Sangre, cuchillos, y tetas --- Horror Film Discussion

[transmogrifier]

I'm surprised you took to You're Next and didn't care for Triangle. I found the former fun in concept / repetitive in execution, and I thought the latter was an almost unbearably sad thriller by the end. Not that they're in direct competition or anything.

Haven't seen anything new recently. I assume you've given Lake Mungo a try.

A year and a half later, I finally watched Lake Mungo.

And it was awesome. Most unsettling movie I have seen in a while - it nails the feeling of grief and ties it to the incomprehensibility of death, and yet does not really have any scare scenes bar one, and even that is minor. Brilliantly realised.

[Dead & Messed Up]

A year and a half later, I finally watched Lake Mungo.

And it was awesome. Most unsettling movie I have seen in a while - it nails the feeling of grief and ties it to the incomprehensibility of death, and yet does not really have any scare scenes bar one, and even that is minor. Brilliantly realised.

Hey, all right! Glad you enjoyed it. It's one of my favorites of recent years.

[megladon8]

Yeah that movie is creepy as hell, while also being deeply sad.

[Ezee E]

Has there been any discussion of Eyes of My Mother yet?

[megladon8]

The Autopsy of Jane Doe was very good.

Highly recommended.

[Scar]

The Autopsy of Jane Doe was very good.

Highly recommended.

I certainly agree.

I strongly recommend going into it as blind as possible.

[megladon8]

Yes completely agree there.

I haven't even seen the trailers. I can imagine they would give away too much.

[transmogrifier]

Rammbock: Berlin Undead is terrible. Dull characters, no world-building, no set pieces, no coherent sense of atmosphere building - just a complete bore.

[Russ]

Please forgive if this has already been brought up, but has anyone heard about this 15 years-in-the-making film from Andrew Getty (grandson of oil tycoon J. Paul Getty)? Apparently, Andrew was a disturbed individual and he passed away (at age 47 from a hemorrhaging ulcer related to a history of recreational crystal meth use) just before his first, and only, film was released.

His story was written up in The Guardian

I'll be seeing The Evil Within soon. Looks demented as hell.

[Scar]

Hell House LLC was alright, especially for a found footage flick.

[megladon8]

We watched The Wailing last night. Not sure how I feel about it.

Technically superb. Very unsettling and creepy moments.

But I thought it jumped back and forth on motivations a few too many times, and showed some things earlier on that seemed to contradict the finale.

[megladon8]

Updated my signature for the first time in almost a year. Have seen some decent horror flicks lately (all first time viewings)...

Wishmaster - can't believe I hadn't seen this one til now. I think I always (wrongly) thought it was one of the tame PG-13 post-Scream crap fests that came out in the late 90s. I mean, for all intents and purposes it's a bad movie. Acting, script, everything is cheap and bad. The sets look like they were meant for a grade school play. But the practical effects and inventive kills make it a heck of a lot of fun to watch. Andrew Divoff's incredibly weird performance is also strangely mesmerizing. Bad but fun.

Wishmaster 2 - a significant step down. Still a few fun, inventive kills and some good effects, and the idea of having the Djinn go to prison then a casino was inspired. But the lead actress is awful (even worse than be first's), and the budget constraints of DTV certainly begin to show as we get much less of the great gore and monster effects. What we do get is still well done, and Divoff is weird as ever, but yeah, a definite decline.

The Shallows - very tense. A little too male-gazey at times (do we need to constantly have these Michael Bay-esque slow-mo spinning shots of Blake Lively's ass and cleavage?), but the overall look of the film is very sharp and it builds genuine, earned tension. Some bad CGI takes away from the ending landing 100% successfully, and it at times can't seem to decide if this is a realistic shark attack or a heightened Deep Blue Sea shark scenario (jumping onto the rocks made me eyes roll), but Lively carries it all well. And like I said, tense!

Wishmaster 3 - awful. A waste of time.

Hush - another super tense one. Loved how it never pushed the boundaries of reality - she never becomes super woman, and he (the attacker) isn't inhumanly strong or everywhere at once. A lean, effective home invasion flick. Also appreciated that it showed his cruelty and menace without going overboard and making me uncomfortable (ala The Strangers). A bit contrived towards the end, but it maintains tension from start to finish, and both leads played their roles very well.

[megladon8]

So this Netflix horror flick The Windmill has been getting some positive buzz.

We watched it last night. Not good.

Derivative, boring.

Interesting concept and slasher killer idea. Terrible, rote execution.

[Skitch]

From horror sites? I don't trust horror sites at all. I've been burned way too many times.

[Dukefrukem]

The only horror anything I trust is Rue Morgue. Which I'm surprised you don't follow Meg considering their Canadian roots.

[Scar]

I shut Rings off after five minutes.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Updated my signature for the first time in almost a year. Have seen some decent horror flicks lately (all first time viewings)...

Wishmaster - can't believe I hadn't seen this one til now. I think I always (wrongly) thought it was one of the tame PG-13 post-Scream crap fests that came out in the late 90s.

Quick thing: there actually weren't any tame PG-13 post-Scream horror films, with the possible exception of The Skulls. That's a weirdly persistent meme that feels true because the lead actors were so frequently from youth-targeted TV soaps like Party of Five, Dawson's Creek, My So-Called Life, and Buffy, but nope, nearly all of them, R and frequently hard-R to match the gore of Scream.

Anyway, good thoughts on the Wishmasters, I haven't seen them but should give the first one a try now!

[megladon8]

Hey that's something else - thanks for pointing that out, DaMU!

Interesting that that's apparently a common misconception. I would have sworn that titles like I Know What You Did Last Summer and Urban Legend were PG-13. Must be a combination of what you mentioned about the actors, and the fact that I saw all these flicks when I was like 12.

[Dukefrukem]

Quick thing: there actually weren't any tame PG-13 post-Scream horror films, with the possible exception of The Skulls. That's a weirdly persistent meme that feels true because the lead actors were so frequently from youth-targeted TV soaps like Party of Five, Dawson's Creek, My So-Called Life, and Buffy, but nope, nearly all of them, R and frequently hard-R to match the gore of Scream.

Anyway, good thoughts on the Wishmasters, I haven't seen them but should give the first one a try now!

Wow. I never realized that marketing idea until now.

[megladon8]

So we marathoned all 7 Saw movies over the last couple of days. We are Horror hounds who simply MUST own all the series' we can, and when this came up at $12 on BluRay we had to pull the trigger.

I was never particularly taken with the first. I think my biggest point of contention was when Whannell (maybe in order to push the marketing of the mystery, who knows) claimed that he was genuinely shocked when filming the big twist/reveal at the end. Being that he was the writer, I found that hard to believe.

Anyways, the series can't keep its timeline intact to save its life. By the second entry it had already shit itself, and by the third I was halfway to trying to convince myself to take each film as a stand-alone story, because all of the connections to films prior and coming just get dumber and dumber.

By the fifth, I've given up trying to make sense of anything and at this point I am just soaking it all in, feeling my IQ drop (it doesn't have far to go to begin with, so this is concerning), and lusting after Betsy Russell.

But then Saw 7 / Saw 3D / Saw The (Not So Final as of This Year) Chapter rolls around, and it pulls a Simple Jack and goes full retard.

Never, EVER go full retard.

[Ivan Drago]

You know a franchise is terrible when its collection of seven movies only costs $12.

[Dukefrukem]

Now I want to rewatch all of the Saw movies. Thanks guys

[Morris Schæffer]

You know a franchise is terrible when its collection of seven movies only costs $12.

Ain't that the truth.

[Morris Schæffer]

Ok, this is unexpected. The second Conjuring spin-off based on creepy doll Annabelle is of to a rollicking start critics-wise.

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/annabelle_creation

[Ivan Drago]

Sleepaway Camp is glorious 80's camp. 'Nuff said.