Dracula
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Post by Dracula on Oct 28, 2024 13:03:58 GMT -5
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)
Uh, by Cannon Films standards this thing is wildly big budget and extravagant. This sleazy naked lady vampire movie has a budget is two and a half times larger than the budget of E.T. |
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Post by PhantomKnight on Oct 28, 2024 13:16:16 GMT -5
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)
Uh, by Cannon Films standards this thing is wildly big budget and extravagant. This sleazy naked lady vampire movie has a budget is two and a half times larger than the budget of E.T. Yowza... |
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Post by Neverending on Oct 28, 2024 14:22:49 GMT -5
Film Twenty-One: Flesh for Frankenstein (1973)  Flesh for Frankenstein has at various points been released under the title “Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein” though Warhol only served as a producer on the film and I don’t know that he had any direct influence over it. It’s also a little more conventional and straightforward than the unformed experimentation that you generally associate with “Andy Warhol movie” but it is still all kinds of nutty all the same. The film is set in Serbia (seemingly so all the actors can have questionable vaguely European accents without most people being able to question it) and stars Udo Kier as a Dr. Frankenstein who is trying to build a male monster and a female monster out of body parts in order to have them mate and create a race of monsters he can control. The film was rated X when it came out in 1973 and does indeed feature a whole lot of nudity and “abhorrent” sexuality, but I wouldn’t really call it pornographic as most of this is meant to provoke and mess with taboos rather than really arouse anyone. It was also originally in 3D because… why not. The movie is pretty nuts, it has Udo Keir going completely over the top at all times and a lot of the blood and gore is indeed really in your face (literally, given the 3D) and interesting to look at. The movie isn’t scary at all and probably never was but people looking for camp insanity will most certainly find it. ***1/2 out of Five Dracula posting this on October 21st, 2018 and me now posting on October 21, 2024 is 100% a coincidence. Although, if y'all wanna play the lottery tonight, be my guest. Just be sure to give Dracula and I a small cut if you win. FLESH FOR FRANKENSTEIN (1973) / BLOOD FOR DRACULA (1974) The 1970's were wild, man. You could openly be a pervert, and no one cared. Maybe it is time for PG Cooper to step away from YouTube stardom and put his doctorate to good use. I have read that Zoomers aren't having sex and dislike seeing romance depicted on film and television. I do not know how accurate these reports are, but that is where you come in. As an educator, you are in a position to test if these claims are true or not. Without warning, play Flesh for Frankenstein for your students and let us know how it goes. Sure, you might get fired, but Doomsday will get you a job at LucasFilm if that is the case. You could be the LucasFilm archivist and finally fulfill your dream of living in the United States and being miserable like the rest of us. So what is so bad about Flesh for Frankenstein? Well, the premise is as follows. Frankenstein is creating a male and female monster to mate and procreate. Meanwhile, one of his employees is going around and having sex with every female in sight. It's just a movie about people fornicating with the occasional gore to remind you that it is a "horror film." This was a common sub-genre in the 70's, but Flesh for Frankenstein swung for the fences. If there is a line that shouldn't be crossed, Flesh for Frankenstein jumped over it and kept running. If this movie is shocking in 2024, people must have lost their minds in 1973. But... whereas Flesh for Frankenstein was an experience, Blood for Dracula is a legitimate film. It's made by the same people and also pushes boundaries, but it has a story and actual characters. Also be on the lookout for a cameo from Roman Polanski. Dracula is in a weakened state and needs virgin blood to survive. He meets a nice family with young daughters, but unfortunately for him, the daughters aren't as innocent as they seem. The movie offers a different take on Dracula, which I found interesting and amusing. Dracula is basically a pathetic loser, and if his diet ain't right, he won't survive. You almost feel bad for Dracula and "the victims" almost come across as the villains. The gore is fun. The music is really good. This is a surprisingly good film, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it. Flesh for Frankenstein? Not so much. Day Twenty-Four: Andy Warhol's Flesh & BloodFlesh for FrankensteinIn 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- It was the PG Cooper review that killed him. www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/paul-morrissey-andy-warhol-collaborator-dies-86-1236046767/ |
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Post by Neverending on Oct 28, 2024 20:35:01 GMT -5
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)
Oh, MovieBuff801. You innocent child. If you wanted to pop your Cannon cherry, should had let me know. Invaders from Mars (1986) Tobe Hooper. Dan O’Bannon. Stan Winston. John Dykstra. Heck, even Christopher Young. With so much talent involved, surely, this is one of the classics of cinema. No? Based on a 1953 B-level sci-fi/horror film, Invaders from Mars is about a 12-year-old boy who discovers that his town has been taken over by aliens. People in the 80’s loved the 50’s as much as people today love the 80’s. This is very much a love letter to the 50’s and the low-budget schlock that played in neighborhood theaters every Saturday afternoon. Almost to its detriment. It follows all the beats. It brings nothing new to the table. I can see how this movie fell through the cracks. It doesn’t have the personality and creativity that you’ll get from the classic genre pictures of the 80’s. But… it has high production values and was made back when kid’s films had cojones. Tobe Hooper is someone that can do a lot with very little and this is a good example. There’s suspense, thrills, fun creatures and an engaging cast of characters. If you’re looking for something new to watch this Halloween season, that is of course family friendly, this is a good choice. |
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Post by Dracula on Oct 28, 2024 22:41:05 GMT -5
Film Twenty-Eight: Azrael (2024)  There seems to be a mini-boom of movies with no spoken dialogue as of late including last year’s No One Will Save You, Silent Night, and Robot Dreams and now we get another one that’s in the vicinity of this with the post-apocalyptic horror film Azrael. This movie is apparently set in the aftermath of a biblical rapture and we’re told via a title card that many of the survivors have renounced speaking out of some sort of religious conviction. We then follow a young woman named Azrael played by Samara Weaving who has recently been cast out of a cult that is of this belief and have gone as far as removing their own vocal chords out of this conviction. From there it becomes something of a survival film as Azrael finds herself needing to escape both the cult and these monster things that are roaming the land apparently. It’s sort of a cross between Stakeland, Apostle, and Mandy which is certainly an interesting blend, and as far as the “limited spoken dialogue” gimmick goes, it certainly feel less forced here than it does in something like Silent Night though there are maybe a couple of spots where I might have rather just had some more clear exposition. To some extent the movie feels like it’s building up to its final shot, which is a good one, but the journey getting there is interesting enough. Weaving works as a lead and there are some decent set-pieces along the way. It’s not a horror flick that’s going to shake the genre’s core but it’s a good enough time and I’ll be interested to see what director E. L. Katz does in the future. *** out of Five
Bonus Film: Oddity (2024)  Oddity is a low budget Irish horror flick that sort of snuck up on me in terms of reputation as I started hearing people talk about it earlier this month though not extensively. I think it’s somewhat held back in the discourse because it doesn’t fall under an easy subgenre to identify. It kind of plays more like a psychological thriller in certain ways, but there is a supernatural element too. The film follows a woman who’s trying to uncover the truth about her sister’s murder by staying in the house where the murder occurred and employing some psychic powers. There’s also a weird mannequin in the house that may or may not be a golem. Things get weirder form there. This isn’t a movie that announces itself upfront as being surreal but as it goes on it becomes increasingly bonkers, though not in a particularly showy or in your face way. It doesn’t really announce its “rules” upfront and as such becomes kind of unpredictable, which is admirable, but its uniqueness never quite has the impact you might expect and at times I just found the disorientation less welcome. I wouldn’t say this is a particularly scary movie, but it does have some strong moments including an interesting little jump scare involving a tent, and the mannequin itself is kind of neat but probably not a wildly memorable horror film monster in the grand scheme of things. I was interested enough in the movie generally, but I’m not sure I ever really got on its wavelength and it just wasn’t for me.
**1/2 out of Five
Bonus Film: MadS (10/28/2024)  MadS is yet another horror movie that snuck up on me. I hadn’t heard much about it coming out of festivals and it’s basically gotten a straight to streaming release in the United States via Shudder, but it is a neat piece of genre cinema. This is a zombie movie; the zombies behave a little differently than the zombies you see in the Romero classics of the genre but not wildy differently. What sets this one apart is the perspective with which we encounter this particular outbreak as it follows people who are, well, they’re the people who are likely to sort of be the “red shirts” in other zombie movies. The film begins by focusing on a roughly college aged guy who we see buying drugs at the beginning on the movie and some of the tension early in the film is his inability to distinguish if there’s really an emergency going on around him or if its narcotic fueled paranoia. The other thing that distinguishes the movie is that it’s one of those movies that’s filmed to appear as if it’s done in a single shot. Yeah, that gimmick again; it’s getting old at the point but I won’t say it’s entirely unimpressive or ineffective and I did have fun with it here. That said this is a movie that takes itself fairly seriously and it trying to use its camera technique to ramp up the tension and really turn the viewer into a participant in this wacky adventure. The movie has some pretty good looking cinematography and bits of the zombie attacks are mostly well staged even if they maybe lack some needed novelty and the movie doesn’t really give you enough to reallyconnect with the characters. Good enough entry in the zombie flick and “one shot” subgenres, but nothing here that's going to change the world. *** out of Five |
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Post by Neverending on Oct 29, 2024 8:36:12 GMT -5
Twilight Zone: The Movie (John Landis, Steven Spielberg, Joe Dante, and George Miller, 1983)- 5/10 |
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Post by PG Cooper on Oct 29, 2024 9:09:30 GMT -5
Day Twenty-Nine: The Horror Cinema of Francis Ford Coppola
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Post by Neverending on Oct 29, 2024 9:18:19 GMT -5
Two days left. Speed round. The Strange Case of Doctor Rx (1942)More Shemp -- but not enough Shemp. The Baby (1973)Only in the 70's could you get away with this. The Brute (1977)Ursa from Superman versus her crossdressing husband (played by the villain from Indiana Jones 3). Bordering on bad taste, but it was the 70's. Read above. Killer Nun (1979)"Based on a true story" about a crazed nun that's killing her patients. Trashy Italian film, but this one nun has a really nice rack. Windows (1980)Have Dracula and PG Cooper covered this film yet? I'd be shocked if they haven't. Famed cinematographer Gordon Willis (Godfather, Woody Allen movies) made his sole directorial effort on this controversial picture about a lesbian who stalks and assaults Talia Shire. Ennio Morricone does the score. It's actually pretty good. I think Cruising also came out in 1980. So, it wasn't a good year for the LGTBQ community. I can see why they'd be upset. But it's a solid thriller. Firestarter (1984)I'm sure y'all seen this one. The first half in which Drew Barrymore and her dad are on the run from the government is really well done. Love the score. But once they get captured, it gets boring. The ending is awesome though -- and George C. Scott is inspired casting. Luther the Geek (1989)Alright, so, the movie starts with a parole board approving the release of a serial killer that murdered his victims with metallic teeth. Think of Jaws from the James Bond series. And immediately upon release, he goes back to killing. Um... if you want the audience to buy into your premise... you gotta add some verisimilitude. Anyhoo, complete bore of a movie. The villain is awful. He doesn't even speak. He makes chicken noises. Seriously. And he's defeated when the Final Girl speaks chicken to him. Seriously. Joke of a movie. But Stacy Haiduk shows her boobs, so at least there's two redeeming things. Spontaneous Combustion (1989)Maybe the best Tobe Hooper movie? It's basically body horror with little to no plot, but what a thrill ride. Brad Dourif is excellent as usual. Mother's Boys (1993)Jamie Lee Curtis doing her best Cape Fear impersonation. She even molests an underage person. I think we need to re-evaluate how successful that Scorsese Cape Fear was. It even got its own Simpsons episode. Wicked (1998)We took Julia Stiles for granted. She truly was a generational c-word. Even when she played the good guy, she always had the perfect resting bitch face. Here, she plays the bad guy. Instead of teen romcoms, she should have done domestic thrillers and horror movies. Her career would have lasted a lot longer. She was born for these types of roles. |
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Post by PhantomKnight on Oct 29, 2024 13:04:28 GMT -5
Day Twenty-Nine: Alligator (1980)
At the very least/first and foremost, Alligator delivers on exactly what it promises: a large mutated killer alligator roaming Chicago on a killing spree after bursting free from the sewers. Also, let it be said upfront that after seeing the opening of this movie, I'm kind of on his side. Building off that, this movie knows exactly what it is and has no pretensions about itself and is kind of surprisingly watchable and entertaining, to an extent. A large part of the reason why is Robert Forster, playing a cop very much meant to be the Chief Brody figure in this movie very much meant to be a takeoff on Jaws. Forster brings a certain level of...dignity? to the proceedings and anchors everything in a performance that walks the line nicely between self-serious and self-aware, but the key is that you always buy into his conviction, which in turn helps sell the movie itself better. Beyond that, there's really not a whole lot more to say here. I admit, I'm not as well-versed in these creature feature horror features, of which alligator/crocodile-based ones are apparently its own subgenre. But on its own merits as a B-movie, Alligator mostly delivers the goods and never feels as silly as it could have, instead playing it just serious enough to qualify as a modest success.
**1/2 /****
Bonus Film: Anaconda (1997)
Yet another entry on the list of Movies I Used To Watch a Lot As A Teen Because They Were Constantly On Cable Movie Channels. Which isn't exactly an endorsement of Anaconda's quality, either, because this movie really isn't very good. The makings are certainly here for a schlocky-fun creature feature, and to its credit, there are times where it manages to tap into that kind of tone. Jon Voight's whole character, in particular, is a scenery-chewing delight as the movie's villain, and a few of the setpieces work well enough. But the movie built around them is a pretty stock, i.e. boring, horror adventure movie with lackluster writing and pretty dull characters. Actually, you know what, I'll also say that Jennifer Lopez isn't that bad as the lead (though her considerably lightened/almost invisible eyebrows in this movie seriously kind of weirded me out), but apart from Jon Voight, the rest of the cast is filled out by what feel like standard archetypes for a movie like this. And while it's pretty cool whenever the movie uses practical effects when it comes to the anaconda, it's considerably iffier when it uses CGI, though I've still seen worse. Looking back, I guess I watched Anaconda so much in the early 2000's on HBO/Cinemax simply because I was trying to get my hands on as many more "mature" movies as I could in my early teens and it was on endlessly. But while those movies may have been a bit more mature, that doesn't mean my tastes had fully matured yet, as Anaconda readily reminded me of.
*1/2 /****
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Post by Neverending on Oct 29, 2024 13:25:17 GMT -5
 A bit too bizarre for my taste at the end, but I appreciate the swing. The atmosphere, concept, and Dastmalchian's acting are top notch. A shame it was overshadowed by an absolute nothing burger of a controversy. The AI usage is like 3 shots and you can't really tell unless you're looking for it. Real fun one to have others over to watch. 7/10 Yea id go 7/10 it's a solid movie and a crowd pleaser. Really wants to go hard as hell in the end and it sorta does but it's really only marginally memorable for me. Great lead performance though and it builds a nice atmosphere. I was kind of floored by this movie. Now, to be upfront, Late Night with the Devil doesn't exactly do anything new with its portrayal of demonic possession, or at least, anything we haven't seen before in movies with similar subject matter. But this is a case where it's all in the execution, because this still feels like a very fresh take on it. To an extent, the structure/format and trappings of making a horror movie in the form of a late night talk show from the 70's may seem gimmicky, but filmmaking duo Colin and Cameron Cairnes clearly know what they're doing here. Just aesthetically, the style here feels vividly realized, from the production design and especially the storytelling style itself. Not only is it a refreshing and unique take on how to tell a horror story, but the way it still manages to ratchet up the tension throughout is nothing short of impressive. It's incredibly tight storytelling that manages to communicate so much in terms of character while staying within its trappings -- and it's also a great showcase for well-worn character actor David Dastmalchian, who doesn't squander in the least his chance to shine in the spotlight this time. But back to the horror, this is one of those movies that seems to recognize what's truly skin crawlingly scary. Because some of the things this movie does really do work because the atmosphere is pretty masterfully sustained the more the film goes on, and when it indulges in its most horrific imagery and scenes, the impact really hits because all aspects of the filmmaking collide together in some truly unsettling ways. And the payoff is absolutely worth it. Late Night with the Devil is a movie that left me feeling pretty giddy by the end, and I love that feeling. One of the most clever, creative and effective horror films I've seen in recent memory. ****/****On one hand, I liked it a lot. On the other hand, I’m disappointed it didn’t commit to the bit. I would have enjoyed it a lot more if it had just been presented as an hour of late night television with no “behind the scenes” footage and extra content at the end. They could have even shot it with authentic 1970’s TV cameras. Shoot it on tape. Give us the full experience. |
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Post by Neverending on Oct 29, 2024 13:38:01 GMT -5
NOTE: Dracula posting this on October 21st, 2018 and me now posting on October 21, 2024 is 100% a coincidence. Although, if y'all wanna play the lottery tonight, be my guest. Just be sure to give Dracula and I a small cut if you win. FLESH FOR FRANKENSTEIN (1973) / BLOOD FOR DRACULA (1974) The 1970's were wild, man. You could openly be a pervert, and no one cared. Maybe it is time for PG Cooper to step away from YouTube stardom and put his doctorate to good use. I have read that Zoomers aren't having sex and dislike seeing romance depicted on film and television. I do not know how accurate these reports are, but that is where you come in. As an educator, you are in a position to test if these claims are true or not. Without warning, play Flesh for Frankenstein for your students and let us know how it goes. Sure, you might get fired, but Doomsday will get you a job at LucasFilm if that is the case. You could be the LucasFilm archivist and finally fulfill your dream of living in the United States and being miserable like the rest of us. So what is so bad about Flesh for Frankenstein? Well, the premise is as follows. Frankenstein is creating a male and female monster to mate and procreate. Meanwhile, one of his employees is going around and having sex with every female in sight. It's just a movie about people fornicating with the occasional gore to remind you that it is a "horror film." This was a common sub-genre in the 70's, but Flesh for Frankenstein swung for the fences. If there is a line that shouldn't be crossed, Flesh for Frankenstein jumped over it and kept running. If this movie is shocking in 2024, people must have lost their minds in 1973. But... whereas Flesh for Frankenstein was an experience, Blood for Dracula is a legitimate film. It's made by the same people and also pushes boundaries, but it has a story and actual characters. Also be on the lookout for a cameo from Roman Polanski. Dracula is in a weakened state and needs virgin blood to survive. He meets a nice family with young daughters, but unfortunately for him, the daughters aren't as innocent as they seem. The movie offers a different take on Dracula, which I found interesting and amusing. Dracula is basically a pathetic loser, and if his diet ain't right, he won't survive. You almost feel bad for Dracula and "the victims" almost come across as the villains. The gore is fun. The music is really good. This is a surprisingly good film, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it. Flesh for Frankenstein? Not so much. Day Twenty-Four: Andy Warhol's Flesh & BloodFlesh for FrankensteinIn 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 DraculaBlood 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- It was the PG Cooper review that killed him. www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/paul-morrissey-andy-warhol-collaborator-dies-86-1236046767/Day Twenty-Nine: The Horror Cinema of Francis Ford Coppola You’re on a row, buddy. variety.com/2024/film/news/teri-garr-dead-young-frankenstein-tootsie-1236193831/ |
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Post by PG Cooper on Oct 29, 2024 13:56:18 GMT -5
Now I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds
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Post by PhantomKnight on Oct 29, 2024 13:59:49 GMT -5
Pray that PG Cooper doesn't make a Video Essay about you next.
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Post by Neverending on Oct 29, 2024 14:11:22 GMT -5
Pray that PG Cooper doesn't make a Video Essay about you next. Unfortunately, his next video essay is on the horror films of Doomsday. Goosebumps and Overlord. That’s just one less than Coppola and two less than John Landis. |
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SnoBorderZero
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Post by SnoBorderZero on Oct 29, 2024 14:43:05 GMT -5
Martin (George A. Romero, 1977)- 7/10
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Neverending
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Post by Neverending on Oct 29, 2024 16:02:26 GMT -5
DoomsdayIt just dawned on me that the entire cast of Young Frankenstein is now dead. Even more amazingly, Mel Brooks outlived them all. YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN (1974)  Young Frankenstein is my favorite comedy of all-time. I love it because it doesn't spoof Frankenstein. It simply tells the story in a comedic way. At its root, that's what comedy is. It's just amusing storytelling. I can picture the earliest speaking humans, gathered around a log fire, telling each other funny stories based on their journey's. Frankenstein is a classic tale loaded with important themes and it all crosses over to Mel Brooks adaptation because he's not mocking any of it. He just wants to get the points across in a humorous way.
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Dracula
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Post by Dracula on Oct 29, 2024 19:40:18 GMT -5
Film Twenty-Nine: At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul (1964)  A semi-well known (in very particular circles anyway) horror franchise I’ve avoided until recently is the “Coffin Joe” franchise, which is probably the nation of Brazil’s biggest contribution to the genre. The movies revolve around a guy named Zé do Caixão (to the best of my knowledge that’s just a regular name and the “Coffin Joe” moniker is an invention of English language distribution) who is this amoral Nietzsche inspired undertaker who is obsessed with “passing his seed” to the perfect woman in order to create superior children and finds increasingly unproductive ways to go about doing this. He’s just a truly evil central character and the film is mostly known for his villainy (and actor/writer/director José Mojica Marins’ portrayal of him) along with the fact that the movie is generally more violent than what you’d normally get from a movie made in 1964. I will say that the fact that you’re more or less following Coffin Joe rather than his victims in this kind of lessens the suspense in all of this and I also can’t exactly say that Coffin Joe’s evil scheme ever really made that much sense to me. The film also seems to be doing cartwheels in order to justify itself to the censors by making all the good guys Catholics allied against an evil atheist bad guy. In fact there’s kind of an interesting inversion going on here: horror movies are usually about normal secular scientific people encountering an inexplicable supernatural villain they can’t explain but here it’s the bad guy who encounters and is defeated by the supernatural and occult. I’m not sure it really works that great narratively but stylistically it works quite well; it has some sharp black and white cinematography, Coffin Joe himself looks pretty dapper, and the actual horror scenes are interestingly staged. Definitely at least worth a watch. ***1/2 out of Five
Bonus Film: This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse (1967)  This second Coffin Joe movie would be the last straightforward sequel in the series until a revival almost forty years later. The character would show up in some meta-sequels as well and as a host for some anthology flicks but as far as continuity goes this was the end for a while. The movie begins with a semi-retcon showing that Coffin Joe had actually survived his apparent death at the end of the last film and had also beaten the charges for his crimes. Soon enough he’s back on his bullshit and is kidnapping women and putting them through deadly experiments to see who is “worthy” of bearing his child. So far so evil, but then the movie kind of shifts around the half point. Joe actually meats a woman who actually just likes him, psychotic tendencies and all, and just wants to willingly have his baby for some reason. At this point Coffin Joe becomes less of a threat to the public but the villagers are not so forgiving and come to exert vigilante justice. These movies have always had the tension of essentially being a horror movie told from the perspective of its extremely unsympathetic villain rather than a victim you can empathize with and be in suspense on behalf of and that’s taken to something of an extreme when Joe becomes the hunted rather than the hunter at the end. The film’s other highlight is a mid-movie nightmare sequence shot in color in this otherwise black and white movie where Joe gets a vision of hell. This is another weirdly structured installment, but probably the better movie overall. They seemed to be on a bit of a roll here and it’s kind of disappointing things pretty much ended here. I’m not super clear on what happened behind the scenes but I suspect things stopped more because of battles with censors and the increasingly authoritarian government of Brazil during this period than out of a lack of creative drive or popularity.
***1/2 out of Five
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Neverending
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Post by Neverending on Oct 29, 2024 20:48:11 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- Loved it. Also, further evidence that thebtskink is wrong about Melissa Barrera. |
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Neverending
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Post by Neverending on Oct 29, 2024 21:12:18 GMT -5
DoomsdayI have (had?) this episode on VHS. No clue why. No idea who got it for me. But I used to watch it a fair bit. It was paired with a Scooby-Doo episode.
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Neverending
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Post by Neverending on Oct 29, 2024 21:16:08 GMT -5
DoomsdayI have (had?) this episode on VHS. No clue why. No idea who got it for me. But I used to watch it a fair bit. It was paired with a Scooby-Doo episode. edit: It’s this one. www.ebay.com/itm/196392018127Shit, they’re selling it for $20?? $20. Damn. I should go check if my copy is in some box somewhere. Is VHS hip again or something? IanTheCool, go investigate. I’ll go dig up all my VHS’. We can go into business together. |
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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 29, 2024 22:40:05 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. 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- Loved it. Also, further evidence that thebtskink is wrong about Melissa Barrera. Nah, she sucks. Personality of a 2×4. |
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Neverending
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Post by Neverending on Oct 30, 2024 10:02:39 GMT -5
Trap(8/1/2024) M. Night Shyamalan’s first unabashed commercial failure as a major filmmaker was the 2006 film Lady in the Water, an intensely strange film about a man finding himself immersed in a weird story involving “Narfs” and “Scrunts” invading his apartment complex’s swimming pool, was reportedly based on a bedtime story that Shyamalan would tell to his kids. When that movie crashed and burned commercially and critically people thought “well, maybe fatherhood just led him on a strange lark” but the issues with his filmmaking trajectory did not go away as he moved on to more adult projects. Shyamalan has, however, remained fairly interested in turning his filmmaking career into a family affair and as his daughters have grown up he’s kept them involved in his work behind the scenes and this seems to have culminated in the summer of 2024 with a pair of projects that seem to have had slightly nepotistic intentions. First there was The Watchers a film fits into his overall brand and was produced by him but was directed by his twenty four year old daughter Ishana Night Shyamalan. That movie was not great but I would say wasn’t an embarrassment either, the younger Shyamalan was certainly competent behind the camera but the movie she was making didn’t entirely work and has been pretty quickly forgotten. Now we have another Shyamalan project, this one directed by the man himself but which seems heavily designed to be a musical and acting showcase for another of his daughters, Saleka Shyamalan, who has a heretofore not overly successful career as an R&B singer. That film, Trap, probably has more commercial upside than The Watchers but from where I sit it’s kind of a toss-up as to which of the movies is better.
Trap opens with a man named Cooper (Josh Hartnett) escorting his daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) to an arena for a mid-day concert being performed by a major pop star who goes by the name Lady Raven (Saleka Shyamalan). The two get into the building and find their seats but along the way Cooper starts noticing an unusual number of police in and around the building and starts to wonder what’s going on. We see early on that he has some sort of live video on his cell phone of someone tied to a chair and it would seem he has some reason to be afraid of talking to police. Eventually he starts chatting with a merch vendor (Jonathan Langdon) and learns on the down low that the whole concert is a sting operation: they’ve learned that an infamous local serial killer uncreatively dubbed “The Butcher” will be attending the show and they’ve closed off all exists in hopes of interrogating everyone in the building who fits the killer’s profile in hopes of capturing him. Frightened, Cooper realizes he needs to scope out this whole situation and try to find means of getting past security and escaping this place but it’s going to take some incredible ingenuity to pull such an escape off.
The basic high concept here, of someone essentially needing to escape from a Taylor Swift concert undetected, has some potential. I’m not exactly sure I find this scenario plausible, firstly because I have my doubts that a pop star would agree to such a situation and secondly because I don’t think it’s actually legal or possible for the police to conduct that many random searches on people… I don’t think what they have constitutes probable cause, but it is something I’m willing to play along with for the purposes of a thriller. The bigger issue with this concept is, well, it implicitly requires you to empathize with and hope for the escape of a literal serial killer. This isn’t something that’s impossible to overcome necessarily, if a filmmaker is willing to be particularly perverse or particularly empathetic there probably are ways to pull such things off but I’m not sure this movie does. Unlike Kevin Costner in the comparable No Way Out we don’t have any good reason to think this guy is innocent, nor do we get the sense that he’s reformed or that he had some sort of good reason to commit his crimes. I’m guessing that Shyamalan rather over-estimated how much good will the fact that this guy seems to genuinely love his daughter would buy with the audience or maybe he just thought that Josh Hartnett would have enough magnetism to make audiences like the unlikable but I’m not sure why he would have expected that given that Josh Hartnett is and always has been a mediocre at best talent who is not worthy of the comeback people seem to want to give him.
Beyond that the movie is just kind of ridden with plot holes and contrivance. Through much of the movie the protagonist seems to be able to get people to completely bend backwards to help him and I think the idea is supposed to be that this is just a function of him being this super charismatic and manipulative guy who can get people to bend to his will, but I just don’t think either Shyamalan’s dialogue or Hartnett’s performance really sold these scenes as intended and Shyamalan really doesn’t make the twisted mind of his protagonist feel particularly authentic or interesting. On the plus side, I do think the film took a couple risks in terms of genre and structure that were interesting. There’s a bit of a perspective shift the movie takes at about the halfway point that I do think it pulls off and the movie starts to work a lot better for a stretch there. I would also say that the father/daughter dynamic in the opening parts before the thriller elements take off felt pretty realistic and the “nepo-baby” aspects of the project were less of a detriment than they could have been. I didn’t find Saleka Shyamalan that believable as a world conquering pop star and the music she wrote for the movie is decidedly “mid” but when the singer becomes a more direct player in the story at a certain point she mostly holds her own well enough as an actress and wasn’t that much of a distraction. Beyond that, I don’t want to give the impression that this is too big of a failure. It works sporadically as intended and is mostly watchable. Shyamalan has made much worse movies in the past but I still don’t really count this as a success, it just botches too much and has a bit too many questionable Shyamalan-isms and kind of feels like a wasted opportunity. **1/2 out of Five Even with a lot of M. Night Shyamalan's post-Signs track record in mind, I still have to chalk Trap up as a disappointment. How can a movie pretty much squander such a promising and intriguing setup? By not knowing how to deliver and follow through on said concept. There are definitely instances at first here where Shyamalan is able to mine some legitimate twisted fun out of his concept, particularly with how he's able to play around with establishing emotional stakes for the story -- which is also due in no small part to Josh Harnett's very interesting performance in this. I can't go so far as to say I was ever fully invested in the outcome for him, though, because Shyamalan's now-penchant for getting awkward and more than slightly stilted performances rears its head more than once in this movie, and also given the nature of the story itself, it's hard to fully root for this guy. But I will say this: the stilted quality of Harnett does kind of work, given who his character is, plus he does manage to bring out some legit charisma in the guy. Getting back to the lack of emotional investment, though, that's what really makes the first half come off more as an interesting experiment rather than a legitimately suspenseful ride. So, the first half is kinda clunky if still reasonably entertaining at points, but man...the second half pretty much sucks all the air out. Its first sin is in pretty much abandoning its core concept, but then it elevates someone who's a side character at first into a supporting one...a decision that just doesn't work. Partly because the actor's -- one of Shyamalan's daughters, by the way -- acting just isn't very good, but mostly because the movie itself begins to run out of steam, and fast. This is a case of a movie having about five different endings, each less impactful and more dragged out than the last. It also offers up an explanation behind its premise that just feels like overwriting, when the movie was doing at least reasonably better when it was focused on simplicity and attempted ingenuity within the confines it makes for itself at first. It becomes a much more standard -- and very less interesting -- thriller in its second half, which only adds to the sense of disappointment. And contrary to popular opinion, I don't think M. Night Shyamalan has completely lost his touch: The Visit and Split were good, Old is fascinating/kooky fun and Knock at the Cabin was surprisingly strong. It's just that he indulges in some of his worst tendencies, as well as one or two new ones, with Trap, and after a certain point, the title was beginning to feel all too apt. *1/2 /****You know, going into a movie without watching any trailers or reading anything about it really does seem to be the way to go. I didn't know anything about Trap, so starting off in that concert, seeing the extra security and wondering what was going on really started things off on a suspenseful note. And this suspense continued to permeate the film, yet it was always evolving, never static. Shyamalan does some interesting things with playing with the audience's sympathies here and adds a lot of dynamics to our protagonist and the relationships around him. Its a very compelling and probably Shyamalan's best in a long time. 8/10 This movie is extra crispy. |
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PhantomKnight
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Post by PhantomKnight on Oct 30, 2024 10:38:54 GMT -5
Day Thirty: Salem's Lot (2024)
When this Salem's Lot remake was first announced, I was naturally pretty curious and interested, in spite of never having read the book or seen the original miniseries. Then the movie got delayed and then shelved with nary a peep about it for at least two years. Now, it's arrived on Max, and such a long delay for it would probably seem to suggest that it's something of a disaster. Honestly, if only it was. Because, then, at least, it might feel more interesting and memorable. Instead, the most disappointing thing about this movie is just how mediocre it feels overall. It's the second directorial effort of Gary Dauberman, who previously helmed the third Annabelle movie, was a co-showrunner of the tragically short-lived Swamp Thing TV series and had a hand in the recent IT movies, so the guy is versed in horror, at least. And if anything, I'll give the movie this: it generally has a decent atmosphere and Dauberman and cinematographer Michael Burgess bathe the nighttime scenes especially in a bluish-green hue punctuated by yellows that add to the general mood. The problem, though, is that it feels kind of lackluster when it comes to the actual horror. With a Stephen King adaptation, odds are filmmakers will naturally have to truncate certain things, but even having not read the book yet, this thing feels almost like a Cliff Notes version of the story. It's put together well enough and manages to avoid being outright boring, but it seems to be lacking a certain sense of passion or purpose beyond being another Stephen King cash-in. The performances are perfectly fine, there are some eerie moments here and there, but it also feels like pretty standard vampire movie fare a lot of the time. And for something that's adapting what's supposed to be one of King's bigger works, I expected more. Sadly, I can see why this was delegated to streaming.
**/****
Bonus Film: Pet Sematary: Bloodlines (2023)
I remember liking the 2019 remake of Pet Sematary well enough back when I first saw it, but I can't say that it's stuck with me all that much since. Certainly not enough to think that a prequel about a young Judd Crandall's first experiences with the titular site being a necessary movie, but what can I say? Morbid curiosity. And, yeah...Pet Sematary: Bloodlines strikes me as completely unnecessary, even as a straight-to-streaming release. Much like the 2019 movie, this prequel trades heavily in the realm of horror movie tropes. Plenty of jump scares, predictable set-ups, ghoulish imagery and bloodshed...but it's all hung around a pretty empty story at the end of the day. This young version of Judd Crandall just isn't ever drawn interestingly-enough to make for a compelling lead, and I certainly never cared for how the events were affecting him personally, nor his family's apparent connection to the Pet Sematary burial grounds to begin with. The movie can be boiled down to yet another standard evil undead story, with not much in the way of intrigue or interesting ideas. However, there IS a supporting character played by David Duchovny who's pretty intriguing in his backstory, motivations and actions -- to the point where I feel like the movie would've been much better served had it been more about him -- and Duchovny plays the role well with just the right dashes of darkness, pain and desperation. Plus, it's interesting, in that Duchovny here is playing the sort of character whom Mulder and Scully themselves would be investigating if this were an X-Files "Monster of the Week" episode. I'll also give director/co-writer Lindsey Anderson Beer credit for maintaining a decent atmosphere and employing an effectively gnarly sound design when it comes to the undead's movements. But when all is said and done, Pet Sematary: Bloodlines really should've heeded its own advice: sometimes, dead is better.
*/****
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Neverending
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Post by Neverending on Oct 30, 2024 16:00:43 GMT -5
Both X and Pearl felt like such assured and confident entries in their own right into this whole "X Trilogy" conceived of by writer/director Ti West, and I very much like them both. Which makes the ultimately more middling third entry, MaXXXine, both surprising and somewhat disappointing. Now, to be upfront, this is a movie I'm still willing to give another chance, and maybe it'll grow on me like Pearl did. But at the moment, I can't deny that this is the weakest of the trilogy. It's not for lack of filmmaking prowess, because Ti West evokes 1985 Hollywood as vividly as he did the late 70's in Texas with X and the 20's in Pearl, giving MaXXXine a certain undeniable vibe. From the costumes, overall tone and the violence, this is a film that does manage to get you pretty wrapped up in the vibes. The performances also help, too. Mia Goth remains excellent, even if the movie itself may not flesh her out a whole lot more, Kevin Bacon revels in his role as a sleazy private investigator, and the flm populates the rest of the cast who also know what level to dial in at. But it's ultimately the script that kind of lets the movie down, in comparison to its predecessors. For one, I think it's clear that West is trying to make a point about Hollywood in this era, but what his message is never comes through all that clearly. Also, the Third Act has a revelation that works in theory, but it lacks impact because there isn't a whole lot of proper establishment of the context behind it beforehand. That's not to say I didn't find the film to still be somewhat entertaining overall, because I did. But I also can't help but feel like Ti West approached MaXXXine more as just another showcase for Mia Goth's talent than he did a more fully satisfying end to this trilogy. **1/2 /****Pearl was amazing… but X and Maxxxine are both okay. Novel ideas but the execution left a lot to be desired. |
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Neverending
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Post by Neverending on Oct 30, 2024 16:08:05 GMT -5
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