The Mark Duplass one
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The Mark Duplass one
Already on 11 horror films since August, three this month so far. The House By The Cementery is the best of the bunch.
Sleepaway Camp - 65/100
Opening credits are auspicious, showing a subtle touch not often seen in this genre, but then the opening scene on the lake is so terribly staged and acted, so you don’t know what the hell to expect. Well, what we get is mostly amateurish acting and more poor staging mixed with a more “realistic” depiction of teenagers and interesting things happening in the margins and some quite well-done physical effects detailing the aftermath. It’s all pretty okay, until the final 20 minutes, where the killer starts to ramp things up and lose control, where the victims start to be less convincingly “deserving” of violent death, and we get to see other campers actually look distraught and beaten. And then the final scene is as perfect a distillation of psychologically disturbing horror as I’ve ever seen.
Cinema is a wonderful beast.
We watched this again the other night too!
The camp counselors are all so creepy and give off a low-rent porno vibe that makes everything even more uncomfortable.
I prefer Sleepaway Camp II, anyways. I do like the first one but I agree it has some wacked out moments. Also Aunt Martha is the strangest horror movie aunt, ever. I will view the third one, but I have low expectations for it.
The Invisible Man Returns - B - Unexceptional in terms of its aesthetic. Like Son of Frankenstein, you can feel the loss of James Whale as a director and supervisor of the artists. But also like Son, this film finds enough juice left in the lemon to squeeze out some entertainment. The biggest pleasure? Watching the effects, some of which are lovably transparent (like the strings holding up guns), while others still dazzle nearly 80 years later. One inspector sucks on a cigar, turns, and puffs smoke directly onto the Invisible Man, and I'll be goddamned if that moment didn't shock me. I didn't think the craftsmen could do that, and so I wasn't expecting the reveal. The film starts slow, but around the halfway mark the film narrows in on the encroaching mania of the title villain, which leads to a terrific dinner sequence where a poisoned glass of wine sits there on the table, waiting to be drunk. Classic tension, done to effect.
The director of this film also worked with Vincent Price on an adaptation of The House of the Seven Gables, which I'm very curious to watch now.
Halloween first-time viewings so far:
Piranha - B+
The Invisible Man Returns - B
Death Bed: The Bed That Eats - (stopped after 20 minutes)
A Bay of Blood - C
Pumpkinhead - B
Horrorfest 2018
All viewings since August. I have seen 17 so far this month.
What are anyone's thoughts on Suspiria (1977)?
I saw the restoration again last night on Blu-Ray, and although I like the movie and there's no faulting its swanky aural and visual upgrade, the movie's a bit, well, over the top, sound and fury signifying something for sure, but not something enormously scary. The movie feels a bit ramshackle, with merely decent acting, a finale which doesn't quite push the heroine to her limits.
I guess it's good, but its reputation seems a bit much.
It's one of the greatest Horror masterpieces of all time. The first time I saw it I was creeped out to hell, particularly by the chase through the forest scene set to Goblin music.
I haven't seen it in years but I'd understand it if it required a certain ambience to work. It's not like the plot makes a lot of sense when divorced from the style.
I'm never watching the remake.
Speak of the devil, I got about 20 minutes into Inferno the other night before I had to pass out, but liked what I was seeing so far. I just love watching Argento paint those sets in evil rainbows.
Was wondering what forest chase I missed out on too.
And my understanding from the reactions is that the remake is very different enough to stand on its own, for good or bad.
Apparently, there is a third one, The Mother of Tears which came out in 2007. Reading on some crazy Suspiria facts, these ones stood out:
Quote:
Because the film was so heavily influenced by fairy tales, the original screenplay called for the students at the dance school to be very young girls, aged eight to 10. This made producers nervous, not just because of the idea of brutally murdering little girls onscreen—which Argento thought could only improve the horror—but because Argento’s tendency toward perfectionism was not a good fit for child actors. The combination could have proved costly due to production delays.Eventually, Argento relented and agreed to recast the students as teenagers. However, he and Nicolodi did not update the script to reflect this, hence the often unnerving childlike dialogue between the girls. To heighten the effect, Argento also reflected his original intention to use child actors in the set design. As Suzy makes her way through the film, you’ll notice that the doorknobs are usually at eye level, rather than waist level. Argento included this design element to heighten the subconscious effect of a fairy tale populated with little girls.
Quote:
Suspiria’s visual delights are enticing and horrifying enough, but the film is absolutely put over the top by its haunting score from Goblin. The band had already composed early versions of many of the themes for the film by the time Argento began shooting, so he opted to play the score over loudspeakers on set to create a mood. Because all of the film’s dialogue would later be dubbed in post-production (a very common practice in Italian filmmaking at the time), Argento played the score as loud as he could in an effort to create tension among the cast. It seems to have worked.
Quote:
To the shock of many, there was no forest chase sequence.
I couldn't find the right screenshot but I meant this scene.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFaQIC0sWOA
I re-watched Peter Jackson's Brain Dead (Dead Alive). As hilarious as it was the first time. I love this movie - BUT the baby in the blender scene was cut, so I guess I watched the American version?
Loved this. So interesting to see some pure reactions of audience to the start of a genre (or sub-genre), before many things become tropes ("I don't believe it!").
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GRSz1XNT-Q
Myers later became a freelance money/drug retriever in West Texas, known for using a cattle gun on victims, and spooking people with a coin flip.