Neverending
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Post by Neverending on Oct 4, 2014 1:57:06 GMT -5
Here it is. From Halloween 2011.
DEEXAN: I'm confident that if I watched this at night in an empty house I would still shit myself. I will not be testing that theory any time soon.
ME: Nothing happens for the first 45 minutes, so if you watched this movie alone and in the dark, then you'll just fall asleep.
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Dracula
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Post by Dracula on Oct 4, 2014 2:01:11 GMT -5
I have mixed feelings on Blair Witch but mostly lean towards the positive. It certainly has an eye for the creepy and the idea of a force subtly trapping people in a forest is a good one. That last scene also owns.
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Neverending
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Post by Neverending on Oct 4, 2014 2:06:45 GMT -5
The final scenes are iconic. I'll give it that.
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Neverending
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Post by Neverending on Oct 4, 2014 2:14:35 GMT -5
Another archived post. Halloween 2012.   PSYCHO II (1983)Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho is a masterpiece. Making a sequel to it is asking for trouble. If the Internet had existed in those days, the project would have been crucified since day one. That's why it's shocking that the movie is..... GOOD. Released 23 years after the original, the sequel continues the path set by Hitchcock with its emphases on suspense. However, it is 1983 so the kills are more graphic and the sexual content is increased. Anthony Perkins returns as Norman Bates, but gives a slightly different performance. In the original he’s a damaged young man. Here, he’s in recovery. The film begins with Bates’ release from custody even though many are protesting that decision. The city simply wants to give him a second chance. Although they make the big mistake of letting him return home and to the Bates Motel. As soon as he arrives he’s haunted by the past. There’s a young co-worker named Mary (Meg Tilly) who tries to help him out, but she appears to be living a double life and her intentions are questionable. The sequel pales in comparison to the original, but if you judge it on its own merits you might find yourself enjoying it a great deal. It does a great job of exploring Norman Bates road to recovery and the pitfalls he faces. It's a solid psychological thriller. |
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Deexan
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Post by Deexan on Oct 4, 2014 6:00:36 GMT -5
CLASSIC HORROR POSTERS - DAY #4 (AKA WHEN-GEENA-DAVIS-WAS-THE-HOTTEST-WOMAN-ON-EARTH):
BONUS DAVIS IMAGE:
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tylergfoster
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Post by tylergfoster on Oct 4, 2014 10:53:44 GMT -5
Wasn't a fan of The StuffThe Stuff is like the sister film to They Live. Man, I love They Live. Don't see that one at all. Today I re-watched (for the first time in years) The Hidden. I don't know what I was expecting the first time (probably something scarier, and more like The Thing, because the clip of the effects I saw gave me the same feeling), but I didn't like it. This time, I was expecting more of a B-movie and I really had a great time. Moves fast, fun performances, exciting action, and Claudia Christian in a red dress wielding a high-powered rifle.  |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 4, 2014 13:55:51 GMT -5
Sounds like something I'd love.
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PG Cooper
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Post by PG Cooper on Oct 4, 2014 14:28:14 GMT -5
4. The Fly (1958) I've long been curious of the 1958 version of The Fly. The David Cronenberg remake is one of the most horror films ever made and one of my all-time favourite films. Obviously I didn't expect this B-movie to approach these lofty heights, but for what it is it's a notable film all the same. Probably the most interesting aspect of the film is the structure. Most of the story is actually told through flashback which gives the film an aura of mystery. The creature itself is also used sparingly. In fact this version leans a lot closer to science-fiction than to horror. A lot of screen time is actually spent on the scientist explaining how the teleporter works and trying to perfect it. It's not the deepest science-fiction and there are instances of 50s silliness, but on the whole it's cool to see so much time spent on that aspect. The film also has a really great moment near the end involving a spider's web. What holds the film back is the runtime. Despite only being 90 minutes, The Fly drags in many spots, mainly because the film just isn't substantial enough to hold its runtime. As a result, there's a lot of filler and it becomes tedious to sit through. This creates another problem too. Because we spend more time with these characters were nothing of significance is happening, it really crystallizes just how boring these characters are. I know this film isn't exactly a character driven piece, but when it forces the audience to spend time with its characters while nothing is happening, the lack of dimension becomes a problem. The movie also ends a bit strangely. What actually happens isn't all bad, but the execution and tone of the final scene just feels off from the rest of the film. Still, The Fly isn't a bad movie. It has some fun moments and a few images that I've rightfully left a pop-cultural impact.
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IanTheCool
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Post by IanTheCool on Oct 4, 2014 14:45:21 GMT -5
I think I may actually have a movie to contribute this year.
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Post by PhantomKnight on Oct 4, 2014 15:47:26 GMT -5
DAY FOUR: MONSTERS (2010)
(Written June 5th, 2014)
My liking the new Godzilla movie so much prompted me to go back and check out director Gareth Edwards' debut feature, the micro-budget Monsters. First of all, I must say that for a movie with a budget of just $500,000, Monsters looks impressive and pretty damn professional -- especially the special effects used on the gigantic monsters/aliens themselves. I'd already heard this about the film, but seeing it for myself really emphasized how well-done this movie is on a technical level. Now, what about the quality of the film from a storytelling perspective?
Well...ironically, I had the same kind of issues with this film that most others seem to have had with Godzilla. Mainly, the human characters that the story focuses the majority of its time on aren't that interesting. The performances themselves, from Scoot McNairy and Whitney Able, are quite good, but it's the material that they're given that isn't as compelling as it should be. As a result, I found there to be stretches of this movie that held my attention fairly well, but then others where I was kind of waiting for things to get going again. If these two characters had been more interesting, then I would have definitely rated this film higher, but when what's essentially your central story aspect is only off-and-on interesting, it doesn't help. But Edwards once again prove how talented of a director he really is. His mindset to show larger-than-life disasters from a much smaller and everyday perspective is very wise, and he knows that a little goes a long way. Every time we see the creatures, like in Godzilla, it really does have an impact. But while Monsters clearly isn't bad, and I was pretty interested in the Godzilla people, I WILL say he needs to start finding better characters to base his movies around.
**1/2 /****
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Post by Deleted on Oct 4, 2014 16:05:32 GMT -5
I'm watching "La notte dei diavoli" tonight, so I'll try to have a short review shortly after.
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tylergfoster
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Post by tylergfoster on Oct 4, 2014 19:50:55 GMT -5
Didn't like Monsters the first time I saw it, but we watched it again in a class and I liked it quite a bit better.
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Post by Dracula on Oct 4, 2014 20:17:30 GMT -5
Alright, going to break out the first half of an upcoming "The Journey Continues: Skeptical Inquiries into Family Cinema" entry focusing on the stop-motion films of Tim Burton. Again, apologies to the resident Tim Burton expert for the multiple inaccuracies that are probably in it. Film Four: Corpse Bride (2005)
Tim Burton is a director that has always been interested in the macabre, but unlike most filmmakers with similar tastes he’s never really been interested in making a straight-up horror movie. He ventures into R-rated territory occasionally, but even movies like Sleepy Hollow and Sweeny Todd haven’t really been “scary” per se. In fact, Burton has actually had a pretty long history of making films that are either for children or those who are children at heart. This is, after all, a man who got his start at Disney and whose first feature length film was an adaptation of “Pee Wee’s Playhouse.” In fact I would argue that Burton’s relationship with younger audiences is not unlike that of Steven Spielberg’s: both of them are in touch with a certain child-like imagination even if they aren’t necessarily always making movies that are meant specifically for young children, it just so happens that Burton’s inner-child is interested in darker and more twisted things. In fact you can get an interesting peak into what the young Tim Burton’s life was like by watching his first foray into stop-motion animation: the 1982 short film “Vincent,” which is about a brooding little seven year old who “doesn’t mind living with his sister dog and cats, though he’d rather share a home with spiders and bats.”
Burton’s most successful attempt to appeal directly to children was almost certainly his 1993 stop-motion animation project The Nightmare Before Christmas, a film which was actually directed by Henry Selick, but written, produced, designed, and shepherded by Burton to the point where his name was placed in front of the title. Marketers didn’t really know what to do with that film, and Disney (who had produced the film) felt compelled to hand over distribution of the film to their Touchstone arm for fear that it might taint their brand. The film made decent money on its initial release, but it was only afterwards when it came to home video where it really found its audience. Since then, it’s become a pretty big cult hit and something of a holiday tradition even among general audiences, but the people who really truly embraced it (and Burton’s other films for that matter) were what was typically referred to as “the Hot Topic crowd.” You know, people who you don’t really want to call “goths” (because it isn’t 1991 anymore) and you don’t really want to call “emos” (because it’s not 2006 anymore) but who still sort of share that sensibility. Yeah, those people ate that movie up and proceeded to litter the internet with their pencil drawings of jack Skellington. Hey, I’ve got nothing against it, finding a niche like that to worship you is an accomplishment in my book.
Anyway, Burton’s career as a children’s entertainer didn’t end there. A Nightmare Before Christmas may have been ahead of its time and the studios didn’t know how to market it, but they didn’t make that mistake again. Since then he’s been allowed to put his name on live action family films like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Alice in Wonderland, but the films that really seem to be the follow-ups to Nightmare were his animated projects James and the Giant Peach (another Henry Selick film, one that Burton seems to have less of a direct hand in), Corpse Bride, and Frankenweenie. It’s those last two projects I’m going to be looking at today. Both were heavily anticipated to be the biggest cult hits since Nightmare and both got decent reviews and were given their share of awards nominations, but neither really captured the public’s imaginations and I want to see why.
Corpse Bride
Before I get too deep into Corpse Bride I should probably say a couple of words about the film it’s clearly living in the shadows of: The Nightmare Before Christmas. I actually saw that movie in its initial theatrical run when I was six years old and I think I liked it at the time but my memories are a bit hazy. It certainly wasn’t a movie I loved to death and felt compelled to own and watch a million more times… in fact I didn’t see it again until earlier this year when I gave it a watch as research for this piece. On a rewatch I found that I liked but didn’t love A Nightmare Before Christmas. It was a pretty fun movie with some charming puppetry and enjoyable songs, but it was also pretty slight experience without a whole lot of depth. Still it was a fun little art project and I could see why people would like showing it to kids around Halloween.
Corpse Bride came out over a decade later and long after A Nightmare Before Christmas’ cult following had established itself and expectations were fairly high. I wouldn’t exactly say that the movie was a huge disappointment when it came out. It got fairly respectful reviews, it certainly made its budget back at the box office, and it even got an Academy award nomination for Best Animated Film, albeit in a weak and unusual year that didn’t have a Pixar movie, a Dreamworks movie, or a Disney movie competing for the award and in which none of the nominees were computer animated for what was first and probably last time (it lost to Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit). If it had been a great movie it probably would have been in a good position to, like its predecessor, become a cult sensation. That didn’t really happen though; the film is rarely talked about anymore and is practically forgotten by everyone but Tim Burton completists. As such I really wasn’t sure what to expect from the movie.
The film is based on a Russian/Jewish folk tale about a man who, while practicing his wedding vows, accidentally finds himself married to a dead woman after slipping his wedding ring onto a what he thought was an inanimate object jutting out of the ground but was actually the skeletal finger of a woman who died waiting for her true love. Where the traditional story ends on the jolt of the corpse coming to life, the film tries to stick around and see what someone in that situation would do. It’s an appropriately macabre situation: our hero is a young man named Victor Van Dort in an unnamed 19th century European village who was being pressured by his parents into marrying the daughter of another wealthy family, but he suddenly finds himself in the middle of this crazy love-triangle with his original fiancé and the dead girl he accidentally marries. In some crazy way this almost feels like an allegory for having an affair and getting the “other woman” pregnant. Victor was wavering in his commitment to his fiancé and the next thing you know he has to take responsibility for the well-being of this other woman he doesn’t really know but who’s inexplicably linked to him because of something he did. In a different context this is basically the same story being told in Usher’s “Confessions Part 2.”
It’s an interesting dilemma, but the movie starts to go wrong by populating the story with some fairly weak and undeveloped characters. Victor is probably the biggest problem. He’s a super soft-spoken clutz completely lacking in confidence and there’s not a lot to really grab onto with the character. Maybe an actor in a live action movie would be able to make these qualities relatable and sympathetic, but that doesn’t quite translate in stop motion and Johnny Depp’s voice performance doesn’t really help. Depp is actually kind of an odd choice to do voice over work, his appeal as an actor is almost entirely rooted in his physicality and to the way he commits to unconventional choices; he’s not really much of a talker. The two female characters on the other hand just don’t really seem to have a whole lot to them. Victor’s fiancé is almost entirely defined by the ways Victor jerks her around and the titular corpse bride is entirely defined by the way she’s stuck between two worlds.
The two worlds in the film are the world of the living and the world of the dead, and Burton perversely actually makes the world of the dead seem a lot more fun. While the world of the living is rendered with all the bleak dourness you expect from a 19th Russian village, the world of the dead is a lot more colorful and filled with fun characters that sing songs and engage in gallows humor. I get what Burton was going for with this, but it doesn’t really work, in part because he just doesn’t execute as well as he did when he and Henry Selick were making A Nightmare Before Christmas. Where Halloween Town seemed to be brimming with creativity out of its every orifice, this world of the dead is actually kind of boring. There are a couple of neat ideas here and there like a talking worm living the corpse bride’s eye socket or a brigade of singing black widow spiders, but it really wasn’t as fun as it needed to be. On top of that, Danny Elfman’s songs here are not nearly as good as the ones in A Nightmare Before Christmas, not even close, and most of them are sort of slowly recited rather than sung with real panache. In general this feels less like an interesting dichotomy between life and afterlife and more like an identity crisis for a movie that isn’t sure whether it wants to be its own thing or whether it wants to be A Nightmare Before Christmas 2 and I sort of wish that it had just picked a side because what humor is here kind of feels out of place and otherwise it just seems oddly quiet and downcast for a family film.
The one area where the film sort of improves on A Nightmare Before Christmas is in its stop-motion effects, which are definitely smoother and more cleanly constructed than they were in the earlier film. This can probably be chalked up to a decade’s worth of technological advancement and an increase in budgetary confidence. I’m not exactly sure about the details of how the film was made but I think the stop-motion effects were augmented by some CGI, but I’m not really sure where the line is between the two. That said, one could even argue that this smoother look works against the film because it robs the film of the lo-fi charm that made A Nightmare Before Christmas so beloved. I keep comparing these two films, which maybe isn’t fair, but I don’t really see how I couldn’t. Corpse Bride completely lives in that film’s shadow and never really finds a way to forge its own identity, but its failure isn’t just based in its inability to fill that 1993 film’s shoes. It makes plenty of its own mistakes and rarely inspires interest. By the time it reaches the anti-climactic sword fight at its end the film has just been a pretty lifeless affair. No pun intended.
** out of Four |
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PhantomKnight
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Post by PhantomKnight on Oct 5, 2014 0:06:45 GMT -5
My next movie for this is a Tim Burton one, too. Anyway, I saw Corpse Bride in theaters but barely remember anything about it.
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Deexan
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Post by Deexan on Oct 5, 2014 3:42:09 GMT -5
CLASSIC HORROR POSTERS - DAY #5:
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Post by Deleted on Oct 5, 2014 8:35:36 GMT -5
La notte dei diavoli (Night of the Devils, 1972)  Director Giorgio Ferroni's film is a minor work in Italian horror. It stars a bewildered Gianni Garko as Nicola, who, while traveling through Yugoslavia, finds himself stranded in some remote village off the grid. This village--as if it could've been any other way--is not what it seems. Nicola finally understands that this family is concealing a secret from him: it is being haunted by an ancient curse due to a witch, who still roams freely among the ruins of a once prosperous community. As you can imagine, it isn't terribly inventive. It is, however, a lot of fun to observe the antics of these characters. All right, this wasn't my first Italian horror film, obviously. I'm actually a huge fan of Italian horror. Going into them, it's wise to make a few exceptions in regard to logic and acting. Logic, especially, is stretched pretty thin. Nonetheless, what La notte dei diavoli does well is create a really palpable atmosphere. It's a film that pays off in increments, like Suspiria--it doesn't indulge us immediately. But with that said, Ferroni doesn't exactly make a twist-filled film. It isn't terribly surprising in its execution. And that's sort of what hurts the resolution: it doesn't seem credible, or believable, and Ferroni assumes that we will have gone along with it. And we haven't.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 5, 2014 12:30:09 GMT -5
Tonight: Shivers
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PG Cooper
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Post by PG Cooper on Oct 5, 2014 13:00:00 GMT -5
I reviewed Shivers last year too. It's an interesting watch as a Cronenberg fan, but it's not particularly good.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 5, 2014 13:31:09 GMT -5
I don't have high hopes for it. If it wasn't Cronenberg, I'd probably skip it.
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PhantomKnight
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Post by PhantomKnight on Oct 5, 2014 14:37:56 GMT -5
DAY FIVE: DARK SHADOWS (2012)
 How much you enjoy Tim Burton's Dark Shadows, the director's adaptation of the classic gothic soap opera, ultimately depends on how much you still like Burton by this point in his career, I think. I myself still enjoy his work on average, so concurrently, I enjoy this film a good deal. It's filled with elements of the supernatural, from vampires to witches, and all of those elements come together in a way that only Tim Burton can pull off and make entertaining at the same time. Dark Shadows strikes an interesting balance between comedy and the just-plain-weird, but I dug that tone and I honestly found the comedy pretty funny in its own right. But also, I actually got pretty caught up in the story for the most part. Johnny Depp is up to his now-usual makeup-masked antics, but y'know, I don't mind that so much when genuine humor is found in it. I also like Michelle Pfeifer and Helena Bonham Carter in this movie, but Eva Green is the other one truly worth singling out here. Man, am I becoming a fan of her. Green just embraces the crazy villainy of her role and clearly has fun with it -- and we have fun right along with her. The film ends with a big action scene that feels pretty unnecessary given what came before, and Chloe Grace Moretz's character has a revelation revealed about her that literally comes from fucking nowhere, but I can't deny that Dark Shadows is a good time overall. And like most Burton films, it looks fantastic and has a really good score by Danny Elfman. ***/****
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tylergfoster
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Post by tylergfoster on Oct 5, 2014 16:08:25 GMT -5
It's been awhile since I watched these, but on top of it being the 10th anniversary of the first one, maybe it was my return to CS and reconnecting with all the people that made me want to watch Saw. I remember seeing the first postage stamp-sized QuickTime trailer linked on these very boards (by Kitty) and getting super excited. That excitement would propel me through 5 increasingly ludicrous (yet also entertaining) sequels and 1 really underwhelming finale.
Admittedly, revisiting it didn't really bring any new insight to the table for me. I still think Saw is a fun, dumb movie, and my latent love for the series' convoluted mythos returned. I still think it's fun the way the movie lays out information, and I actually like the performances, including Cary Elwes' increasingly silly hysteria. My only real takeaway from viewing it now is that it's weird how the series has shifted from a "present tense" idea to a "past tense" idea for me given how much I would look forward to these things. I also watched Saw II, which is potentially more entertaining than the first, if only because it gives into all the things that would become the series' tropes. I started Saw III, but went to bed before getting too far into it. I'll probably progress through all of them, with the potential exception of The Final Chapter, which I don't own.
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PG Cooper
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Post by PG Cooper on Oct 5, 2014 18:35:21 GMT -5
5. Videodrome *Originally written April 13th, 2013. Videodrome is the strangest film I've seen in some time. David Cronenberg's early 80s film is a surreal trip which can be seen as a hallucination or as...something. As a horror film, Videodrome works very well. The "body horror" is highly effective and the film's tone is like a demented nightmare where nothing makes sense and no easy end is in sight. As satire, the film also works and the statements it makes are still relevant today. Granted, at times the film is so nonsensical it's off-putting and I'm not entirely sure I get what Cronenberg is going for. Still, Videodrome is an unforgettably and unique vision which a highly recommend to horror fans and Cronenberg enthusiasts.
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Post by Batman on Oct 5, 2014 19:05:19 GMT -5
The Fly is my favorite David Cronenberg movie. Videodrome is a close second.
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Post by Dracula on Oct 5, 2014 19:25:50 GMT -5
Film Five: Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993)
 Those who’ve been following my October viewing habits (and if you have been, please, get a life) will know that I’ve been slowly working through the Jason, Freddy, and Michael Myers movies every October for the last nine years. I started in 2007 by watching the Halloween 2, Friday the 13th Part 2, and A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 and then watched the 3s the next year, the 4s the year after and so on and so forth. Well, it’s been while and I’ve finally run out of Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street movies. All that’s left to do is finish out the Jason movies and I’ll finally be done with this crazy project. So, over the next month I’ll be watching Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, Jason X, Freddy Vs. Jason, and the Friday the 13th remake.
The first of these as made at something of a juncture for the series. This was the first Jason movie made after the series was acquired by New Line Pictures and this new studio clearly had big plans for the franchise as they use the movie to set up a Freddy Vs. Jason movie and for a tie-in with the Evil Dead series. As such, calling this “the final Friday” was probably meant to be a lie from the get-go, but they wanted it to match the title of Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare so they went with it. Still, it almost did end up being the Final Friday because that Freddy/Jason crossover ended up in development hell and didn’t get made for a good ten years after that.
This movie is… kind of odd. The movie opens with a moment of crazy self-awareness where a government task-force use some kind of naked bait-slut to lure Jason into a trap where he is blown to smithereens by a team of cops. As usual, this doesn’t permanently kill Jason but it certainly makes resurrection a lot more difficult. His heart continues beating after death and hypnotizes the coroner into eating the damn thing and the soul of Jason possesses him and from there Jason starts possessing a variety of people who carry out his usual killing urges. The acting/dialogue is as bad as ever and being made in a new decade and by a new studio hasn’t really upped the production values much. It certainly seemed gorier than some of the earlier films, but that might just be because I was watching the unrated cut. Otherwise I think the one thing that kind of saves the film is that it is one of the less formulaic entries in the series. The whole possession thing maybe doesn’t elevate it so much in and of itself but it does make it feel at least a little distinct within the low standards of this franchise. *1/2 out of Four |
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Post by PG Cooper on Oct 5, 2014 19:31:31 GMT -5
The Fly is my favorite David Cronenberg movie. Videodrome is a close second. The Fly is probably mine as well. It's tough between it and A History of Violence. |
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