which combined the horror of the source material with sexploitation and a touch of comedy. I don't know if these films are exactly beloved but they're known enough to have become semi-infamous in genre circles and worthy of some attention. We start with 1973's Flesh for Frankenstein. The premise here is that Frankenstein is attempting to create two creatures, a man and a woman, who can mate. That's interesting twist on the mythos that circles back to the playing god and creating of new life so essential to Shelley's source novel and there's also some fun Freudian psychology with Frankenstein's kids watching both their parents and internalizing their weird sexual experiences. That said, the film is very uneven, occassionally coming to life for some good gore gags but much of the film is shot in a passive and unengaging style. Perhaps director Paul Morrissey believed the weirdness on screen enough, and at times it is, with Udo Kier especially giving a wonderfully over-the-top performance as the good doctor and really chews one especially ridiculous line. But there are definitely some meandering stretches. Thankfully the film's ending is quite good so Flesh at least ends on a high. C+Blood for Dracula Blood for Dracula maintains much of Flesh for Frankenstein's elements, including Udo Kier, who goes from a ridiculously over the top Dr. Frankenstein to a ridiculously over the top Prince of Darkness, and the basic conceit of adding unique twists to the sources. In this case, Dracula can only drink the blood of virgins to sustain his life and finds himself particularly vulnerable. His assistant takes Dracula to Italy where he can court a pair of prospective virginial brides who he can suck dry. The catch is these ladies aren't quite as pure in their living as they may have let on. As with Flesh for Frankenstein, this is less of a traditional horror movie than a piece of sexploitation centering on some bizarre character dynamics and grotesque images. It's generally a pretty sleazy film, loaded with nudity and sex scenes as well as a pretty staggering bit of gore in the climax. What stands out most is a key supporting character, a farmhand for the family Dracula is courting that is also a Marxist deeply immersed in worker's rights. This naturally creates conflict with Dracula. I found myself pretty interested in this thread but it's an unstable thread given the guy is presented as essentially the film's hero despite being a bastard and rapist, something Morrissey doesn't really reckon with. A smarter film might have done more exploring how proletariat men are just as invested in patriarchy, and just as prone to misogyny, as their bourgeois counterparts but Blood for Dracula doesn't really navigate that especially well. Overall, I'm still not totally sure what to make if these movies. I don't find them particularly engaging, as horror movies or in their filmmaking generally, but they're too peculiar and idiosyncratic to really dismiss either. I suppose the best thing I can say about both is that I do think they are worth watching for genre enthusiasts even if I don't think they're all that good. Blood for Dracula also had a reoccurring musical theme that I rather liked so at least there's that. C-
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Neverending
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Post by Neverending on Oct 25, 2024 2:18:16 GMT -5
Day Twenty-Four: Andy Warhol's Flesh & Blood So you’re watching The Pit next? |
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Post by Neverending on Oct 25, 2024 9:08:05 GMT -5
PG Cooper thebtskink BLACK ROSES (1988) This movie sucks. Satanic metal band comes to a Canadian town and turns the teenagers into devilish creatures. The script is lame. The characters are a bore. And the soundtrack by King Kobra and Lizzy Borden is godawful. But I did chuckle a few times.
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Dracula
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Post by Dracula on Oct 25, 2024 9:37:39 GMT -5
Film Twenty-Five: Sombre (1998)  Sombre is a somewhat experimental movie that was made in France in the late 90s by a guy named Philippe Grandrieux, whose made a few scripted movies since then but who appears to have worked as much in documentary and in museum installations and visual arts and the like. This debut of his is probably still the one that’s made the biggest splash. The movie follows a serial killer who goes along the Tour de France route murdering prostitutes. Not a pleasant topic and Grandrieux does not shoot it pleasantly. The film isn’t particularly bloody (though there is quite a bit of graphic if not particularly sexy sex) but it is shot in a way that exudes dread and is often a bit hard to follow. This unconventional shooting style was likely exacerbated by the fact that I was watching this on a very old non-anamorphic DVD. The film actually doesn’t even have a whole lot of spoken dialogue overall but there is a story here, albeit one that does not reveal itself in the most conventional of ways, especially early on. At a certain point the movie is probably just a little too uncompromising for its own good and when it finally gets going it’s a bit too late. I did not get much out of this, it’s not a pleasant of enlightening viewing experience. ** out of Five |
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PhantomKnight
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Post by PhantomKnight on Oct 25, 2024 10:58:28 GMT -5
Day Twenty-Five: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992)
Given how its structure is pretty clearly a big influence on one of my personal favorite TV shows, Supernatural, you'd think Buffy the Vampire Slayer was already in my TV repertoire, but no, still haven't checked it out yet. But I figured it only prudent to give the 1992 movie that inspired it a whirl before I do. So, from what I've read since having watched this movie, the Buffy TV show is the mirror opposite of this movie in a lot of major ways, and I sure hope so, because this movie is pretty terrible. There's one obvious joke to make here, but I'm not above making it: this movie has no bite. Which, considering the fact that 20th Century Fox basically smoothed all the edge of this thing by all accounts, is a real shame. That puts me in a position of defending Joss Whedon, which...isn't particularly enviable, but if the show has more of a dark edge, then awesome, because this movie is just one big nothingburger. The core mythology seems like something with fun potential, but as executed in this film, it's bland as hell. The movie awkwardly tries to be a teen comedy while also sorta kinda committing to the supernatural aspects, but those things feel so halfhearted -- and the comedy so painfully flat, awkward and unfunny -- that it really doesn't succeed at either. With the vampire slaying, especially, those scenes just feel so robbed of energy and fun, that you're just left wondering what the point of it all is. I do sort of buy Kristy Swanson as this kinda airheaded teen cheerleader that has this responsibility thrust upon her, but she's pretty much the only signs of life in this thing. The rest of the cast, from Luke Perry to Donald Sutherland and Rutger Hauer, of all people -- act so disinterested in this script, and who can blame them? Again, I really do hope that the TV show is a lot better than this, because this Buffy movie...wait for it...truly sucks.
*/****
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thebtskink
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It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again.
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Post by thebtskink on Oct 25, 2024 11:45:17 GMT -5
PG Cooper thebtskink BLACK ROSES (1988) This movie sucks. Satanic metal band comes to a Canadian town and turns the teenagers into devilish creatures. " I must see this. |
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PG Cooper
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Post by PG Cooper on Oct 25, 2024 20:16:29 GMT -5
Day Twenty-Five: Dead of Winter Dead of Winter is a loose remake of forties thriller My Name is Julie Ross that also features several rather obvious Hitchcock homages. It is an openly derivative film with a pretty loopy high concept and plot which trades exclusively in superficial entertainment, lacking the sophistication or depth of its inspirations. It is also far and way the best film Arthur Penn made in the eighties. The film executes as a genre piece fairly strongly, with an especially good opening scene that features some fantastic icy cinematography, suspense, and sudden shocks which are viscerally exciting and build intrigue for the film to follow. Penn is never able to top that introduction, unfortunately, but the ensuing film remains compelling, with a reliable lead performance from Mary Steenburgen, a pronounced sense of dread, and a handful of nicely ghoulish moments. It's a far cry from the artistry Penn once demonstrated and I could certainly bemoan how a filmmaker who once engaged in such sophisticated dialogue with the traditions and aesthetics of classical Hollywood has been reduced to making little more than a nostalgic throwback, but I did have fun. Penn may no longer have been capable of masterpieces but at least he could still craft an entertaining thriller. There's value in that. B-
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IanTheCool
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Post by IanTheCool on Oct 25, 2024 22:10:57 GMT -5
The Dead of Winter board game rules
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IanTheCool
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Post by IanTheCool on Oct 25, 2024 22:23:04 GMT -5
Oct 24 It Follows 2015
I realized I wasn't allowing any time this year for any of my favourite horror movies from my collection. So I decided to rectify that by watching It Follows as I haven't seen it in a while. I like the tone of this movie. I think the threat is really interesting and haunting. I like the potential for metaphors while also just being a solid, creepy entertainment. One particular detail I really liked this time around was noticing that the creature was at the high school they visited, they just never noticed. This movie is cool.
9/10
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PG Cooper
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Post by PG Cooper on Oct 26, 2024 10:01:00 GMT -5
Day Twenty-Six: Shitty Candyman SequelsCandyman: Farewell to the Flesh The Candyman series immediately drives off a cliff with Farewell to the Flesh. A lot of this movie's problems are standard in subpar horror sequels: bad acting, lesser retread of better ideas to diminishing returns, lack of scares, etc. What makes Candyman unique is the racial elements to its horror. I suppose its a credit that the filmmakers did not run away from this more challenging material... but maybe they should have because the movie they've delivered is confused. First, expanding on Candyman's origin story only makes him more clearly a victim and enhances our sympathies for him, only for the film to still treat him as a monster to be defeated. And to that point, the heroine in this film turns out to be Candyman's white ancestor, who is horrified by the racial violence he was subjected to as a man and overcomes the monster he has become. In other words, the film is about white descendants symbolically overcoming the historical violence committed against Black people. I'm not going to go as far as calling the movie racist but the subtext is definitely uncomfortable. I might be able to vibe with the film in spite of its thematically troubling aspects of it executed reasonably well as a horror movie but it decidedly does not. Bill Condon is woefully ill-equipped for horror, evident in his direction mirroring horror tropes but in such a way as to copy the genre's sensibilities rather than meaningfully execute them. Knowing the words but not the music and all that. Also, what's the deal with that ending beat. Why does it play like comedy? DCandyman: Day of the Dead Everything interesting about this series has been scrubbed out by this point. The movie also sucks for all the ordinary reasons cheap slasher sequels suck, but the fact that Candyman has so much interesting text and subtext makes its squandering all the more disappointing. D-
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PhantomKnight
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Post by PhantomKnight on Oct 26, 2024 11:01:32 GMT -5
Day Twenty-Six: Smile 2 (2024)
2022's Smile was something of a surprise. Yes, it very much had the trappings of a jump scare-heavy studio horror movie, but much like James Wan's work in my opinion, it was a studio horror movie done well, made with real skill and a pretty cutting undercurrent focused on exploring trauma and mental illness. And now here we have Smile 2, and both things are very much true with this film as well...along with a certain thing inherent in the premise that could become a problem if even more sequels get made with this same conceit. More on that in a minute, though. Most of all, what Smile 2 proves is that the first film definitely wasn't a fluke in terms of the style of writer/director Parker Finn, because this guy's got it when it comes to creating a strong horror mood and atmosphere. This film opens with a scene that bridges the two films, done in one-shot style, and there already, a sense of tension and suspense settles over the proceedings that continues to grow as the film goes on. Yes, Smile 2 once again employs a lot of jump scares, arguably a bit too many, but what makes them ultimately work is the fact that they're planted amidst such a strong atmosphere that keeps you tense for so much of the running time, that I'm still okay with giving them a pass here...for now, Mr. Finn. But also, part of that is the instinctual fun that that of aspect of this kind of horror film can inspire. At least with my experience here, I was constantly tensing up in anticipation for them because the tone and enveloping sense of atmosphere was so palpable, that it's enjoyably instinctual. It's not just the overall creepiness that works here, though, but also the lead performance by Naomi Scott. I've been waiting for her to really break out ever since Aladdin, and here, she really gets to showcase her acting chops. Much like with Sosie Bacon in the first film, Scott just feels so raw and believably losing-her-mind. All those close-ups on her terrified face sure do help, but it's also Scott herself, who convinces you of this character's trauma and mental fragility so well. This movie deals more with the idea of addiction in a way and trying to cope with trauma while in the limelight, which gives the movie as a whole and Scott's performance a slightly fresher feel. But, man, Parker Finn sure knows how to pick actors who can believably portray a complete mental breakdown. So much of this movie rides on Naomi Scott's performance, and she absolutely delivers.
That segues into a...concern I now have if Smile is to become a new franchise. Well, maybe two. One of them is how this evil entity at the heart of everything routinely makes its victims hallucinate things, people or events that aren't real. Something like that works fine at first, but the more a movie goes back to that well, the more it risks that impeding our overall investment in what we're seeing. Smile 2 approached the line not to cross there, but doesn't quite do so, but I will still say that this movie does it maybe a few too many times. The other concern has to do with how to deal with this smiling demon, or lack thereof of many legit options. This film continues the angle that you're basically screwed once this thing gets hold of you no matter what you do, making it an overpowered threat, and that creates a kind of "What's the point, then?" question. This movie at least presents an interesting possible solution about midway through, but if there's gonna be a Smile 3, 4, 5, etc., then some shake-ups need to happen, both in terms of trying to combat this thing and in terms of overall narrative drive.
Smile 2 is still able to get away with it thanks to its overall filmmaking, and the ending presents an idea that I would be very much intrigued to see some follow-through on, but I just hope Parker Finn has more in his bag of tricks here before the game starts getting overplayed.
***/****
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Dracula
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Post by Dracula on Oct 26, 2024 20:29:25 GMT -5
Film Twenty Six: Day of the Dead (1985)  My general impression was that Day of the Dead was the weakest of the “Dead” quadrilogy and this viewing did not dissuade me from that but it probably did bump up by maybe a half star this time around. Starting with the positive; having a scientist doing experiments on zombies was an interesting direction to go in and the semi-intelligent “Bub” zombie does advance things in an interesting manner. Props to Romero for not just resting on his laurels and doing something a bit different there. The movie also delivers on the gore and provides some of the best zombie kills that Romero ever constructed. Unfortunately I kind of hate pretty much everything else about this. The writing is completely didactic with really thinly drawn characters that fit into clearly defined good and evil in the way they weren’t in the previous movies, where the people trapped together had their disagreements but came to them relatively honestly. Here though… man these soldier characters are beyond over-the-top, like, even Stephen King would have looked at these guys and said maybe Romero should have had them chill out a bit. They’re like that pretty much from the beginning too and some of the lines Romero has coming out of these people’s mouths are just outlandishly blunt. It doesn’t help that the acting is across the board pretty terrible and that Romero does absolutely nothing to rein anyone in as director as these actors constantly scream and shout at each other through the whole movie. You can also tell here that Romero’s ambitions are starting to outstrip his budgets, he can pull off the gore but this military base set is not as interesting or realistic as the mall from Dawn or the house from Night. To me it’s just a really botched execution, which is unfortunate because I should would have liked for Romero to have pulled off a really amazing horror trilogy. ** out of Five
Bonus Film: Dead Sands (2013)  Every October I do try to make a point of seeing a horror movie from a far flung country that isn’t otherwise known for horror in the west to see what scares people in other cultures. Sometimes that leads me to interesting stuff, and sometimes it leads to… this. Dead Sands is a movie that markets itself as the first zombie movie made in the tiny Persian Gulf island nation of Bahrain, which is a place generally known for being one of the more liberal countries in the middle east when it comes to things like alcohol consumption and head veils. It also has a very large ex-pat community so most people there know English and use it as a lingua franca. You see that reflected a bit here as it’s a rather bi-lingual film with people code switching between languages a lot. That cultural identity is almost certainly the most interesting thing to be gleaned from what is otherwise a really amateurish project that probably should not have been expanded to feature length or marketed as anything resembling a “real” movie. I don’t want to be too mean about it as it sounds like this started as a student film which “Dark Starred” its way into becoming a feature, and the production values reflect that. It looks like it was shot on a camcorder and the cast is plainly filled with people with limited experience. The film hints at ambitions of being a kind of “meta” zombie film here and there but doesn’t really commit to it and there’s nothing particularly creative or interesting about any of the horror or bloodletting. Very bad.
½ out of Five
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Neverending
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Post by Neverending on Oct 27, 2024 9:18:06 GMT -5
Bad Moon (1996) is a bore, but this is hilarious.
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SnoBorderZero
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Post by SnoBorderZero on Oct 27, 2024 11:25:07 GMT -5
Identity (James Mangold, 2003)- 6/10
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Dracula
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Post by Dracula on Oct 27, 2024 12:23:46 GMT -5
Film Twenty-Seven: Rogue (2007)  Earlier in my crocodellian cinema marathon I noted that 1979 and 1980 were basically a golden age for crocodellian cinema which saw the release of something like three major-ish entries in the subgenre (The Great Alligator, Crocodile, and Alligator), almost certainly as a response to the box office success of Jaws. The other big year for crocodellian cinema is the year 2007, which also saw the release of three notable croc movies (Rogue, Primeval, and Black Water) although the reason for this is a bit more nebulous. My best guess is that studios noticed how well various made-for-TV creature features were doing in a small scale and wanted to see if there was a space for the genre on the bigger screen, but it may also have just been a coincidence. Rogue was probably the one with the most notable pedigree of the bunch having been made by Australian director Greg McLean coming off of his work on the film Wolf Creek and featuring a pre-Avatar Sam Worthington. It looks at a group of tourists doing a boat tour when their boat is attacked by a saltwater crocodile trapping them on a small island that’s about to be swallowed by the tide. It’s basically the same premise as Black Water but handled in a bit of a “bigger” and more Hollywood way. The movie reportedly ran into some issues with the MPAA and has an unrated version, which surprises me because if anything the version I saw seemed overly restrained when it came to violence and could have stood to have some slightly more visceral kills. The crocodile itself mostly looked decent though and I’ll say that the scene where they finally kill the croc is one of the better “final kils” in the handful of crocodellian movies I’ve been watching so that’s something. Overall, the movie is pretty mid, probably not notable enough to really recommend but it’s functional at least.
**1/2 out of Five
Bonus Film: Primeval (2007)  Primeval is one of those movies that was and is more known for its advertising campaign than for anything in the actual movie. The film’s very misleading trailer was based around a voiceover saying “in one of the most remote locations on earth lives the most prolific serial killers on Earth, he has claimed over 300 victims, he is elusive, intelligent, and cunning and to this day he remains at large.” The voiceover does then add “he is real but he’s not human” but aside from that there’s no indication in the trailer, which otherwise consists of disjointed scenes from the movie of people running and screaming, that this “serial killer” is in fact a crocodile rather than a human serial killer or a supernatural entity. To say that this bait-and-switch was strange is an understatement, aside from the inevitable backlash that would ensue by the people the advertising fooled, it’s not super clear to me why someone would rather see yet another film about a normal serial killer when they could get a new creature feature. Clearly they weren’t confident about the movie they made but they weren’t really rewarded for their trickery; the movie made just $6 million in its opening weekend and after word of mouth got around it only made $4 million more in the rest of its short theatrical run. Truth be told though, I’m not sure there was any amount of better marketing was going to save this thing as it’s a pretty thoroughly “mid” piece of work. The film is set in the African nation of Burundi and its claims of being “inspired by a true story” are at least a little bit based in fact. Specifically it’s about “Gustave,” a (possibly) twenty foot Nile Crocodile that’s been terrorizing the Ruzizi river for decades and is said to have killed numerous people. “Gustave” caught National Geographic’s radar in the early 2000s and was the subject of a PBS documentary called Capturing the Killer Croc in 2004, which likely led to this film. Besides that though this film is about an entirely fictional hunt for “Gustave” that was launched after it attacked an American scientist, giving it a lot of attention. The film is also set during the Burundian, forcing the expedition to contend with both the crocodile as well as violence from the surrounding paramilitaries. The film tries to take this conflict at least somewhat seriously but it not really in that much of a position to really sustain the weight of that. It’s not completely in bad taste but at the end of the day they’re kind of exploiting a human tragedy for a silly crocodile movie which probably isn’t a great thing to be doing. As for the crocodile action itself… well, some of the sequences are decently staged but the crocodile itself is almost entirely CGI and while it’s hardly the worst computer generated creature I’ve ever seen it’s not great, probably the worst of the three big 2007 crocodilian movies in terms of special effects. I feel like with a little more care (better effects, more interesting characters, some more sensitivity) this could have been something worth remembering, as is it’s pretty much something that can be written off unless you’re pretty bored. **1/2 out of FiveIn ConclusionAnd with that I’m done with my journey into the world of crocodellian themed cinema. What have I learned from all this? Not much really. You’ll notice that I’ve given pretty tepid star ratings to most of these movies; the genre just hasn’t had its definitve “good” example the way that shark movies have. Honestly the 2019 film Crawl is probably better than all of the examples I looked at for this marathon besides maybe Dark Age which stands out from the rest in terms of both tone and execution but also isn’t a classic or anything. I can’t say I’m entirely shocked by this either, I knew I was in for some cheesy escapism from these movies and that’s mostly what I got. 1. Dark Age (1987) 2. Alligator (1980) 3. Black Water (2007) 4. Lake Placid (1999) 5. Primeval (2007) 6. Rogue (2007) 7. The Great Alligator (1979) 8. Alligator II: The Mutation (1991) 9. Eaten Alive (1976) 10. Crocodile (1980) |
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IanTheCool
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Post by IanTheCool on Oct 27, 2024 13:27:49 GMT -5
I think its funny that 1980 had both Crocodile and Alligator
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Post by PhantomKnight on Oct 27, 2024 13:29:12 GMT -5
Day Twenty-Seven: Alien: Romulus (2024)
To the credit of director Fede Alvarez, Alien: Romulus DOES have atmosphere to spare, as well as feeling like a film in a franchise that's able to occupy its own little corner of it without feeling too beholden to what came before...for the most part. But more on that in a bit. Alvarez is able to effectively return this series firmly to its horror roots while also putting his own stamp on it stylistically. As already mentioned, the atmosphere in this thing is really strong and much like Ridley Scott did in the very first film back in 1979, Alvarez is able to make the space station itself here as much its own character as the actual characters. It's shot and brought to life in a way that inspires some pretty palpable dread as you're watching the film, and keeping your eyes darting to the edges of the frame to see what may be looking there. Also, the movie does a good job of establishing characters and a central conflict/situation that don't feel like rehashes of the franchise's greatest hits (though, for the latter, it does sort of feel like he borrowed a bit from one of his past films, Don't Breathe). Which is what makes the fact that the film DOES still go for nostalgia and past connections as it goes along kind of disappointing. In terms of the former, it's mainly dialogue callbacks and, yeah, those are expected to a degree. But for the latter, this movie does a certain something that as a friend of mine has pointed out, a lot of Disney productions especially have done recently, and it's something that really wasn't necessary for this. Especially when it was already doing so well. Now, if this certain something had been confined to a small part of the film, maybe it would've been okay. But, no, it's an aspect that's present in pretty much the rest of the film once it's introduced, and it just proves to be a distraction more than anything else. However, then the movie does something more wholly original and unique in its Third Act that's pretty bonkers, but still works, if nothing else for the sheer boldness and inventiveness, and it ends the movie on something of a high note. Enough to pull it back from the needless decision to connect it to the Ghosts of Movies Past? Mostly. Basically, when Alien: Romulus is allowed to be a Fede Alvarez Alien movie, this thing cooks quite well. When it tries to sort of tie itself back to earlier movies in the series, it feels weighed down. Which makes the end result sort of mixed, leaning towards positive, but, man...this still turned out better than it had any right to be.
**1/2 /****
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IanTheCool
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Post by IanTheCool on Oct 27, 2024 13:38:01 GMT -5
Oct 27 Evil Dead 2 1987
Somehow I never got around to watching the second in Raimi's evil Dead trilogy until now. I like Army of Darkness quite a bit, but Evil Dead, while I appreciate it, doesn't really match my sensibilities. I think always hearing that this is just Evil Dead being done again, albeit more frantic and heightened, made me less eager to check it out. And then years passed. Now, here we are.
I liked this one more than Evil Dead, but AoD still works better for me. There are a lot of Raimi touches here I liked, such as the blood on the light bulb turning it into a red light, and the construction of the chainsaw hand. The aggressiveness of the horror aspects take a front seat here, which doesn't always work for me. But Bruce Campbell's performance hits just the right note; maybe his best?
Anyway, glad I finally watched this. I was surprised how much set up to AoD there was.
7/10
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Neverending
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Post by Neverending on Oct 27, 2024 16:48:14 GMT -5
Oct 27 Evil Dead 2 1987
Somehow I never got around to watching the second in Raimi's evil Dead trilogy until now. I like Army of Darkness quite a bit, but Evil Dead, while I appreciate it, doesn't really match my sensibilities. I think always hearing that this is just Evil Dead being done again, albeit more frantic and heightened, made me less eager to check it out. And then years passed. Now, here we are.
I liked this one more than Evil Dead, but AoD still works better for me. There are a lot of Raimi touches here I liked, such as the blood on the light bulb turning it into a red light, and the construction of the chainsaw hand. The aggressiveness of the horror aspects take a front seat here, which doesn't always work for me. But Bruce Campbell's performance hits just the right note; maybe his best?
Anyway, glad I finally watched this. I was surprised how much set up to AoD there was.
7/10
EVIL DEAD II (1987) lol. We’ve seriously gone 9 years without discussing Evil Dead II?? Not even 1godzillafan said anything? Wow. I’m almost certain I covered it in the OG forums. I specifically recall PG Cooper talking mad shit. But anyhoo, with this years release of Evil Dead Rise, I wanted to go back and revisit the series. Life got in the way and it didn’t happen. Does anyone know if that new version of the original Evil Dead, with the new 5.1 mix and the new Joseph Lo Duca score, ever got release on Blu-Ray or 4K? Dracula ? IanTheCool ? Y’all know? Anyway, where was I? Right. Evil Dead II. So I was gonna watch these movies again and then forgot about it. I think they were on HBO Max at one point. Now I see Evil Dead II pop up on SnoBorderZero’s favorite streamer Tubi. So I watched it. Thoughts: I recall PG Cooper call Army of Darkness the cheapest looking “expensive movie” he ever saw. Search the dude’s Letterboxd. I’m almost certain he said that. Could have been Dracula or even PhantomKnight. But let’s blame PG Cooper for now. Here’s my defense. Is a movie “cheap” or well allocated? Evil Dead II is a shockingly cheap looking movie. Was this even shot on 35mm?? If SnoBorderZero told me this was shot on VHS, I’d believe him. It looks awful. But then I noticed the even more shocking number of effect shots. Evil Dead II is like 95% special effects. Doomsday was just jerking off to the 1990 Ninja Turtles movie. Has he seen Evil Dead II?? There’s almost always something happening. Whether it be stunts, gore, animatronics, miniatures, stop-motion, it’s almost wall-to-wall effects. So is it cheap or money well-spent. Ask yourself that, PG Cooper. Ask yourself that. Objectively speaking, is Evil Dead II a “good movie”? No. Not really. There’s really no story or character development. I think I’ve always been in the camp that prefers Army of Darkness over the other two. In spite of PG Cooper’s shit talking, it at least feels like a real movie and Bruce Campbell is hilarious in it. But if you admire the craft of filmmaking, is there really a better movie than Evil Dead II? It’s astonishing what Sam Raimi and his team managed to pull off here. I can’t think of any other prominent filmmaker that has pulled off anything like this at that budget level. For the record, the budget was $3.6 million. The Evil Dead (198?)There’s a 4K version of Evil Dead on Amazon. I don’t know if it’s the same one that Grindhouse released in theaters. But it restores the movie to its 16mm glory and the 5.1 mix is pretty neat. I don’t know if this is an unpopular opinion or not, but I prefer Evil Dead 1 over Evil Dead 2. I think Evil Dead 2 gets too indulgent in its Looney Tunes mayhem whereas Evil Dead 1 feels like a legitimate movie. I think the scares are good and I feel more for Ash in this one. If there’s a flaw, that was improved in Evil Dead 2, is its mythology. The setup does come across a bit random regardless of how clearly it’s laid out. Including the archeologist, his wife and daughter in Evil Dead 2, plus sending Ash to medieval times at the end, does give that movie a better sense of world building. In Evil Dead 1 they could have kept everything vague (the woods are evil) and it would have made no difference. But this is just a minor complaint. Evil Dead 1 is really good. Maybe even great. |
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Wyldstaar
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Post by Wyldstaar on Oct 27, 2024 18:07:15 GMT -5
Yesterday was Dismember the Alamo 2024. This time it was four vampire themed horror movies.
First up was Hammer's Brides of Dracula (1960), which has no brides and no Dracula anywhere in the film. We do get Peter Cushing playing Van Helsing though, which is nice. It's a fun movie, and at only 85 minutes it won't waste your time.
The print we watched was of excellent quality, unlike this trailer.
Next on the playlist was Universal Pictures Dracula's Daughter (1936). This one was unexpectedly good, and also doesn't screw around with needless padding at only 71 minutes (and none of those minutes feature Dracula). Unlike most vampires who relish their murderous ways, The Countess wants to escape her thirst for blood. Dracula's Daughter features a Girl Friday played by the beautiful Marguerite Churchill, the first leading lady of John Wayne in The Big Trail (1930).
Again, the Alamo had a great print of the film, unlike this fuzzy mess of a trailer.
Third on the roster was Toho's Lake of Dracula (1971). Taking place on the shores of a Japanese lake where a mysterious European style home lies at the end of a hidden trail. Residing there is a golden eyed descendent of Dracula (again, Dracula does not appear at any point of the film), who is of course played by Japanese actor Shin Kishida. I guess Toho didn't feel like importing anyone for a low-budget horror movie.
The final film of the day was BFI's Sister Midnight (2024). This Indian film (not a Bollywood production, so there are no musical numbers) has only been on the film festival circuit so far, and is scheduled to be distributed in the US in 2025 by Magnet. It's very funny, contains lots of American music, and is certainly not what one usually expects from a vampire movie. Uma is a newlywed in an arranged marriage to a boy she only met a couple of times when she was seven years-old. Everyone in her family thinks she's crazy and useless, and quickly discovers that the boy she knew as a child grew up to be the village idiot. Her husband spends all day working, and most of the evening drinking, only to finally come home and collapse on the bed without ever touching her. She soon gets a job just to have something to do. Uma develops what appears to be a stomach illness that she just can't shake. She's never hungry, and food won't stay down. One night on the way home from work, Uma comes across a goat and is taken over by an uncontrollable urge to drink it's blood. She initially thinks she's just developed a weird taste in food, but days later sees the now undead goat running down the street and the truth becomes clear.
The movie is so new that there's not even a trailer yet. Just a clip.
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PG Cooper
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Post by PG Cooper on Oct 27, 2024 19:30:12 GMT -5
Day Twenty-Seven: Abigail I missed Abigail in theaters, mostly because the trailers gave away that the titular character was in fact a vampire and not an innocent little girl and that seemed to take away any intrigue. That was probably a mistake though because I actually rather enjoyed this. The ensemble of criminals are not the deepest types but the cast assembled is quite fun, with some great comedic elements and chemistry with each other. A lot of the gore gags also work and the film generally ramps up nicely. I don't think the ballet gimmick is quite as rewarding as the filmmakers seem to think it is and the big reveal in the last 10 minutes is quite the anti-climax but Abigail delivers in pretty much all the ways you could want. Well, all but one. Why in the fuck would you make a horror movie called Abigail and NOT INCLUDE THE KING DIAMOND SONG OF THE SAME NAME!!! Rage for that aside, I had a good time. B-
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PhantomKnight
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Post by PhantomKnight on Oct 27, 2024 19:48:54 GMT -5
Day Twenty-Seven: AbigailI missed Abigail in theaters, mostly because the trailers gave away that the titular character was in fact a vampire and not an innocent little girl and that seemed to take away any intrigue. I wonder, though: could they have properly sold this as the kind of movie this is without giving that away? To me, that seems like a big part of the main appeal. |
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Dracula
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Post by Dracula on Oct 27, 2024 19:58:19 GMT -5
Day Twenty-Seven: AbigailI missed Abigail in theaters, mostly because the trailers gave away that the titular character was in fact a vampire and not an innocent little girl and that seemed to take away any intrigue. I wonder, though: could they have properly sold this as the kind of movie this is without giving that away? To me, that seems like a big part of the main appeal. If it were a better movie they would have tried, but it was pretty clear word of mouth was going to be pretty meh and they needed to just get butts in seats that first weekend. |
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Doomsday
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Post by Doomsday on Oct 28, 2024 0:52:46 GMT -5
One for the road. And now, Doomsday continues his ongoing series of watching horror movies he's never seen before for Halloween......
Supernatural (1933)
 I've plugged the 1001 Movie Posters book on these boards and I've been flipping through it over the past few days. I've already parked on a few of the posters and have watched some of the movies based solely on that. It's kind of fun because I'm basically watching movies because of the single image presented, having been given little more than the title, stars and maybe even filmmaker which is what the audiences would have had to go off back in the day. I watched The Thief of Bagdad with Douglas Fairbanks and had a great time. Today I stopped on Supernatural with Carole Lombard. It's a very simple poster, just a woman holding a crystal ball against a black background but it piqued my interest. The 64 minute runtime didn't hurt either. Carole Lombard plays a rich heiress whose twin brother tragically dies when a Spiritualist/con man reaches out to her offering to connect her to her brother's spirit. Coincidentally, the Spiritualist's ex-lover is being executed at that exact same time after murdering three other lovers after an orgy, something he may have framed her for. Gotta love pre-Code Hollywood. Anyways, the executed convict's spirit possesses the sister's body and she tries to exact revenge on the Spiritualist. It's a plot that is eerily reminiscent of Exorcist III and I wouldn't be surprised if William Peter Blatty watched this before putting pen to paper. Supernatural is a movie that's light on characterization and has a plot that's built around conveniences to keep things connected and moving forward but it's a tight, easily digestible film. It's hardly scary at all, I think it's more of a crime movie with some horror elements and there isn't even a crystal ball like the poster suggests, however it's a fun little movie that I enjoyed watching even if it isn't exactly a game changer. Carole Lombard though. |
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PhantomKnight
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Post by PhantomKnight on Oct 28, 2024 12:50:31 GMT -5
Day Twenty-Eight: Leviathan (1989)
It's wild to think that Leviathan came out the same year as James Cameron's The Abyss, since both films concern a group of explorers on the bottom of the sea besieged by outside forces. In this case, it's a sea creature monster, giving this film shades of The Thing as well. And in both comparisons, Leviathan simply falls flat. Not just because it pales in comparison to the two big movies it bears similarities to -- although, it definitely does -- but mainly because on its own merits, this movie is pretty lackluster. For a film that's only 98 minutes, the pacing is surprisingly draggy and as a result, there's never a true feeling of tension here. It tries to establish its cast of characters and get us invested in them, but these people just aren't all that interesting. So when the titular creature starts picking them off one by one, an air of monotony quickly settles in. Credit where credit's due, however: the creature effects by Stan Winston really are quite solid and cool...it's just that they're being used in service of a movie that feels derivative of other, better ones of its ilk. Leviathan is a movie that feels assembled from the leftover scraps of Alien, The Thing and The Abyss, but those leftover scraps are pieces that the aforementioned movies left unpolished by the wayside. In fact, this reminded me more of Barry Levinson's Sphere, and that's not necessarily a good thing.
*1/2 /****
Bonus Film: Lifeforce (1985)
I think Lifeforce is my formal introduction to the Cannon Films banner, and I have to say...I'm underwhelmed. Not so much by some of the cheapness on display a lot of the time (the effects in the First Act, even by 80's standards? Ooof), but mainly by the fact that I found the vast majority of this movie to be downright boring. The First and Third Acts aren't so bad, especially the Third Act -- which sees a full apocalypse break out in London. But my God, is the middle section of this movie a drag. It gets bogged down in exposition and overexplanation, which in turn saps any and all intrigue, mystery and suspense from the film completely. I mean, sure, you've got scenes of a naked female space vampire walking around during some of this section, but for something that's supposed to be a sci-fi horror movie, it doesn't really capitalize on the horror component much, if at all. Instead, we're saddled with dull characters saying dull things in equally dull tones of voice. Where's the insanity that a Cannon Films production is said to promise? I mean, apart from a naked lady waltzing around a lot of scenes and a crazy Third Act, Lifeforce is a movie that largely just feels lazily uninspired and bad instead of bad in a cocaine-fueled way. So, yeah, you can actually color me disappointed with this one.
*1/2 /****
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