Neverending
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Post by Neverending on Oct 20, 2017 14:25:29 GMT -5
28 DAYS LATER (2002) In 1968 there were people who watched George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead and thought to themselves, "meh." 34 years later, there were people who watched Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later and thought to themselves, "meh." Zombies aren't for everyone. I'm in that group. They're boring and stories featuring them are just an inferior sub-genre of post-apocalyptic films. That said, both movies have their legacy and any fan of popular entertainment should try to understand why they've resonated. In regards to 28 Days Later, the timing was perfect. It was released shortly after the terrorist attacks on 9/11 and re-interpreted zombies in a way that reflected the new world. Under Romero and his imitators, there was always a camp element to zombies. Here, it centered on the notion that zombies are humans infected by a virus and how that devastates society. It grounded zombies and gave the world around them scope. It's a metaphor for what the world can become during wartime. Imitators miss that and just focus on fast zombies. That's a disservice to audiences but it benefits the reputation of the originator. 15 years later, that "meh" turns into "impressive." THE MIST (2007) Its been 10 years. Can we finally acknowledge The Mist as a bonafide classic? Some people have issues with it. It could be the religious overtones or the silly creatures or something else. The rest of us, however, can appreciate it's Twilight Zone style approach. It's about a group of people stuck in a grocery store during a creature attack. Instead of working together or being brave or just being patient as the military fights off these creatures, the people turn against each other and make everything worse. They're the real villains of the story. It's not unique. Similar tales exist. But it's well-executed and stands out among today's landscape of horror.
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IanTheCool
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Post by IanTheCool on Oct 20, 2017 18:02:47 GMT -5
What about Shaun of the Dead? Do you like that movie?
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Dracula
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Post by Dracula on Oct 20, 2017 19:59:25 GMT -5
Film Twenty: Dark Water (2002)  The director who more or less started the 2000s J-horror boom was of course Hideo Nakata, who directed Ringu and its sequel in 1998 and 1999, his first horror follow up to his Ringu movies was his 2002 film Dark Water, which came out in 2002, the same year that the Hollywood remake The Ring came out and hit it big. Dark Water certainly shares some things in common with Ringu in that both films are about divorced women with small children contending with the vengeful ghosts of drowned girls, but there are also clear differences. For one thing, the fact that the woman at the center of Ringu is a divorcee seems to largely be thematically incidental but here it seems to be rather important. The film is playing on this woman’s anxieties and doubts that she’s truly providing the best life for her child by moving her into this rickety old apartment and away from her seemingly wealthier father. It just so happens that the problems with this living environment aren’t merely economic but also supernatural. The film’s ghost also differs from the one in Ringu as it doesn’t operate on a convoluted high concept and instead haunts people in the more traditional ways you might expect from a ghost story. He leaves objects lying around ominously, she appears suddenly in the distance and then disappears, and if she has a gimmick it’s that she makes the ceiling of this apartment leak occasionally and makes other creepy water related occurrences happen. I don’t know that it did anything particularly unprecedented but looking at it now it’s hard not to see the roots of some of the modern haunting movies like Insidious and The Conjuring in something like this and in many ways I do think this might have been made with something of an eye on Hollywood. This is a more streamlined and understandable version of a J-horror movie, but that’s not to say it’s a sell-out or a lesser version of the form. Instead it’s better viewed as a very well-crafted and confidently made example of what one of these movies can be like. Dark Water was given a remake in 2005, but it got reviews that were mixed at best and only did alright at the box office. Unfortunately Nakata’s winning streak did not continue after this. He was brought in to do the terrible sequel to American version of The Ring and hasn’t made anything that’s made much of a splash since then. **** out of Five
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Post by IanTheCool on Oct 20, 2017 22:10:12 GMT -5
I think that movie has some sort of connection with a famous unsolved mystery. I don't remember exactly what the connection is though, but it was a mystery where a woman was found dead in the water tower of a hotel.
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Post by Neverending on Oct 20, 2017 22:21:30 GMT -5
31 DAYS OF HALLOWEENTHE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1974) Throughout the years I've offered my thoughts on the Universal monster movies, the Hammer revivals, Roger Corman's Edgar Allan Poe adaptations, the "masters of horror" of the 1970's, the slasher films of the 1980's, the Kevin Williamson shenanigans of the 1990's and the found footage phenomenon of the 2000's and today. So what am I missing? Oh, yeah. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. This fucking movie - I don't know what to think of it. It's very well-made. It's one of the pioneers of the slasher genre. It has one of the iconic villains of horror. But it's also incredibly random. I'm not sure there was even a story here. To put it simply, a group of college-aged kids wander into a house occupied by lunatics. They're all killed except for one girl who manages to survive by jumping out the window and outrunning everyone. It's intense. It's exhilarating. But it also leaves me asking myself, "that's it?" The Texas Chainsaw Massacre deserves all its praise, but it's also not as polished as the other classics of the genre. In a Top 10 list, it would be in the bottom 10.  Someone once said that all the great musicians from the 1960's and 70's were corrupted in the 80's. A similar argument could be made for cinema. The same person made Texas Chainsaw Massacre one and two. Even if you felt that Tobe Hopper exhibited no greatness, you can't deny he was a product of his environment. The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a great example of the brutally realistic horror that dominated the 70's. The sequel is a farce that ends with Dennis Hooper and Leatherface dueling with chainsaws. Need I say more? Objectively, the sequel is fine for what it is, but a 70's exploitation movie didn't need a goofy 80's sequel. RE-ANIMATOR (1985) Re-Animator, based on the story by H. P. Lovecraft, is about two medical students experimenting with the resurrection of the dead. They succeed in bringing corpses back to life but it's always a disaster because the people always return as psychopaths, monsters or zombies. Re-Animator is usually described as a comedy but that's only true at the end when it becomes an amusing madhouse of gore and special effects. For the most part, however, it takes itself pretty seriously and delves deep into the experiments of the two lead characters played by Jeffrey Combs and Bruce Abbott. To me, these parts were more interesting to watch than the hijinks of the third act. That's why I can't call Re-Animator a great movie. It's too uneven and gets carried away sometimes. But it's definitely very entertaining from beginning till end so I highly recommend it.  If Re-Animator was too silly for you, From Beyond might be your cup of tea. It's made by the same people and it's also a special effects extravaganza, but it actually takes itself seriously. A scientist, a doctor and a cop join forces to stop a device that's sending creatures from another dimension. For budgetary reasons, most of the story takes place in one location, but that doesn't matter because it's a really well made effects driven film. |
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Dracula
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Post by Dracula on Oct 20, 2017 22:29:47 GMT -5
I think that movie has some sort of connection with a famous unsolved mystery. I don't remember exactly what the connection is though, but it was a mystery where a woman was found dead in the water tower of a hotel. Yeah, I've heard of that case and there is a connection, didn't delve too deep into it because it's kind of a spoiler. |
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Neverending
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Post by Neverending on Oct 21, 2017 0:27:33 GMT -5
LEATHERFACE: TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE III (1990) Back to basics, they say. Do they know what that means? Part III intended to recapture the spirit of the original, but it just ended up being a run-of-the-mill slasher film. By 1990 the genre was on life support and this added nothing to keep the flame going. Even the inclusion of Ken Foree (Dawn of the Dead) as an ass kicking dude fighting Leatherface just felt random and desperate. And this is a movie that already threw Viggo Mortensen at us.
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1godzillafan
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Post by 1godzillafan on Oct 21, 2017 0:39:19 GMT -5
"If you need anything, just twitch."
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Post by Neverending on Oct 21, 2017 2:51:13 GMT -5
TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE NEXT GENERATION (1995) I wish I could say this movie is as bad as its reputation but it really isn't. The third one is actually worse. This one at least has Matthew McConaughey under a pound of drugs and alcohol stealing the spotlight from Leatherface. Problem is, this series had no direction. You can give Part 2 a pass because it's at least "the funny one" but what was the purpose of the other two? They're coming along after 8 or 9 Friday the 13th's and countless imitators. You can't just do the same ol' shit. That ship sailed. Watching this is a chore until Matthew McConaughey is allowed to take center stage. Even then, you wouldn't care if every copy of this movie were burned in a giant bonfire.
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IanTheCool
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Post by IanTheCool on Oct 21, 2017 8:43:22 GMT -5
I think that movie has some sort of connection with a famous unsolved mystery. I don't remember exactly what the connection is though, but it was a mystery where a woman was found dead in the water tower of a hotel. Yeah, I've heard of that case and there is a connection, didn't delve too deep into it because it's kind of a spoiler. Have you seen the elevator footage? Creepy. |
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Post by IanTheCool on Oct 21, 2017 8:44:26 GMT -5
I aint sitting through 3 more of those movies.
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1godzillafan
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Post by 1godzillafan on Oct 21, 2017 13:08:04 GMT -5
Day Twenty-One Film Year: 2011 Director: Bill Condon Starring: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Anna Kendrick, Maggie Grace, Michael Sheen Riff Year: 2012 Riffers: Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett Selected Short: Know For Sure You think you don't have syphilis, but how do really know? Has anyone you trust told you you don't have it? Have you been in contact with anyone from a big city in, say, the last year? Then you almost certainly have it! Talk to your doctor immediately, or at the very least, a silver-haired white guy with an authoritative voice. He will put your shame under a microscope and make you look at it and if that doesn't change your ways, than I don't know what!
Or you can just watch RiffTrax latest hilarious short subject Know For Sure.Hahaha! Stillborn children, penis sores, and sexually transmitted diseases! Comedy gold! As sarcastic as that may seem, this short is actually a lot funnier than it has any right to be. The subject matter is grim and dire, as they try to hammer it into your head the syphilis is a bad thing (no shit) and you should get checked out whenever you make human contact. All this talk about penises, dead children, and promiscuous sex, it almost seems as if everyone had syphilis in 1941! Mike, Kevin, and Bill are at the top of their game here. While the jury might be out on whether or not someone who actually has the disease might find it funny, there’s certainly enough here to make fun of. They relish seeing something of this age talking about taboo material so stiffly and like a play, with the accordion drop being a definite highlight. They seem careful to never make fun of the disease itself but rather the way it’s presented here. I think all things considered this short turned out hysterical. Something I didn’t know until researching what year this short was made, but it was directed by Lewis Milestone, who directed All Quiet On the Western Front, Mutiny on the Bounty, and the original Ocean’s 11. But enough talk about doomed pregnancies stemmed from diseases. Let’s watch a movie about a...doomed pregnancy stemmed from a disease.... When word leaked that the final Twilight movie would be split into two parts, most people assumed that this was done by the studio as a cynical cash grab. Not so. The last chapter in the Twilight saga is so vast, so detailed, that it demanded the lush, panoramic two movie treatment.
Okay, maybe they could have trimmed some of that twenty minute wedding because it was very straightforward and didn’t impact the story in any way and essentially could have been a wedding from a Reese Witherspoon movie. And we probably didn’t need every single one of the scenes where Jacob visits the Cullen’s house and shouts at someone. And dear god, they are showing them playing chess on their honeymoon AGAIN!
Fortunately, the remaining twelve minutes of the movie that advances the “plot” in some fashion makes up for the slow pace of the rest of the movie by being disgusting and incoherent. The birth of Bella and Edward’s horrible mutant spawn is repellent, nasty and vile, and yes, we are just referring to the decision to name it Renesmee.*
Also, this time the wolves go to a logging plant and communicate via telepathy.
Mike, Kevin and Bill love to hang out at the logging plant too, or at least they did until that lame foreman called their parents and ruined all their fun.
*DO NOT NAME YOUR CHILD THIS OR ALLOW ANYONE YOU KNOW TO NAME THEIR CHILD THIS“Ah, a romance for the ages: a gaunt, pale man reluctant to make love to his wife.” It’s the moment all Twilight fans have been waiting for: Bella and Edward screw the living crap out of each other. Oh and get married and have a kid too, I guess. It’s the wedding of the century...or, well, the afternoon. Bella and Edward finally wed and honeymoon in Brazil. While there, Bella against all odds becomes pregnant with a half-vampire child. They return home to care for Bella, but the news outrages the werewolf clan who vow to destroy the unholy abomination. Damn you Harry Potter! The fad of breaking a finale movie into two films has reached Twilight, just before infecting The Hobbit, The Hunger Games, and finally going complete erectile dysfunction on Divergent. Whatever you think of this blatant attempt to double profit, and I’ve disliked it even when Potter was doing it, for the most part this first portion of Breaking Dawn works well as an actual movie (part two on the other hand...we’ll get to that in about a week). Looking at it from the point of view on what Twilight fans would actually desire, we have a movie devoted to the leads getting married, consummating their relationship, and giving birth to their child, which is really what is the ultimate satisfaction of any love story. For better or worse, Breaking Dawn Part 1 delivers what it needs to, and that probably makes it the second best Twilight movie behind Eclipse. “Best” being a relative term, of course. Twilight wouldn’t be Twilight if it didn’t screw the pooch on execution and be unintentionally funny in doing so. There was a time when I considered Bill Condon a pretty good director, though granted it was on the basis of Gods & Monsters alone. Since then I’ve seen him direct two Twilight movies and a surprisingly unlively Beauty and the Beast live action remake. Now I just want to stop him before he directs large budget trash again (as a Frankenstein fan I find myself nervous about his Dark Universe Bride of Frankenstein movie...and that was BEFORE The Mummy came out). Condon provides a beautiful looking movie, but has trouble translating the story without going into bizarre territory. Case in point… Hmmm...why does this seem so familiar…? Ultimately the more the series tries to flesh itself out and make itself more interesting, the dumber it seems to get. It’s weird that something is finally happening in this movie series and it makes me feel that Bella and Edward staring at each other in a flower patch with Jacob glaring at them from the corner was somehow better storytelling. Breaking Dawn gets nuttier as it goes on, before climaxing with a pants-crappingly insane ending where Edward chews a baby out of Bella’s womb, injects her Pulp Fiction style with a syringe full of his vampire venom, and Jacob gets on some sort of sex offender list by falling in love with a baby and peeing on it (or something) which connects him to it for life. Holy shit. “Well we wrecked the bedroom. I guess it only makes sense to wreck the toilet.” “Way ahead of you, honey!” In my opinion Breaking Dawn Part 1 is second to the original as the best Twilight Rifftrax. Let it be noted I’ve only watched Part 2 once, but I don’t recall enjoying it half as much as this one. But that could be subject to change. What really puts this Trax over the top for me is the wedding scene, which is quite possibly the funniest riffing of this series. With all the long slow mo shots and patented Twilight pauses there is too much room for jokes here, and Mike, Kevin, and Bill deliver wall to wall winners. After that the riffing takes a bit of a dip, but mostly stays consistent. The movie keeps getting stranger and stranger and Mike, Kevin, and Bill just find themselves reacting to it. And really, that’s kind of enough. As Twilight nears it’s end it’s hard not to get a little teary eyed. There were so many great laughs at the expense of these stupid movies, why did they have to end? I find myself reminiscing upon the good times. Of course the highlight of this series came with this entry, as Bill noted... “Best part of the movie so far! Door slams on chalk face and TWO SECONDS OF FOOTBALL!” On a side note: stay with the Rifftrax through to the mid-credit scene for more riffing. Then Mike and Bill sit through the next ten minutes of credits doing their Volturi impressions.
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Neverending
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Post by Neverending on Oct 21, 2017 13:30:16 GMT -5
I aint sitting through 3 more of those movies. You lack  |
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Dracula
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Post by Dracula on Oct 21, 2017 13:50:57 GMT -5
Film Twenty-One: Pet Semetary (1989)  Stephen King’s “Pet Semetary” is one of his better books, one that serves as one of his more serious explorations of death and grief… while also having a zombie cat and some super splattery stuff towards the end. This film adaptation certainly has its moments and when the horror stuff gets going it is pretty effective. Where it doesn’t fare so well is in some of the more basic elements of filmmaking but especially the casting. They clearly opted not to spend any resources on name actors and got some second stringers like Dale Midkiff top populate the movie and there’s a really memorably odd performance in the film by Fred “Herman Munster” Gwynne as an old yankee farmer who befriends the film’s central family. The film is also perhaps a bit too faithful to its source novel and includes all sorts of flashbacks and side stories that feel a bit superfluous. Granted, there’s not really a whole lot of material in the A-story and the film likely would have been kind of short if it had stuck to it, but there may have been other solutions to that. There are certainly better King adaptations out there and also worse ones, this one is just kind of… there. I’d still probably recommend the movie for the parts that work though. *** out of Five
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thebtskink
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Post by thebtskink on Oct 21, 2017 14:57:29 GMT -5
Fred Gwynne is great in that movie
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Post by Dracula on Oct 22, 2017 8:51:45 GMT -5
Film Twenty-Two: Saw VI (2009)  By the time we got to the sixth installment of the Saw series the whole franchise was just this exercise in seeing how much longer they could keep this thing going. VI is a particularly odd installment in that it was the one where they suddenly decided to get topical. The movie starts with a pair of sub-prime mortgage lenders forced to cut off parts of their own flesh to survive one of these “games” and the main victims in the later portions are the proprietors of a private insurance company that using dirty tricks to keep from paying out customers. I guess in the midst of the divisive Obamacare debate it was good to know that even Jigsaw thought it was wrong for insurance companies to deny coverage over pre-existing conditions. Really though, this topicality was mostly just a cheap way to give this one something to differentiate it from the other Saw movies because otherwise it’s sort of business as usual. I will also admit to being pretty lost during the film’s third act as it starts going through a bunch of twists that I wasn’t able to follow given my hazy memories of the previous movies. ** out of Five
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Post by PG Cooper on Oct 22, 2017 10:18:16 GMT -5
Film Twenty-Two: Saw VI (2009) By the time we got to the sixth installment of the Saw series the whole franchise was just this exercise in seeing how much longer they could keep this thing going. VI is a particularly odd installment in that it was the one where they suddenly decided to get topical. The movie starts with a pair of sub-prime mortgage lenders forced to cut off parts of their own flesh to survive one of these “games” and the main victims in the later portions are the proprietors of a private insurance company that using dirty tricks to keep from paying out customers. I guess in the midst of the divisive Obamacare debate it was good to know that even Jigsaw thought it was wrong for insurance companies to deny coverage over pre-existing conditions. Really though, this topicality was mostly just a cheap way to give this one something to differentiate it from the other Saw movies because otherwise it’s sort of business as usual. I will also admit to being pretty lost during the film’s third act as it starts going through a bunch of twists that I wasn’t able to follow given my hazy memories of the previous movies. ** out of Five
Boy oh boy I cannot wait for you to finish the series next year. Well, I guess technically you won't be finished with a new film dropping this month, but whatever. |
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PhantomKnight
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Post by PhantomKnight on Oct 22, 2017 11:45:42 GMT -5
Question - how graphic is the first Saw? After seeing both Conjuring movies, I want to see more of James Wan's work, and I notice it's on Netflix Streaming, but I kind of get turned off with overly graphic/gory horror. I've been avoiding these movies like the plague, honestly, but is the first one worth putting up with the gore if one is curious about it because of the director?
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1godzillafan
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Post by 1godzillafan on Oct 22, 2017 12:45:27 GMT -5
Question - how graphic is the first Saw? After seeing both Conjuring movies, I want to see more of James Wan's work, and I notice it's on Netflix Streaming, but I kind of get turned off with overly graphic/gory horror. I've been avoiding these movies like the plague, honestly, but is the first one worth putting up with the gore if one is curious about it because of the director? By coincidence I just watched the film last night for my marathon. I don't know if this statement helps but the first Saw is by far the least gory of the series. Probably the goriest scene was halfway through in which someone wrangled a bunch of intestines looking for a key. Other than that what you mostly see is blood, though the film presents the idea of someone's head getting blown up, a throat being slashed, and a limb being sawed off, most of which are barely shown. There's also a lot of poo in the movie too, because why not? |
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Post by 1godzillafan on Oct 22, 2017 12:47:04 GMT -5
Day Twenty-Two Film Year: 2004 Director: James Wan Starring: Carey Elwes, Leigh Whannell, Danny Glover, Tobin Bell, Michael Emerson, Ken Leung, Dina Meyer, Shawnee Smith Riff Year: 2008 Riffers: Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett Selected Short: Shake Hands With Danger (also riffed by Michael J. Nelson) The world of Safety Instructional Films breaks down into two distinct categories: Shake Hands with Danger, and everything else. If you like your hair feathered, your glasses huge and your moustaches grown at an eighth grade level, this is the short for you.
Narrated by a guy who was rejected from the Dukes of Hazard narrator job for sounding too much like a cotton-pickin' bumpkin, Shake Hands with Danger explores the terrifying world of construction work. Sponsored by the Caterpillar heavy machinery company, it chronicles the myriad of ways you can hurt, dismember, maim or kill yourself using Caterpillar brand heavy machinery. No action is free from potentially life-ending consequences! Even if you stay home and lock yourself indoors, the bulldozer will just barrel your house over before seeking out the rest of your family!! Nobody is safe!!! Nobody!!!!
Yes, riff fans of all ages will enjoy this lighthearted timecapsule of the 1970s, set to one of the catchiest Industrial Safety-based jingles we've ever heard.
Mike, Kevin and Bill have never shaken hands with Danger, but they did give Danger that "fist bump then explosion" thing, and then Danger called them all "Bro-seph."Leading into the gory and deadly world of Saw is the gory and deadly world of Shake Hands With Danger, a fan favorite Rifftrax short about safety in construction. This short was actually directed by Carnival of Souls director Herk Harvey, who was primarily an educational short director responsible for such MST classics like Cheating, Why Study Industrial Arts?, and What About Juvenile Delinquency? Shake Hands With Danger has a groovy redneck tune as we follow a bunch of careless nuts operate heavy machinery. Unlucky for them everything that can go wrong will go wrong, and all to the catchy theme song. Mike, Kevin, and Bill play up the stupidity, which is easy to do because it’s abound. They always thrive on characters that lack common sense and if a short is about lacking common sense then all the better. While I think the short is a tad overrated, it’s definitely a funny one worth watching. Note: My copy of the short is from the Best of Rifftrax Shorts Volume One DVD, which is where it premiered with an added treat: bonus animation avatars for Mike, Kevin, and Bill watching and reacting to the short. While the short is annoyingly shrunken in favor of this (the bigger the TV the better, if this is the version you own), it’s a fun addition. Mike’s avatar is his normal self, only animated, while Kevin has been fused with a bag of popcorn and Bill bizarrely enough with an inflatable toy. We also get to briefly see Rifftrax staple Disembaudio in motion. The VOD version of the short does not feature the animation. Additionally Shake Hands With Danger was also riffed during 2016’s MST3K Reunion Live show. And now our feature presentation... Not since Beckett’s immortal Waiting for Godot has the drama of two men locked in a filthy bathroom and brutalized by a crude ventriloquist dummy on television captured the hearts of audiences everywhere. RiffTrax Presents Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett riffing on the original, jaw-splitting, skull-drilling, Danny Glover-ing, fat naked dead man-showing movie that started it all, if by “all” you mean a five-movie franchise that’s now as tired as Bruce Willis at the end of 16 Blocks.
PARENTAL ADVISORY!!!: The Movie Saw is rated R for its extremely graphic and grisly violence and excessively foul language. This RiffTrax is intended for Mature Audiences only. Parental discretion not only is strongly advised, it just makes plain good common sense.It’s getting way too hard to get away from James Wan. Nowadays he’s popular for being the director of the highest grossing installment of the inexplicably popular Fast and the Furious franchise, mastermind behind the Insidious and The Conjuring franchises, and future director of Aquaman. And me...I’m kind of a weirdo who liked Death Sentence better than any of that stuff. But Wan got his start in a low budget thriller called Saw, which involved saws by some sort of association. Mostly it’s about blood and feces smeared on the wall, but Blood and Feces wouldn’t have been a marketable title. The story is of Carey Elwes and Leigh Whannell (who co-wrote the movie with Wan) locked up in some sort of basement bathroom, trying to figure out the puzzles of the Jigsaw killer and escape. Saw was something of a horror sensation back in 2004, and spawned six annual sequels in the following years. There’s a brand new eighth film debuting next weekend as Lionsgate tries to bring it’s Halloween cash cow back into the picture post Hunger Games. But these are the same guys who thought Blair Witch would make a comeback last year, so don’t be surprised if it bombs. This first film is in many ways probably the best of its series, and while I wasn’t as obsessed with the movie as others were, I liked it enough. It has an interesting storyline, and the little mysteries and puzzles keep the viewer invested in trying to solve them. The film doesn’t always work in the moment. The primary storyline features a “game” far more elaborate than the scaled down traps the it establishes as Jigsaw’s track record, and is quite a step away from simply trapping some girl’s head in a reverse bear trap or covering them in flammable liquid. Also as the events unfold, the logistics don’t quite hold up to scrutiny. And let’s be honest, Leigh Whannell almost ruins the movie. It’s clear he isn’t an actor, and when I found out he was actually the film’s writer I wasn’t a bit surprised. He is to Saw what Micah was to Paranormal Activity. And yet I have something of a fondness for Saw. As a child in the 80’s I had friends who would boast about how their (questionable) parents let them watch Freddy and Jason movies. My parents never did, and I was too much of a coward anyway. In the mid-2000 I had started catching up with those 80’s horror icons (I think Freddy vs. Jason had just came out) and Saw came out and started pumping out endless sequels, followed soon by Paranormal Activity. To an extent observing these two franchises helped me cope with that childhood jealousy of an experience that I was always curious about. I heard a rumor that Mike was against doing Saw due to its subject matter, which is why Kevin and Bill riff without him in this feature. And while I don’t have a source to cite, I recall Kevin saying he regretted doing the film in retrospect. I hadn’t listened to this particular Rifftrax until now because the word was hard to pinpoint (that and I had to find a copy of the theatrical version, which is less circulated than it used to be). A lot of it leaned toward negative, but one thing I noted from negative reactions to this Trax usually voiced disdain for the movie, and I know a lot of people who flat out refused to watch it even with Rifftrax. It reminded me a bit of the reaction to the Mystery Science Theater episode of Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed Up Zombies. I know a lot of fans who hate that episode solely for the movie, and yet I and many others find the episode hilarious. I was curious as to whether Saw would be a similar experience. While Saw isn’t as hilarious as Incredibly Strange Creatures, I will say that I had a constant stream of giggles throughout the film. Kevin and Bill waste no time in pointing out how filth-layered every set seems to be, and there is a lot of jokes about the lack of cleanliness. There are some great shots at both Leigh Whannell and Danny “Too Old For This Shit” Glover as well. Probably my favorite run of riffing in this Trax is Shawnee Smith’s flashback to her trap in the headgear. The riffing is positively spot-on throughout. They especially love Jigsaw’s puppet, noting he looks like the spawn of Ross Perot and John Malkovich. I’d suggest watching the riff just for this sequence. This is, of course, pending if you can stomach the movie. I had seen Saw several times before so it held no surprises for me. And personally I think the Rifftrax is above average, far more so than most would have led me to believe. It’s an old riffing theorem, sometimes if you’re not enjoying yourself it might just be the movie’s fault.
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Doomsday
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Post by Doomsday on Oct 22, 2017 15:37:35 GMT -5
And now, Doomsday continues his ongoing series of watching horror movies he's never seen before for Halloween......The Conjuring (2013)
 As anyone with a working television can see, we are endlessly bombarded with year-round horror films in theaters. It's no surprise since horror movies are generally some of the most profitable movies given their usually low budgets. To the naked eye they all look the same and I personally suspect that they are which is why I very rarely watch new horror movies in theaters or otherwise. The Conjuring, another movie that's based on a true story *wink wink nudge nudge* predictably involves a family moving into a new house and suddenly they're met with creepy noises, bumps in the night and eventually discover that there's a demon giving them the business. They quickly track down the Warrens, a husband and wife ghost-hunting team who comes by to take a look. They discover there was bloodshed on the property and now the house is inhabited by the spirit of a vengeful witch who wants to inhabit the mom's body and kill her children. Horrors! After watching this movie I thought about the overall state of contemporary horror films. By and large the mainstream scary movies involve either serial killers or demons/possessions/exorcisms etc. Neither concept is terribly original but both offer the opportunity to incorporate that anxious anticipation of dread. The Conjuring has a few jumps and shocks but it very skillfully heightens those scenes where you expect something to happen, often times with no payoff which is actually a good thing. It makes the movie less predictable and the scares more genuine. However, like almost every other horror movie the build-up is better than the payoff. Eventually it devolves into being yet another standard movie about possession and exorcism which we've seen time and again and like those other movies there are only a couple ways it can end up. There really aren't many new ideas in this movie which as I stated is par for the course with this genre but since the movie incorporates the anticipation of jumps and scares the lack of originality is easy to overlook. It's one of the main reasons why people keep going back to see the same thing over and over again. Ultimately it was a quick and fun way to burn 110 minutes but it's exactly what I expected it to be, nothing more. Also, I was pretty surprised to see after the fact that this movie was rated R. It's certainly one of the softest R ratings I've ever seen for any movie, horror or otherwise.
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PhantomKnight
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Post by PhantomKnight on Oct 22, 2017 18:51:53 GMT -5
A CURE FOR WELLNESS (2017)
 The people thus far who've actually liked this film seem to REALLY like it. Well, then, count me as one of those initial members of the A Cure for Wellness cult following. While by no means a perfect film and a bit overlong at 146 minutes, I still really got into it overall. Yes, the story is very similar to Shutter Island, but the film more than makes up for it through Gore Verbinski's compellingly weird, dark and deliberate directing style. The fact that a major studio put out something this ballsy in its R-rating is something worth celebrating, too. But the mystery also held my attention and even though I still don't know what I really thought about the Third Act reveal, one thing's for sure: I really want to watch it again. The film is sure to attract a number of comparisons, chief among them being Stanley Kubrick and both The Shining and A Clockwork Orange. And I dug it. Toward the end of the first hour, though, I was honestly getting a bit restless and thinking, "Okay, let the shit start hitting the fan now," -- again, this movie could've been trimmed up -- but not long after that, it DID start hitting the fan. I can understand some of the criticisms, but the positives outweighed the negatives for me, and I really hope Verbinski can get more shots even after this one-two punch of bombs with this and Lone Ranger.
***1/2 /****
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Dracula
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Post by Dracula on Oct 22, 2017 21:14:24 GMT -5
Bonus Film: Gerald's Game (2017)  Though I read a lot of Stephen King books in high school, Gerald’s Game is one title’s I never read, in part because I never wanted to be seen reading it and have to explain what it was I was reading. To my young mind the novel’s premise, which involved bondage sex, seemed wildly dirty and I couldn’t imagine anyone ever making a movie out of it. Fast forward a decade and “Fifty Shades of Gray” is a mainstream property and “Gerald’s Game” seems a lot more acceptable by contrast, especially given that its bondage sex scene is not consummated. The story involves a middle aged woman who’s gone to a remote cabin with her husband and after he’s handcuffed both of her hands to a bed he suddenly has a heart attack and she’s left chained to the bed with the key out of reach and starts having hallucinations of her husband talking to her and of a strange looking bald man who may or may not be the grim reaper. This is certainly a high concept movie what with its single room setup and lack of real supporting characters. One could perhaps imagine a version of it being performed as a stage play give or take a couple of moments… including one incredibly gory moment that is decidedly not for the squeamish. Mike Flanagan directs the film well and has an eye for some signature visuals, but some of the writing is not great (the hallucinations are basically an excuse for inner-monologue, and King is not always the best writer of inner monologue) and while Carla Gugino is good in the lead role her performance is not necessarily the tour-de-force required of someone who needs to 100% carry a film. **1/2 out of Five
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Neverending
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Post by Neverending on Oct 23, 2017 3:12:17 GMT -5
Boy oh boy I cannot wait for you to finish While PG Cooper continues to have Dracula’s Minnesotan nutsack in his mouth, I have to once again champion the great Trump-less nation of Canada. This year marked the 20th anniversary of... CUBE (1997) Made by our brothers up north, Cube is about five random people imprisoned in a deathtrap. Sound familiar? James Wan, you hack! The five people are in a series of interlocking cubes that serve as a maze in which they need to escape or be killed by boobytraps. Each person has a particular skill set that can be used to solve the puzzle, but instead of everyone working together, they all turn on each other and take their predicament to the next level. With a budget of only $350,000 the filmmakers prove you don’t need a ton of spectacle to tell a highly creative and highly suspenseful story with interesting characters. |
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1godzillafan
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Post by 1godzillafan on Oct 23, 2017 13:20:52 GMT -5
Day Twenty-Three Film Year: 1998 Director: Roland Emmerich Starring: Matthew Broderick, Jean Reno, Maria Pitillo, Hank Azaria, Kevin Dunn, Michael Lerner, Harry Shearer Riff Year: 2014 (Live riff also in 2014) Riffers: Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett Selected Short: Molly Grows Up There are some conversational topics that most men will avoid at all costs. Guessing a woman's age, Barbra Streisand's Yentl, and the appeal of Justin Bieber rank high among them. But there is one subject that rises above even these, one issue guaranteed to turn even the proudest male into a red-faced, mumbling fool. And that particular health concern is...well, you know. With the discomfort, and the products...come on, don't make me. Lunar cycles, and that thing you hear about girls living in the same dorm--oh YOU KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!! Go to your room.
Molly Grows Up is the story of a girl asking the tough questions. Like most children, she can't wait to become an adult, despite all evidence that it's really not all it's cracked up to be. When will it be her turn? When will she finally get to be encumbered by a cruel monthly beast hell-bent on her misery and embarrassment? There are plenty of women in her life ready to provide ambiguous information that hardly qualifies as "advice". There's the school nurse, who is far too interested in Molly and probably smells like cats. Then, Molly's mother, who seems to be sedated with those "nerve pills" they used to give unsatisfied housewives. And of course, Molly's sister, the middle-aged teen. Will Molly learn the horrible truth? Will her father successfully avoid the conversation altogether?
Join Mike, Kevin and Bill as they try desperately to be excused from Health Class before the showing of Molly Grows Up.Initially I had Molly Grows Up paired with one of the Twilight movies, because I thought the idea of pairing a menstruation short with a Twilight film was crudely hilarious. But I had a bit of difficulty finding a short for Godzilla, but remembered the fanboy controversy about the title lizard laying eggs in this movie. So I thought this short would be very handy for any you Godzillas who might be growing up into fine young ladies. Hahaha? Okay it’s not that funny, but I still needed a short. Needless to say Molly Grows Up is that dreaded “other film” they showed the girls in another room when the school decided we needed to be warned about puberty. Almost thankfully the short isn’t too graphic, with one line about bloody panties being about as detailed as it gets. I don’t quite know how helpful this short really is, because it doesn’t quite answer any questions. It mostly spends its runtime with a lot of dreamlike glaring at Molly by older ladies saying “My my, Molly is growing up.” If the guys are phased by doing a menstruation short, they don’t show it. They might be almost a bit too enthusiastic about it. Still the riffing is quite good, and there’s a lot of dead space for them to do it in too. Like myself, they question some of the advice given in the short. But I’m not a woman, so I don’t know why it’s good to dance but not okay to square dance while on my period. Decades before somebody had the revolutionary idea to do a Godzilla remake that was “good” or “cool”, Hollywood hired the director of 2012 to make one that would be neither of those things but would instead have an ad campaign co-starring the Taco Bell chihuahua.
Matthew Broderick stars as Dr. Niko Tatopoulos, because obviously when you have a character named Niko Tatopoulos, you get Matthew Broderick to play him. Co-starring is the hit Puff Daddy single “Almost Certainly the Low Point of Jimmy Page’s Career” (Sample lyrics: Uh-huh, Yeah, uuh / Uh-huh, Yeah, uuh.) And in all the commercials they showed that part where the guy gets stomped on. Somehow this is a two and a half hour long movie.
About as scary as the Tamagotchi you had back in 1998 and about as loud and obnoxious as the Prodigy CD you were listening to that summer, Godzilla was one of the biggest RiffTrax Live titles we’ve ever done. Join Mike, Kevin, Bill, and roughly 82% of the cast of The Simpsons for this studio MP3 version of Godzilla!(Oddly enough I can’t find a sample of the riff on YouTube, though Rifftrax has one on their page here) It was about eight years before Rifftrax got to one of their most requested titles, the 1998 Hollywood remake of Godzilla. For some weird reason the stars really had to align for this one, because not only did they establish a relationship with Sony the previous year, but really the Live riff of this movie was really only done because Godzilla was re-remade in 2014 and they used that hype machine to help build to this Live event. I don’t really have an explanation for why all of this needed to happen for them to riff this reviled film, but it’s really strange when they already had other Roland Emmerich films like Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow under their belts. As for my opinion on the movie, I don’t really have one. I’ve never hidden the fact that I’m a fan of the Godzilla franchise and I’ve been told time and time again by fans (most of which who are much younger than I am, I might add) that I have to hate this movie. I find it silly to hate it, and hilarious that people get angry at it. It’s a big, dumb movie. So what? I was thirteen when this movie came out, and I can say pretty definitively that almost all thirteen-year-olds that I knew at school really liked this movie. That might be the case for a film snob to scoff at, “A movie made for thirteen-year-old boys,” but hell, thirteen-year-olds like to watch movies. What’s so wrong about them liking a silly destruction porn flick about a giant lizard? If that was the movie’s aim then it hit a bullseye. As to the claim that it “destroyed” Godzilla’s legacy...did it, really? Mainstream Americans think of Godzilla as a silly low budget monster movie with a sweaty Japanese guy in a rubber suit. What was there to destroy? Mostly I think the intention with the film was to make Godzilla a bit “sexier” (for the lack of a better term) for the mainstream moviegoer by fusing it between the two biggest box office juggernauts of the 90’s, Jurassic Park and Independence Day. Does it go against Godzilla’s traditional character? Sure, I guess. It tried something different for the character. It failed, so there’s that. Mostly the movie just exists. I thought it was fun when it came out, though as I got older I really just kinda grew out of it. But I never hated it. I’ve never really hated any Roland Emmerich “shit blowing up” movie. And I’ll be honest, I’d rather sit through Emmerich’s style of explosion over that of Michael Bay. Given the choice between Godzilla and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, I’ll pick Godzilla every time. I wish I could say I watched the Live version of this riff, but since Sony plays hardball with VOD rights Godzilla is one of a handful of Live shows that hasn’t seen a VOD or DVD release. Also of this lot: Starship Troopers, Anaconda, The Room, Mothra, and (presumably) Doctor Who: The Five Doctors. A few months after the Live show a studio riff was posted on the website, but how does it stack up? I saw the initial Live show in theaters and it was a hoot. From what I remember this studio Trax is pretty faithful to the script from the show. Unfortunately it just doesn’t have the energy. There’s something of a lack of enthusiasm, but that might be because I’m missing the Live energy flowing through the room. If Rifftrax were to release a Live audio riff like they did with The Room, I’d definitely be interested. It’s not without it’s fun moments. There’s a noticeable pick-me-up whenever Godzilla is running around. They also do well at pointing out the logical flaws and silly dialogue. It’s a riff that’s worth checking out for it’s high moments, but given the movie bloats itself well past two-hours, when the riff gets slow you can feel it.
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