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

[Spun Lepton]

TCM2 is no doubt a blast, filled with many fun and funny and quotable lines. I really like the over-the-top performances and the tongue-in-cheek atmosphere.

"It's a dawg eat dawg world and from where I sit, there just ain't enough damn dawgs!"
"Small businessman always gets it in the ass."
"Damn it, Bubba ... ye dented mah PLATE!!"

But, better than the original? No way.

[Bosco B Thug]

If TCM2 just had a teeny bit more visual emphasis on its motifs of 80s society and American culture, and was less dependent on one-liners fueling its satirical elements, I'd rate it as highly as I personally love it. Don't get tired of watching this one, that's for sure.

[D_Davis]

TCM2 really is the perfect sequel. Rather than trying to recapture what made the original appealing, the filmmakers made something completely different, utilizing some similar characters. It's almost like an alt-world TCM.

[Dead & Messed Up]

I really can't get behind the love for TCM2. The humor was far too broad, and everyone was too shrill. The whole thing struck me as being aggressively dumb, especially the attempts at "satire."

I think everything DD says about the flick in his last post applies more accurately to Evil Dead II.

But I also kinda hate Hooper and think TCM is an accidental masterpiece.

[D_Davis]

I think everything DD says about the flick in his last post applies more accurately to Evil Dead II.

Can it not apply to both?

[Spun Lepton]

TCM is an accidental masterpiece.

Agreed on that, too. Hooper shot his load right off the bat and he hasn't been able to recover, unless you count Poltergeist ... but nobody believes he actually directed that, anyway.

[megladon8]

I kinda liked his version of Salem's Lot.

[D_Davis]

unless you count Poltergeist ... but nobody believes he actually directed that, anyway.

Isn't that kind of sad? Kind of like Henry Selick and Nightmare Before Christmas - everything thinks its a Tim Burton film.

Imagine being an artist and making something that no one believes you actually made or that someone else made it.

That would suck!

[megladon8]

Everyone knows that Carl Sagan's Ghost is actually a Brian Eno side project.

[D_Davis]

Everyone knows that Carl Sagan's Ghost is actually a Brian Eno side project.

Actually, on a second thought, that's not all that bad...

[Bosco B Thug]

Re: the tragically cyclical Hooper trashin': Boo-urns, people. Seriously, boo-urns.

Anyway, to break from broken record territory, The Midnight Meat Train wasn't too bad. I enjoyed it thoroughly. The gratuitously over-the-top and nasty kills were, to be half-ashamedly frank about it, undeniably utter refreshment after the maddening, interminable dullness of the Friday the 13th remake. The script was pretty bad - Leon's transformation is ridic - but I did think Kitamura managed a delicate moment or two... that is, within the other 95% of it, full of cheese and overly glossy cinematography. But I enjoyed his balls-to-the-wall climax sequence, as well as the ending. Go in with low expectations and you may be rewarded by a decent horror flick.

[megladon8]

I went in with really low expectations, and thought it was pretty awful.

Really, that scene where Leon tries to photograph Maya and couldn't was freaking hilarious, and it wasn't supposed to be.

And as I believe D_Davis has stated, I thought the movie ground to a halt during the middle portion.

And I didn't really even enjoy the kills, which were few and far between. I have yet to see a case of CGI blood/gore that I found effective. The Ted Raimi cameo scene in particular looked terrible.

I'm glad some people are enjoying it because I think Barker's done enough good work to warrant some good film adaptations...I just personally don't think this was one of them.

[Grouchy]

Count me in on the love for Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, but I don't think it's better than the original.

And since I have yet to watch non-TCM Hopper films, I don't know what to say about the man's career as a whole. I did see his Toolbox Murders remake, and it was awful despite having Angela Bettis. Lifeforce looks like the most interesting movie on his filmography.

[Bosco B Thug]

Really, that scene where Leon tries to photograph Maya and couldn't was freaking hilarious, and it wasn't supposed to be.

Yeah, ridic. Most definitely. Makes no sense. You're suddenly too morally perverted to photograph your naked girlfriend???

And I didn't really even enjoy the kills, which were few and far between. I have yet to see a case of CGI blood/gore that I found effective. The Ted Raimi cameo scene in particular looked terrible.

I dunno, I want to ban CGI from movie-making altogether and I thought it packed the appropriate punch. It's the show-stopper scene, though; if that scene doesn't work for you, then yeah, the film would be pretty worthless.

[Rowland]

Yeah, as I said in my mini-review a few months back, Midnight Meat Train works fairly well as a glossy slasher, and the premise has a great deal of intriguing promise, but the two clash with one another in such a manner that the film grows increasingly unsatisfying, right up until the crazy-OTT climax with the camera spinning around the subway train and the WWF brawl in the subterranean lair. These moments, as amusing as they are as pyrotechnics, render moments like the coda utterly moot. I gave it a 49, just below a passing score.

[Spun Lepton]

Lifeforce looks like the most interesting movie on his filmography.

The best thing about Lifeforce is that it's one long nude scene for Mathilda May. I loved it as a teenager (ahem), but I saw it again as an adult and it just didn't hold up. It was silly and a little overwrought at times. Aside from the boobies, seeing Patrick Stewart (or a bad SPFX head of Stewart), vomit up gallons of blood was entertaining in a weird/funny sort of way. I kept thinking, "Jean-Luc! Nooooo!"

[Dead & Messed Up]

I really want to watch Midnight Meat Train again, because I enjoyed the hell out of it, but everyone seems to think it blows.

[D_Davis]

Life Force is awesome, and inspired this song:

Mathilda May, by Z Phantom 4

I really (verb) that movie.

[Spaceman Spiff]

Seeing as that's one of the worst films I've ever seen, yes.

I'd be curious to know why this is. I find the sense of fear, dread ans psychosis palpable in a way that I really have not got from any other film I've seen. The set design, bizarre use of camera cuts and angles + absurdist acting really elevate the film from a slasher flick to something a hell of a lot creepier.

I love, love, love the last scene of the film. The very final shot is one of my favorites in all of cinema.

[Dukefrukem]

I really want to watch Midnight Meat Train again, because I enjoyed the hell out of it, but everyone seems to think it blows.

I was just wicked disappointed. I'd still watch it again.

[Qrazy]

I'd be curious to know why this is. I find the sense of fear, dread ans psychosis palpable in a way that I really have not got from any other film I've seen. The set design, bizarre use of camera cuts and angles + absurdist acting really elevate the film from a slasher flick to something a hell of a lot creepier.

I love, love, love the last scene of the film. The very final shot is one of my favorites in all of cinema.

I can't find the posts but Melville and I were slagging on it in the film discussion thread quite a while back. Perhaps you or someone else will have more look with the search function. Basically my dislike boils to the fact that I find the film to be narratively revolting, aesthetically distasteful and the acting very poor. Revulsion/disgust is not something I value in my cinema unless it's playing a significant thematic role (Come and See for instance). Here it is revulsion for the sake of terror but I don't find these to be synonymous and I didn't find the association effective. I was disgusted but not terrified. I experienced an unpleasant sensation while watching the film but I did not experience the chills or the scares I've gotten from films such as Pulse, Audition, The Shining, The Changeling, etc.

[Rowland]

The Funny Games remake is probably last year's best "horror" picture, unless there is a helluva diamond in the rough I have yet to catch up with. Haneke's formal chops are impeccable, he can really ratchet up tension like nobody's business, and surprisingly, the Hollywood trappings work in the film's favor, refining the visceral impact as well as the autocritical subtext of the original in a most satisfying manner.

[trotchky]

I'd say so, but the list is very small.

Feel free to elaborate, because I'm genuinely looking for recommendations here.

[Rowland]

Eden Lake (James Watkins, 2008) 42

82% at Rotten Tomatoes? Well what do we have here, a new contestant for last year's most overrated horror picture. As these things go, it's well made, with deliberate camerawork, moody scoring by the ever-dependable David Julyan, harrowing performances, and a willingness to upend expectations by venturing into more brutal territories than you anticipate. This is all soured however by some really ugly politics, exploitating contemporary fears of the hoodlum culture gripping the UK in a manner that feigns sociological insight into the cyclical nature of ignorance, poverty, peer pressure, and violence as they pertain to the issue at hand, when it's really only playing this all for a blatantly patronizing "man that's fucked up" response, with more than a hint of reactionary class baiting. This may not have seemed as much the case if any of the characters' actions were faintly plausible, but instead every twist and turn in the narrative is increasingly ludicrous in its convenience to writer/director Watkins' increasingly stale shock tactics. By the final twist ending, I was on one hand moderately impressed with the sheer hopelessness with which he infuses the final minutes, but what he appeared to be suggesting by it all coupled with the sheer ridiculousness of its logic was too much for me to take seriously, rendering the visceral impact severely muted. Watkins clearly evidences talent here, he just needs someone else to refine his material, and maybe develop a more coherent sense of human empathy.

[Dukefrukem]

Really? I enjoyed it. It was very different, but maybe because 08 was a weak year for horror.