Hey it's halloween, everybody should shit their pants - ilx horror crew top tens.

i'm limiting myself to stuff that i watched on netflix streaming in the last year (which as far as i know is still available), because i am too lazy to plan ahead, and so are you.

Absentia
The Inkeepers
Paranormal Activity 3
The Oregonian
Yellowbrickroad
Shutter
Grave Encounters
Atrocious
Dream Home
The Snowtown Murders

bonus just missed the cut stuff:
Beyond the Black Rainbow
Apartment 143
Pop Skull

tomorrow if work is slow, i will describe further

I don't think I've seen any great new horror flicks this year (CiTW doesn't really qualify), and not for lack of trying.

Agree 100%, none of these are from 2012 iirc, but I saw them all in 2012 for the first time.

Also limited to stuff I saw for the first time this year:

The Oregonean
Absentia
The Pact
Amer
Kill List
The Innkeepers
Paranormal Activity 3
The Awakening
388 Arletta Avenue
The Woman

Not a vintage crop but worth watching.

netflix streaming is rubbish in the uk, only horror i saw when i got the free trial was 'drag me to hell', so i'll have to sit this one out. co-sign the love for 'absentia' tho.

sans citw, Also limited to stuff I saw for the first time this year:

Carnival of Souls
Pulse aka Kairo
Kill List
The Woman in Black (had its moments, had its moments)
Session 9
Silent House (Uruguayan)
Shatter Dead
Martha Marcy May Marlene (feel like this counts somehow)
V/H/S (40-50%)
Demons

if you're talking non-netflix stuff i saw for the first time this year then prob

absentia
amer
anguish
berberian sound studio
citw
let's scare jessica to death
possession
pulse(kairo)
seconds
tourist trap

Hardly ever watch horror films anymore, but I did watch The Howling for the first time ever the other night. Looked really good, and I liked the various allusions to other films (at least two to Rosemary's Baby).

The Howling is a super clever movie.

Martha Marcy May Marlene (feel like this counts somehow)

Agreed. It's totally a horror movie in my eyes

Good stuff seen just this month:

Bloody Birthday
The Night of the Hunted
Sinister
The Last Broadcast
The Children (1980s, toxic-cloud-and-schoolbus plot)
Maniac
Death Bed: the Bed that Eats
Gothic (Ken Russell)
The Vanishing (original)

Bad stuff seen just this month:

Don't Answer the Phone!
Woodchipper Massacre
Red State
Uncle Sam (I know someone on here loves this, but it wasn't my cup of tea)

I don't know if I LOVE Uncle Sam, but really really like it, yeah.

Berberian Sound Studio rules but it's not v scary (nor should it be)

Actually I think the scariest movie of 2012(at least in a theater screening) is still The Grey.

Hated Sinister.

And Absentia is real good, everyone should see it.

I really haven't watched that many horror movies this year, unfortunately. Martyrs stands out from the relatively small pack. Thought The Kiss was surprisingly fun and lol '80s.

haha Thnig, if you got death bed from netflix this month, it probably had most recently been in my house, because given how long it sat in the very long wait section before i got it they only have one copy of it.

red state is absolutely TERRIBLE.

Absentia was terrific!

yeah Red State was just plain bad

really want to see Snowtown Murders, haven't had a chance to yet.

xpost

I thought my copy of Death Bed smelled like you! That movie was waaaaay more interesting than I expected.

Red State -- good lord, it's terrible. Just terrible.

Uncle Sam -- Yeah, I don't like that I put it in the "Bad" category. There are definitely things to like about it.

i'll mention "the tall man" again even though some purists might not consider it a horror movie, it's still pretty effective for a movie on netflix streaming starring jessica biel

xp.

'snowtown' not really horror but it's relentlessly grim and bleak. and one scene is as hard to watch as almost any extreme genre stuff i've seen.

Good ones I saw this year: Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil, Home Movie, Cabin In The Woods, The Legend Of Hell House, Martha Marcy May Marlene (toooootally count it!)

But here's a list of ten movies (beyond the popular favorites) I love to watch around Halloween (assuming that's the point of the thread):

Brain Damage
The Blob (1988)
The Tingler
Pieces
Cathy's Curse
God Told Me To
The Tenant
Return Of The Living Dead
Christine
Nightmare On Elm St. 4: The Dream Master

yeah I was more interested bc I'm familiar with the story it's based on, and it got some good reviews when it came out in Australia iirc

it's v well made, has that surreal-realism thing a lot of australian films seem able to capture, if that makes sense.

Oh yeah, I liked both Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil and The Cabin In The Woods this year too.

Netflix stuff I've watched this month:

The Innkeepers (solid, Sara Paxton is great)
The House of the Devil (good first hour, lame ending)
Pontypool (good!)
Absentia (decent)
Bay of Blood (amazing)

also some Hammer stuff I've caught up with on TCM

Horror of Dracula (meh?)
The Curse of Frankenstein (very good!)
The Revenge of Frankenstein (excellent)
Frankenstein Created Woman (interesting!)
The Devil Rides Out (dated but enjoyable, Lee is great)

Misc:

Texas Chainsaw Massacre - 2003 (looks great)
Vampyr (obv)
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (prob doesn't count, but terrible anyway)
Bram Stoker's Dracula (still love this)

Next few things I intend to stream:

Tall Man
Absentia
The Grey

Recently watched, not mentioned yet & wonder what ppl think:

Intruders (the one with Clive Owen)

My favorite horrors I watched in 2012
Absentia
The Grey
Insidious
The Innkeepers
Lovely Molly
The Tall Man
Rec 3
Pontypool
The Inkeepers
Paranormal Activity 3
Yellowbrickroad

Oh yeah, I saw bits and pieces of Lovely Molly the other day. Looked intersting.

It was relentless at points, Tera said it was too much for her, I thought it was great. Just saw World War Z is coming out next year, but the casting??

i don't really get "tucker & dale vs. evil" - had a good concept but beyond that wasn't very funny or incisive or scary

Don't think Tucker & Dale was intended to be in any way scary. I've been describing it as a comedy for fans of horror movies.

World War Z has been coming for years. To borrow someone else's zing, you know it's a mess when they call in Lindelof to rewrite the ending.

Still haven't seen Black Death, Amer, Human Centipede 2, House of the Devil, The Woman, Possession (new one), Apartment 143, Shutter, Grave Encounters ,Atrocious, Lots to watch.

Amer is incredible, the only reason it isnt on my list is that it isnt streaming

Top 10 from the past few years:

The Thaw
Cabin in the Woods
Pontypool
Tucker and Dale vs Evil
The Signal
Laid to Rest
Zombieland
Blood Snow (aka Necrosis)
Black Death (kinda Horror? idk...)
The Poughkeepsie Tapes

Stuff I still haven't seen but want to:

The Innkeepers
Cropsey
Yellowbrickroad
The Grey
Berberian Sound Studio
The Snowtown Murders

Most of that stuff I watched on Netflix, don't know if they're still streaming, I don't have Netflix at the moment.

2012 has been a TERRIBLE year for horror. IMHO only a few films have gotten it right:
(starred titles are Streaming on Netflix)

388 Arletta Avenue
*Absentia
Excision
Himizu
*Hodejegerne
MMMM
Sound of My Voice

want to watch Lovely Molly again before I decide whether or not it's worthy of short-list inclusion. first viewing was confusing and underwhelming.

these were fun...
The Aggression Scale
Closet Space
*Dawning
Dear God No!
The Devil's Business
*The Devil's Rock
Famine
The Guard Post
*Mutant Girl Squad
*Nazis at the Center of the Earth
Seconds Apart
*Skjult (Hidden)
*Sympathy
Tormented

+ The Tall Man. even if this IS a horror thread.
+ Exit Humanity. i liked this somber Civil War zombie yarn a lot.
+ Juan of the Dead. upbeat/offbeat Cuban "of the dead." refreshing, even for a zom-com.
+ Livide. at least it's always pretty.
+ Piggy. nasty UK vigilante mindfrig
+ Werewolf in a Women's Prison. which managed to be everything its title promised, and maybe more.

Apparently I only saw three horror movies on instant so far this year that were worth giving three stars to this year:Deathdream, Cabin Fever 2, Frozen. I really need to watch more so i'm glad for this thread.

hey viceroy, sorry to report that Cropsey is boring and terrible imo

^^^ yeah I was so disappointed to hear that when u posted before.

Tell me about Black Snow cuz idk it looked like it wld be terrible?

I don't watch a lot of horror but The Innkeepers is awesome.

I think I mentioned it in the other thread, but watching Ti West movies, I keep sort of waiting for him to "happen." One of these days, I expect him to blow me away, but as of yet?

someday he'll team up with someone who knows how to make something actually scary at the end of the hallway

or he'll learn how to keep the suspense ambiguous throughout

The Poughkeepsie Tapes

how is this? and how is it see-able?

xxxp Damn, the premise seemed so rad. I hate it when people take good ideas and butcher the execution of them.

xp -- Re: The Poughkeepsie Tapes... If you can handle, I dunno, "moderate scenes of torture" its a really good mix of law/police procedural and "inside the mind of the serial killer" type movie. Its very shocking in spots but completely engrossing and well made. It's not as graphic as some of the french new wave horror but it's not exactly light on the torture either. Fortunately, you're not supposed to revel in it and it doesn't really keep the camera on extremely terrible things.

I'm pretty squeamish about abuse-of-females in my horror movies and I could get through it. But, YMMV...

hasnt it never got distribution or w/e? did you torrent, etc it?

It was on Netflix awhile back -- I believe it did get some distribution but it wasn't a major release anywhere. Probably played a week at art house cinemas.

cropsey is shitty

xp huh are u in usa? been in my 'saved' 4eva
im just naturally curious when things are hard 2 see tbh

this cropsey news is a bummer

Sound of My Voice

I assumed this was terrible because it shares personnel w/ Another Earth. Anyone else wanna vouch for it?

i looked up cropsey and it seems to be well rated on imdb, so all i am saying is that i hated it

yeah i have the same experience w/the poughkeepsie tapes i think, its been on my shortlist of stuff i want to see but cant get a hold of, along with Noroi/the Curse and (shudder) A Serbian Film

like seriously netflix, you cant even get discs of a serbian film, but human centipede 2 is on streaming wtf

fyi, as a dude who really liked human centipede, human centipede 2 is pretty terrible

also i think mum and dad is now streaming, if you want to ruin your night and feel bad about the world

Yeah, I stopped watching HC2 after awhile. Just no fun anymore.

Anyone who's looking to watch A Serbian Film should consider also getting Tears for Sale (with which it shares a writer and themes, but is a sort of quasi-historical adventure movie/fairy tale) as a chaser/palate cleanser.

haha Thnig, if you got death bed from netflix this month, it probably had most recently been in my house, because given how long it sat in the very long wait section before i got it they only have one copy of it.

haha! that movie was so weird and i rather liked it. the disc did smell funny though, he's right.

Cabin in the Woods
The Innkeepers
The Signal
Absentia
Daughters of Darkness
Rare Exports
Tucker & Dale vs. Evil
Pontypool
Dream Home
Kill, Baby... Kill!

One thing I learned today from my WI account activity: I tried to watch Melancholia on six different occasions and still didn't finish it!

It doesn't get any better.

I tried watching Melancholia a few times but fell asleep each time, so I deleted it. Does the world end?

*spoilers*

yes

*end spoilers*

like seriously netflix, you cant even get discs of a serbian film, but human centipede 2 is on streaming wtf

― I'M THE ONLY ON (jjjusten), Thursday, October 25, 2012 4:01 PM (2 hours ago)

to be fair you can buy the human centipede off an endcap at target, for deep genre atrocity it's inexplicably mainstream

yeah true

been curious about Death Bed for awhile but never picked it up

will definitely investigate Martha Marcy May Marlene

Uncle Sam is not a good movie but there are parts of it that are fantastic

Just watched The Tall Man. FUCK yeah. Recommended without hesitation. And not really possible to discuss without ruining.

Really dig how Tucker & Dale and Martha et al kinda traipse around the idea of being horror movies without quite fully committing. Cabin In The Woods does the same thing except then it just commits to being a completely different kind of horror movie. At any rate, I welcome anything that shakes off stale genre conventions while still being interesting and/or fun.

xposting, but Rare Exports is great.

Not only is Martha, etc. not anything special, I dunno what it's doing in this thread.

true. my memory of it is already fading and i was neither high nor drunk while i watched it.

the snowtown murders, otoh, ruined my saturday night... made the world seem like a sad and dirty place. *shudder*

Poughkeepsie Tapes is on YouTube, I think.

sounds like I should watch the snowtown murders huh

I found Snowtown pretty ignorable. Also, not a horror movie per se, just to be clear.

I'm not sure I'm allowed to talk about this bc I didn't see it on Netflix but can we talk about XTRO? It was like Phase IV-level weird and I thought the effects were great! Kinda Cronenbergy, what with the woman giving birth to a full grown man and all.

There's a great click somewhere on http://siskelandebert.org/ of Gene and Rog flipping out over how awful and gross Xtro is. Always kinda made me wanna see it.

It's gross but not awful! I loved it.

I think I just generally love the Cronenberg/DePalma 80s batshit gross out style. This came with a bonus array of accents, face-sucking turkey legs, and pulsating alien eggs incubating in a pool of what appeared to be avocado mush in an overturned refrigerator. I won't go into the kid's magical dream sequences. The music was good too.

The Tall Man was def the year's biggest letdown for me, horror-wise. So much so that it's caused me to rethink a lot of the stuff I *like* about Martyrs.

xtro's pretty entertaining in a berserk b-movie way, there's something discomforting about its emotionless disregard of the basic requirements for cinematic engagement, it's like a movie made by cyborgs who have never seen a movie before but they did read a book on how to make a movie once

I bet "Deadgirl" could have been good given a better director and writer. There's a lot of thematic/metaphoric potential, sort of wasted.

Also, this would have been really powerful/iconic if it was made and released during the Vietnam era with the likes of "Last House," etc. But now? Just a grisly indie misfire.

fighting words

snowtown murders is a horror movie the same way henry:portrait of a serial killer is, but in some ways more bracing and effective. its a cold sad film.

Deadgirl remains in my number one spot for horror movies of the last decade so

Inside for me. I'm boring that way.

ha well inside would be prob top 5, def top ten for me.

thats right eric you are also in the "inside is better than martyrs" camp w/me. *clinks glass*

may I join you

Well, Martyrs is still top 5.

Pending some viewings of Mr. Hal's Jam.

Inside was actually scarier than martyrs, top ten for me too.

watched Inside a few weeks ago. it was good for that sort of thing, but it made me realize i've gotten a little soft in my old-er age with regards to this extreme gore stuff. i mostly just felt nauseated.

i kinda dug Deadgirl's Gus Vant Sant-esque pretty teen angst vibe, but i don't think i believed anyone's behavior/decisions in it whatsoever.

Still waiting for your point-by-point takedown of that Salon article, btw, jjj.

emotionless disregard of the basic requirements for cinematic engagement

it's like junk food for your eyes! i think that's why i like it tbh. i don't have to care about anyone or anything, i don't have to be scared or feel like throwing up, i can just enjoy looking at the people (and panthers) doing the things. it's definitely not as good as depalma/cronenberg but there's something similar enough that makes me like it. i dunno. maybe i have terrible taste.

yeah there's something gruesomely fascinating about xtro but it's not by design. depalma/cronenbeg are always in control of their aesthetics.

deadgirl def one of the better horror movies of the past few years but it didn't tip over into all-time great for me, not sure why. feel like the narrative played it a little too safe, or maybe it was the high school students who look like they've already graduated college. I know those are stupid complaints, maybe I'm partially in agreement w/ josh that these guys had a great concept but executed it in a workmanlike way. still recommend it tho.

i don't have to care about anyone or anything (...) i can just enjoy looking at the people (and panthers) doing the things.

this! I never worry about whether a movie is making me care about its characters. I think all I care about is atmosphere and vibe, in the end. A movie is an entity looking at me and I'm interested mainly in the feeling I get from it looking at me.

i mean movies of all kinds are intensely emotional for me but the emotion doesn't derive from the characters or the 'plot'...

i still think the dude who played the worse (as in most evil) of the two main characters was amazing in it, really bums me out to see him stuck slogging through tons of awful half-assed horror stuff, i was worried that that performance might make him an untouchable and i think thats happened

re: deadgirl

xpost Wow, I am the total opposite. Or at least those things are important to me. A movie doesn't need plot to move me, but a good plot needs more than atmosphere to sell it to me. And I like movies that are mostly atmosphere, or vibe, but if nothing is done well with those things then the absence of character or plot bugs me. Usually to move me a movie needs at least a couple of those things. Otherwise, I'm just looking at a screen. Def. character and plot and writing and acting elevates a movie to greatness ime. Any doof with a camera can get the atmosphere part down.

I thought the evil-er guy in Deadgirl overacted terribly, like Christian Slater in Pump Up the Volume or something. Wish they had more fun with the concept, because teens so pent up they resort to sex with restrained zombies is rife for satire, not so hot played straight. Though to its credit, it's rarely outright ugly and never seemed out strictly to shock.

Though I do think the camera/director can be a winning character, as with Jackson or Raimi or whomever.

considering the subject matter it could've been wildly offensive but they did get the tone right

xp

Any doof with a camera can get the atmosphere part down.

can't disagree with you more here

also never watch an argento film

Most of the horrors I've watched in the past few months have been oldies.

Quatermass and the Pit - slow-burn classic
Prince of Darkness - John Carpenter's final wave to fans before sinking into mediocrity.
Curse of the Crimson Alter - stagey, proto-Wicker Man with Christopher Lee, and a cameo role for an 80 year old Boris Karloff, who is actually really good.
The Silent House (original) - lots of quietly creeping around in the dark, which had me on edge. But the reveal at the end was a bummer.
Shivers - amazing Ballardian body-horror from C-bergz

And a bunch of old Hammer films w recently restored prints on shiny Blu-ray:
The Horror of Dracula
The Plague of the Zombies
The Devil Rides Out
The Reptile - considered a minor work, and formulaic, as most of 'em are, but I enjoyed it immensely.

(And the nu-Hammer: The Woman in Black with Harry Potter, which was crap.)

And I have to give mention to INBRED, as I vaguely know the director, Alex Chandon, who is a good guy. Anyway, Inbred is a fun, shoestring-budgeted splatter film with League of Gentlemen-style black comedy. Check iiiit.

ike Christian Slater in Pump Up the Volume Hey now what's wrong with Christian Slater in Pump Up the Volume? I think acting has to be really horrible for bad acting to stand out to me, I hardly ever notice it. I'm easily sold on most movies though.

I file Argento under "director provides character" a la auteur theory.

I didn't say any doof with a camera can get atmosphere right. Just that it's a lot easier to make something look cool or spooky than make someone a good actor. Which is why you never hear "wow, the acting was so good, and I really cared about the characters, but the sets looked fake."

Nothing wrong with Slater in Volume, I guess. HIs overacting style is better on display in Heathers, which was probably a better comparison re: Deadgirl.

Acting SUPER matters to me. I'd never diminish that element. But for me acting not necessarily = making me care about the characters...

Curse of the Crimson Alter - stagey, proto-Wicker Man with Christopher Lee, and a cameo role for an 80 year old Boris Karloff, who is actually really good.

The ritual scenes in this were absolutely delicious and perfect. Hern the Hunter!

"wow, the acting was so good, and I really cared about the characters, but the sets looked fake." This was Aliens for me!

Shivers - amazing Ballardian body-horror from C-bergz

sometimes I think this is my fave cronenberg, so economical, effective, and disturbing. opening montage is like some crazy gauntlet being thrown down.

I guess I can tolerate a lot of plot holes (xtro was nothing but plot holes) in the name of eye candy. Why else would I keep looking at the image thread from the horror poll. I just like to idly look at pictures.

For example
Barbara!!
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ljbhhbdYGb1qz72v7o1_500.jpg

some of the greatest horror films ever made have terrible acting, cardboard characterizations, clumsy plotting, etc. when done right the cheapness of b-movies can make things more nightmarish and horrific. but you knew this.

But minus all those things, I have trouble liking b-movies that are outright witless. That's what makes, say, Hammer so awesome. They're campy and cheap but they have style and vision.

And décolletage.

BTW, I kept thinking of Shivers is a great example of a good concept - sexual panic made literal - done right. Been a while since I saw either, but I want to say "Rabid" did even better with the same general idea.

Huh, ignore that gibberish before the word Shivers. Weird.

guys i want to watch so many goddam horror movies this weekend! It hurts! 0_0

ok I just finally got nauseated by my own dn finally

lol

rabid's good but shivers is more creepy and claustrophobic, I like the way it gets down to business and then builds to a crescendo, rabid's quotidian finale is haunting but kind of anticlimactic pardon the pun

and while rabid is broader in scope, shivers somehow feels more sprawling, maybe because of the lack of a central character

I'm making my list today of our horror fest for this weekend, so far it's Apartment 143, Rosemary's Baby and if I can find Amer. Any thought on Ethan Hawke doing horror?

no ethan hawke no

you've already ruined shakespeare, julie delphy, and the act of novel writing

wait are you talking that vampire movie? that was vaguely ok, but not one i would bother to seek out.

think he's talking about sinister not daybreakers but I've been wrong before

Yeah I was talking about Sinister, I'm not sure if it's out yet, based on a Stephan King short story.

stephan king, a little known greek horror scribe of the early 1900s

haha

HA!!

and his well-known post-apocalyptic novel "The Strand"

Has anyone watched any of thesePhilippine horror films

Noticed that "Amer" is virtually torrent proof. Keep getting "American Horror Story."

I just found one by googling "amer 2009 torrent " haven't tried it yet, but there are a few.

Watched The Oregonian last night. Interesting, but kind of missed the mark for me.

i kinda dug Deadgirl's Gus Vant Sant-esque pretty teen angst vibe, but i don't think i believed anyone's behavior/decisions in it whatsoever.

― circa1916, Friday, 26 October 2012 17:52 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

watched 'deadgirl' las night and this hits the nail on the head. agree with those who said they had an interesting idea but executed it badly.

Just watched the Fright Night remake. Fun and goofy and allows for a couple of surprisingly nice moments in the midst of the mayhem. Effects were godawful, though, but such is the curse of the CGI age. Also, very dim looking, at least on the DVD I watched--a consequence of being shot for 3D?

If anything it should be brighter. If it looks dim without 3D glasses then it would have been impossible to see with them on

Well, the Slant review says it was "post-converted 3D," so I was wrong about what I said above about it being shot that way.

That's funny, I thought it looked pretty dim on DVD, too. I was wondering if that was just because it was set almost entirely at night, and maybe the contrast doesn't pop as well at home?

From what I remember, Colin Ferrell's sexy thrust was about the only enduring thing to take away from the remake. No small element, tho.

Or maybe it was dark to hide the shittiness of the cgi.

Man, did not like "V/H/S/." A bunch of good ideas, none taken advantage of to any real degree of satisfaction. Reminded me of, I dunno, "Tales from the Dark Side," the movie, but done indie and hand-held.

Not only am I effing sick of that whole grainy, hand held "indie" aesthetic in horror movies, I mostly became sick of it just from watching the trailers for these movies, not the movies themselves.

i enjoyed the first v/h/s short alot and the last one ok (not the wraparound), the second and fourth? (the skype one) had potential but didn't work for me really, the third one was straight garbage. i'm a pretty big sucker for found footage type things but found myself very happy they were all brief. considering the popularity of found footage horror and the inexpense of it i'm kinda amazed no tv channel has done their own esp since this is the kind of thing tv could pull off and not be crippled from the get go by broadcast standards the way they usually are when tv attempts horror. considering how great ghostwatch was twenty years ago it's seem like a gimme for syfy or fox.

Prince of Darkness - John Carpenter's final wave to fans before sinking into mediocrity.

this was much better than I remembered it. I think They Live! is a cut above mediocre tho

Watched Lovely Molly last night and liked it quite a bit. for people who get turned off by handheld cam stuff - soldier through the intro, the movie only uses the hand cam occasionally.

I'm glad to hear you liked Lovely Molly, I enjoyed how far it went in it's theme. The deer scene was gut turning and scary! We watched Apartment 143 last night, I dunno, maybe I'm getting tired of handheld cam horror ghost stories. I enjoy the cast, but I told Tera at the beginning that I'm going to be pissed if it's the daughter, and then big shocker. I loved all three Paranormal Activities, but it's wearing thin now.

Prince of Darkness - John Carpenter's final wave to fans before sinking into mediocrity.

Crazy talk. In the Mouth of Madness is great. Both of his "Masters of Horror" episodes were good too.

In other news, Paranormal Activity 4 was a let-down, the weakest in the series, but at least it has a good last couple minutes.

In still other news, I watched Human Centipede 2 and it was actually better than expected. Great casting, b&w photography, and sound design. Last 30 minutes have nowhere to go but into the crapper but up until then it had potential.

Yeah I might even like In The Mouth better than They Live and Prince O' D.

Watching In the Mouth of Madness on the screen was terrifying!!

never seen it, will get around to it

Huh, "Kill List" is like "The Wicker Man" crossed with "A Serbian Film" (though nowhere near as gross as the latter).

Ah, sorry, They Live! came out a year or two after Prince of Darkness, didn't it? I certainly don't love it, but, yeah, it is above mediocre. I remember not liking In the Mouth of Madness, but that's all I do remember. I need to revisit.

trying to figure out what exactly made Carpenter go off the rails. I mean, Memoirs of an Invisible Man? what was he thinking?

This is undoubtedly the kind of thing I should feel embarrassed about admitting, but I actually rewatched Memoirs for the first time since it was new a few years back and was surprised how much I enjoyed it.

word! Mouth of Madness is one of my favorite Carpenter films! Haven't seen his Masters of Horror efforts though, but if they're better than shit like Ghosts of Mars I assume I'll enjoy them.

I don't think They Live! should be taken as a serious horror film. It's more of a satire w/ scares and action IMO.

yeah, it's closer in tone to Big Trouble

the only Masters of Horror one I watched was this one, which was ridiculous but not bad

Well at least Tobe Hooper is getting work.

Village of the Damned was the one where Carpenter went off the rails

In The Mouth of Madness is a well-directed movie and no one would suspect that Carpenter had lost it from watching it, but the plot doesn't work

Weather permitting, I'm planning on an Alien/The Thing (Carpenter) double-bill Wednesday night--didn't they finish one-two in our poll? On the weekend, I'm seeing Romero (who, I didn't realize, has been living in Toronto for the past eight years) introduce Night of the Living Dead.

They did indeed, clemenza.

Any of you horror freaks got any suggestions for some last minute soundtrack downloading? DJing a krautrock & horror night on the 'ween itself. So far I've got Possession, Valerie, Hausu, Suspiria, All the Colours of the Dark, Bollywood Bloodbath and some miscellaneous Fulci...

Krzysztof Komeda!

Carpenter went downhill for much the same reason Romero did: sort of an eyes bigger than his stomach thing, where the stories they wanted to tell were much bigger than the budgets they had to work with. Both those guys worked much better with imposed limitations. Also, a lot of later Carpenter flicks really needed another run at the script, but it's almost as if the movies had to go forward before they were really ready to go. Hence sort of half-told movies like "Prince of Darkness," "Mouth of Madness" and "They Live.," "Escape from LA," et al.

Komeda, of course! Cheers, Josh.

Pino Donaggio always a good choice

I had to look him up - some good films on his roster, any in particular you'd recommend soundtrack-wise?

Carrie is my favorite! Plus there's the "they're all going to laugh at you" track.

The Howling and Don't Look Now are the other ones I have, but I have to say The Howling is more horrory than Don't Look Now iirc.

Fabio Frizzi's The Beyond has a few nice cheesy creepy tracks.

this one is great http://www.discogs.com/Giallos-Flame-House-At-The-Edge-Of-The-Dark/release/1237925

Yeah, Jacob, I picked a couple of tracks from The Beyond from the Fulci soundcloud, need to choose a few more though, I reckon. http://soundcloud.com/luciofulci

Just realised La Lech actually started a whole thread for this topic a while ago, but oh well, conversation is here now.

i just consulted that thread to jog my memory -- shoulda just linked!

Hahaha, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (it counts!) - now I'm tempted to take that along. Also, Wicker Man, duh.

Wow, "Absentia." That was like one of those classic Stephen King "Night Shift" stories, except executed with a really uncommon sensitivity.

Still catching up. "The Tall Man:" like it or not, what a truly surprisingly, honestly provocative movie. Makes up for the facile shocks of "Martyrs," imo. Though like "Martyrs," very oddly structured., almost radically, subversively so.

Anybody love *both* Martyrs and The Tall Man?

I'm not even sure the director does.

“I’m not sure you have made the right decision.” —director Pascal Laugier, in his video introduction to the Martyrs DVD

I like *both* Martyrs and The Tall Man, though the first half of Martyrs is much better than the second, wish it had carried on more with the first half.

Hey I just watched the French film the pack on streaming and congratulations, now you don't have to! Totally wildly incoherent and despite some good atmosphere nothing holds together at all.

Thx bro, I was gonna end up watching that at some point.

I finally saw Black Christmas for the first time

Goddamn that is one creepy movie. I had no idea that was where 'THE CALL IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE' came from, lol

Also Andrea Martin rules

LOVE that movie. The... err... 'vocalizing' on the phone calls is straight up virtuoso.

Creepshow expires today on streaming.

oh the phonecalls are crazy! the pig noises and the baby crying and ... yeah.

a friend had told me 'it's good, it's just slow' but honestly I found it slow in the way that is SUPER compelling. Like I felt like I knew the story already, but I was hooked in becasue I wanted to see where they went with it.

and I love that it delivers 100% creep factor without delivering any kind of killer reveal or killer backstory or killer resolution at all.

Black Christmas is one of my favorite horror movies of all time

Also the woman who gets to be the 'last girl' is so NOT the one which later formulaic slasher films would favor. Don't want to give anything away but i like how the deaths are not dealt out as some form of paternalistic moral opprobrium.

I agree! At first I wondered if that's what was going to happen and it really didn't play out that way.

Also I saw Olivia Hussy talking on one of the special features - goddamn she just got more and more beautiful with age. What a stunner.

I've never seen Black Christmas!!

SEE IT

I am biologically opposed to slasher films and I think "Black Christmas" is one of the greatest horror movies ever made

djp otm

I'm all about that movie now.

I've never seen "Black Christmas" either. I just watched a 4 minute(!) trailer on youtube. Wau.

everyone needs to watch it! it's GREAT

We watched Rosemary's Baby last night, it was the first time watching since the first time years ago. I couldn't help feeling that Woody Allen squandered Mia Farrow's potential.

Never seen Black Christmas either and always thought "the call is coming from inside the house" came from When a Stranger Calls.

When A Stranger Calls was 1979; Black Christmas was 1974

I knew one came before the other, but not having seen Black Xmas, I always just assumed the line came from Stranger, which I vaguely remember seeing.

Of note to Black Christmas fans: http://www.fright-rags.com/teaser/black-christmas-teaser.html

whoa that's cool

xxp: Well they did both use the line, and I think it's more common to see the invocation from When A Stranger Calls when it's brought up; just pointing out that BC got there 5 years earlier.

Just watched Amer, I really loved it, but um...

The adolescent scenes was pure brilliance, untouchable, I'm still digesting the other parts.

I've already started in earnest but I'm preparing for an utter deluge this year. Beyond just rewatching old faves, I've bought a bunch of stuff to fill some of my horror canon holes. Just watched Rosemary's Baby for the first time the other night (good value but still doesn't supplant the other two Apartment Trilogy installments in my esteem), and I have The Innocents, The Haunting, Black Christmas, and a Universal 4-pack (Dracula, Frankenstein, Bride, and Creature From The Black Lagoon) lined up. And the director's cut of Little Shop of Horrors. My GF's onboard with binging and there's a bunch of classic stuff that she hasn't seen that I'm looking forward to watching with her. Still trying to sell her on Possession while questioning the wisdom of trying to sell her on Possession.

Oh, in the spirit of the thread title, the top ten I'm looking forward to watching this year that weren't in last year's list:

Phantasm
The Stepfather
Jacob's Ladder
In The Mouth of Madness
The Birds
American Werewolf in London
the first four Romero Dead films (haven't rewatched in years...or in the case of Land, since I saw it in the theater)

Brain Damage
The Blob (1988)
The Tingler
Pieces
Cathy's Curse
God Told Me To
The Tenant
Return Of The Living Dead
Christine
Nightmare On Elm St. 4: The Dream Master

Whoops. Oh, well, I'll rewatch all that stuff, too.

Oh man, I should review this years watch list and throw one of these together

and my list for this year - again, not all new releases, but new to me, mostly streaming on netflix. no order.

Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil
Kill List
ABC's of Death
Lords of Salem
Sinister
Citadel
Evil Dead (remake obv)
V/H/S 2
Magic Magic
Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh

just missed the cut - House at the End of the Street, Mama, John Dies at the End, and kinda sorta Some Guy Who Kills People, which is not really even horror at all, but super appealing nonetheless

My horror top 10 x 10:

http://letterboxd.com/ephender/list/slant-magazines-100-greatest-horror-films-1/

great list

intrigued by decasia and leviathan, neither of which i know anything about

also a big fu to them for disallowing short films because outer space is so so worthy. next time tell them if they don't want to count it, they should just loop it ten times

if i'm gonna watch 1 netflix horror flick tnite, which one should i make it?

For some reason, the ed. there has this thing against counting short films in any of Slant's lists to the point that he doesn't even list Un Chien andalou among his favorites despite Bunuel being possibly his all-time favorite director. I find it infuriating, but have made my peace with it. Whatever gets one out of having to sift through which Chuck Jonze and Frank Tashlin Looney Tunes to count and which to exclude, I guess.

which ones from my 2 lists havent you seen mordy?

i've seen none of them!

Decasia is a really interesting choice, EH. I would never have thought of it fitting there, but I can totally see it.

oh, i've got a copy of john dies at the end just sitting on my computer - should i watch that?

its a total mess, but an endearing one. it would be about my last pick of what i listed

Thanks, emil.y. As I posted on Twitter earlier this week, I adore Horror Not Horror nearly as much as I do Disco Not Disco.

from my 2 lists, i would vouch most for absentia, the innkeepers, or last will and testament of rosalind leigh i think

i mean of the stuff that i know is streaming.

bit of crossover bc I watched a lot based on recommendations here, lots new to me

Cheap Thrills (only moderately horror-ish but...)
You're Next
Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil
Martha Marcy May Marlene
Lords of Salem
Mama
Citadel
V/H/S 2
Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh
The Innkeepers

decasia is aaaamazing but it's experimental, might as well suggest the act of seeing with one's own eyes

why is marienbad on the slant list

Because I adore Horror Not Horror, sez the list-creator.

oh wait, you did!

xp to self

might as well suggest the act of seeing with one's own eyes

This is def pretty horrifying.

re: John Dies at the End

it is def a mess, and I can't really remember exactly what happens in it but it gets points for throwing out a lot of ridiculous ideas a mile a minute.

might as well suggest the act of seeing with one's own eyes

http://www.film.com/movies/the-act-of-seeing-with-ones-own-eyes-is-the-scariest-movie-ever-made

(revises list of films he will never, ever watch)

hey eric have you gotten any blowback for including freddie got fingered in your list?

Nope. Just another lone voter on that one, obv.

Seriously, though, a revisit of that movie's highlights confirmed my belief that it was on some sort of Bunuel-on-bath-salts wavelength.

Yeah, pretty sure Ebert said roughly the same thing in his zero-star review.

Dead minds think alike.

Even if only for the sake of riling those who've argued that it decidedly is not a horror film, I wanna double down on the praise I gave Martha Marcy May Marlene in one of these horror threads. I rewatched it the other night and it holds up. It's like a horror film with the horror cored out. Beautiful and dreamlike but with lots of slowly mounting dread (and a slow reveal of that dread's source). And I only noticed this time around (trying not to spoil...) the possibly horrific implication of the line of dialogue regarding the specific type of children John Hawkes has.

films that are new to me from eric's list:

inside
in a glass cage
joshua
otto

horror not horror:
lots of bergman

So, I watched House With Laughing Windows last night. Really good, actually, though the bits I kind of want to talk about are spoilers. But good.

I'm really champing at the bit this year so I've already gotten started on the marathon. I still have a bunch of older stuff I never got around to watching and a whole slew of new stuff to boot. I've been whetting my appetite with episodes of Tales From The Darkside and Ray Bradbury Theater (both oozing the brand of creepy '80s low-res video cheese that I have a huge fondness for). Here's what I haven't seen but hope to get to in the next month and a half:

Night Of The Comet
Valerie And Her Week Of Wonders
Let's Scare Jessica To Death
Salem's Lot
The Omen
The Funhouse
Phantasm 2
The Innocents

I also ordered the Val Lewton box sight unseen and I'd like to get at least one of the Amicus anthology films (also sight unseen).

Good list, there are some on there that are super high on my to watch list as well (Valerie, innocents). I really should get the DVD part of Netflix added so I can see that kind of stuff.

yes you should
september is horror blackout and then october is ALL HORROR ALL THE TIME
i am excited about october

I want to watch horror with all you guys ;_;

Also: time to start reading Bradbury and Ligotti

Yeah, I wanna finally read From The Dust Returned! I also bought an Arthur Machen collection that I haven't gotten to yet.

I really want the new Constantine show to be good, as I've always thought a faithful Hellblazer adaptation would be my favorite horror film/TV series ever. I don't have high hopes.

Love horror movies - hate crappy haunted house jumpfests though. What are some good non-jumpy films in the style of the Wicker Man, the Others or what have you, that I might have missed?

The Tenant is one I can never recommend enough.

god i hate that movie - but i hate it because it works?

Black Christmas!

i ain't seen either of these, i'll check em.

original Black Christmas is the BEST

yep Black Christmas is amazing

Orig black christmas and the tenant both ruuuuuule

hmmm i might have to refine this but off the top of my head

The Abandoned
Bad Milo! (no really! horror comedy so you know, youve been warned)
The Conspiracy
Escape From Tomorrow
The ABCs of Death
Alien Abduction
The Bleeding House
Antiviral
The Possession of David O'Reilly
Tony

and Only God Forgives if people are down with calling that horror

i actually watched The Abandoned a while ago but don't know if I ever brought it up.

The ones I'd suggest that deserve more viewers(I've written about most of these in the horror threads)...

Ghost Of Yotsuya (late 50s Colorado version, probably need to resort to YouTube)
Lemora: A Child's Tale Of The Supernatural
Horror Hotel/City Of The Dead
Beauty And The Beast/Panna A Netvor
Alucarda
Dark Waters (Baino)
Faust (Murnau)
Haze (Tsukamoto, and throw in more of his films whether or not they are horrory)
Great Yokai War (monstery fun for all ages)
Room Of Laughter (Nina Shorina short film, youtube)
Dir En Grey- Agitated Screams Of Maggots music video (by Keita Kurosaka)

Give me all of your fall horror viewing lists!

i wanna know yours

Valerie is def on it now that I have Hulu Plus! (shaking my own head I haven't seen it until now)

Re: Yotsuya. Color version not Colorado version!

i see i'm not the only person planning ahead! i want to watch possession. that's one i've been saving bc i know it's gonna be rill good.
we always try to watch mostly things we haven't seen before, but i am insisting on some repeats because i'm in the mood
let's scare jessica, top of the list
also want to see stage fright!

I feel like I'm the world's only Jessica naysayer, but it has been probably about 10 years since I watched it.

it's like a soothing horror blanket
i want to watch lots of early 80s movies with ladies in them

ha well as often, im right there with you on jessica xpost

My planned rewatches for this year:

Legend of Hell House and The Changeling (my girlfriend has been pretty into the other "unquiet house" films we've seen so I thought she'd dig these)
Creepshow 2 and Tales From The Darkside: The Movie (been a dog's age since I saw either, and I'm way into anthologized horror at the moment)
Basket Case and Brain Damage (anyone rate the Basket Case sequels? I bought the trilogy but it remains to be seen how advisable a purchase that was)
The Dead Zone (the gf said the other day that she'd like to see a supernatural conspiracy movie and this was the closest thing I could think of in the moment)
possibly the Scream and/or Child's Play series (I have no real idea why...seems like a good idea at the moment?)

skip Scream 2, the rest are watchable

throw childs play in a box, burn it, and bury it in the woods

i want to watch possession. that's one i've been saving bc i know it's gonna be rill good.

I want to watch it, too, but I also kind of don't. It's amazing and compelling as hell with stunning performances (number one on my horror poll ballot) but it dredges up some deep psychic garbage. Maybe as dread-ful a horror movie as I've ever seen, particularly for something that barely qualifies as a straight horror film. It's like staring into the Ark of the Covenant.

I sometimes think that Isabelle Adjani in Possession might be the single most mindblowing acting performance I've ever seen.

Like, I don't know how you go that far out and come back with all of your facilities intact.

mine is not v exotic or unique & kinda just 'klassiks 101' but these are my go-to's
Black Christmas
Carnival of Souls
The Cabinet of Dr Caligari
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Night of the Living Dead
Dawn of the Dead
The Thing
The Fly
Evil Dead II
Army of Darkness

Like, I don't know how you go that far out and come back with all of your facilities intact.

yes! this is why i have been saving it. i think i'm ready!

That is a pretty solid bunch though. There are quite a lot of classics I'm really not into but I'm fond of all those.

I still have yet to see any of the Evil Dead movies. I kinda feel like Raimi isn't really my thing, but maybe I should take the plunge.

They are loads of fun. The third is a mess but it doesn't stop it from being a good time (directors cut if you can, it has more funny stuff if I recall right). A Simple Plan is fantastic. Drag Me To He'll is pretty good. The Gift is okay.
I've never seen Crimewave, the reputation is very mixed.

anyone rate the Basket Case sequels?

Basket Case 2 is enjoyably batshit. not a patch on the first one but entertainingly ridiculous in a different way.

i want to watch lots of early 80s movies with ladies in them

This is more mid 80s and not necessarily good but have you seen Spellbinder?

I hated Drag Me To Hell but you can't fuck with the first two Evil Dead movies

I do love A Simple Plan but I never got the impression that it had much in common with his earlier stuff.

It is different but it has some of his humour.

One thing I miss about early Raimi is the visuals. His later films look less distinct. Within The Woods short film is good too.

Alison Lohman really is a lot of my enjoyment of Drag Me To Hell. She is astonishingly cute. I thought she was really funny when she talked like Ash "I'm gonna get some! Yeah!"

Actually, speaking of A Simple Plan, I'm also kinda looking out for more straightforward thrillers to watch this year. I have a jones to see junk like The Hand That Rocks The Cradle and The Good Son again. And I just got an enormous Hitchcock set for my birthday. Any recommendations along those lines would be most welcome.

If you haven't seen The Conversation, go for that. I hadn't heard of it until a few years ago but I think it's probably a standard for some people.

A Simple Plan has a great unique score btw, elfman relying on detuned/microtonal pianos in perhaps partial homage to what Mancini did for Wait Until Dark

This is more mid 80s and not necessarily good but have you seen Spellbinder?
No, I don't think so? I'm interested in that late 70s-early 80s lady interzone before the 80s were the 80s
like I'm Dancing As Fast As I Can only with more blood (plenty of screaming in that movie)

Evil Dead II is like a 3-Stooges horror movie, it's really awesome.

nyuk nyuk nyuk

Aha I get what yr talking about now LL

A Simple Plan has a great unique score btw, elfman relying on detuned/microtonal pianos in perhaps partial homage to what Mancini did for Wait Until Dark

Good call, and WUD is easily one my top 5 horror scores ever.

Eric you have Mancini's Lifeforce right? Couldn't be more different from WUD (other than in its dark affect) but just as staggering an achievement.

Whoa, didn't realize Mancini was behind that score

It's been so long since I saw that movie, I can't remember the score. (I think I saw a list where Mancini said that was one of his all-time toughest movies to score, alongside Ghost Dad and Mommie Dearest.)

The movie was pretty alienating already, the score just added another layer to it

Watched The Serpent and the Rainbow and Lords of Salem for the first time this week. The former will likely be in rotation for Halloweens to come (probably the best Wes Craven movie I've seen!), while the latter might've made it in if Rob Zombie had fought a little harder against his compulsion to cobble together an absurdly OTT ending that managed to totally undo the masterfully-understated and spooky tone he'd maintained for most of the flick. Still dug at least 3/4 of it.

I'm usually pretty on board whenever Zombie goes all baroque.

lords of salem was so dope

I might have to rewatch for halloween this year

Every year a local rep theater does a 12 HOURS OF TERROR marathon for Halloween, and they just announced this year's slate. I am STOKED.

The Thing (1982)
Texas Chain Saw Massacre 2
The Blob (1988)
Sleepaway Camp
Friday the 13th Part 4
The Mad Magician (1954)
. . . plus a surprise screening!

Nice lineup!

Serpent + Rainbow is pretty awesome. I just saw it for the first time last year. It is legit frightening at many points. I think it's back on NF Streaming again. If you want to make it seem even better, try watching The Believers (feat Martin Sheen and Jimmy Smits, dir Schlesinger) afterward. Unbearable NYC-set voodoo horror which I could not finish.

How do ppl rate Ppl Under the Stairs?

It undoes itself with over the top comedy, quite disappointing.

Ha, my girlfriend suggested The Believers after we finished Serpent. I vaguely remember seeing it in the '80s but everything I've read seems to suggest that I should avoid seeing it again.

Totally disagree with that take on people under the stairs - it's way bleaker than people remember

Now that I've gotten a taste of latter-day Zombie (only ever saw House of 1000 Corpses before, which was fine if not really my thing), I kinda want to watch his Halloween remakes. Especially since I keep hearing good things (about 2, at least). And the little bit of that I saw of the first remake seemed somewhat richer than the original (which I'm not a huge fan of).

People Under the Stairs is p good but I think it suffers from having a child as the lead/protagonist

on the plus side, the delivery of "so that's where all the money in the ghetto went" kinda makes up for it

I like the humour in People Under the Stairs - aren't the creepy couple in it meant to by Ron and Nancy?

It was over a decade ago I saw it but I think maybe most of the disappointment was with it not being as creepy as I wanted.

I'm watching the old Twilight Zones. Live television, esp in b & w is creepy late at night, esp with the wind blowing through the trees etc

Wanted to add that for the past few years nothing has been more haunting for me than watching old tv, like where the entire cast is dead.

Grrr i wish Thriller was still on NF streaming, I could do some damage to those rn

Any opinions on Sssssss? It's the odd man out from a 4-pack that I bought (also containing Serpent & The Rainbow, Phantasm II, and The Funhouse...$6 well spent). A movie about a man turning into a snake certainly seems like it could be a masterpiece on the face of it, but somehow I suspect that it is not.

And yeah, anthologies! Man, I so want to have every single one of those series on hand and just pick through random episodes. I don't know why the '80s Alfred Hitchcock Presents or season two of Amazing Stories never made it to DVD, but with the recent release of the Monsters set, just about every other major horror/thriller/sci-fi/fantasy anthology series I can think of is currently available. What a world.

A good anthology film that doesn't get a lot of play is "From a Whisper to a Scream."

And if you're into bad-good horror movies, the 8mm opus "The Basement" is a wonderful experience.

Xpost Haha what if you watched all the b&w anthology shows in collated broadcast order like your crazy Marvel project

Oh god, that's totally something I would do and that actually sounds amazing. As evidenced by my crazy Marvel project, yes.

I just bought the hugely-discounted first five seasons of Alfred Hitchcock Presents via an Amazon deal of the day, so I may be well on my way down that inadvisable road.

So we're halfway through the month and I still haven't watched a single film from my initial list. But I did manage to pack in all three Basket Case movies (stupid, increasingly-campy fun, liberally sprinkled with "wth am I watching?"-ness, e.g.:)

PROBABLY NSFW
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hp-jnw5l4QA

...and Nightmares on Elm St. 2-7 (still maintaining that the first four are worthy of a recommendation and the subsequent three (possibly including Freddy Vs. Jason, which I haven't seen since it was released) are worthy of a landfill). And the first Amityville which, while not exactly great, was definitely better than I'd been led to believe. I bought the box set though (because it cost just as much as the first film on its own), so I'm looking forward to the inevitable descent into mediocrity with the subsequent installments.

the last movies are absolutely mediocre, but even those have some fun goofy setpieces

after you finish all the Nightmares watch "Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy"! 4 hour documentary that goes though the making of every movie, tracks down almost every major player, test footage, behind the scenes footage-and it's put together really well. i found it riveting and i don't even give a shit about those movies.

I really should. Some lovely people have uploaded the Stephen King's This Is Horror videos from the '80s as well as a Tom Savini special that I also used to watch all the time back in the day, and I'm realizing how instrumental that behind the scenes stuff was at getting me into horror. Oh, the making of Thriller, too!

I never expected to be endorsing an ITV (UK set of channels not known for quality) physical gameshow but Release The Hounds caught my attention on another forum. It's kinda like Fort Boyard and Crystal Maze but with a surprisingly extreme horror theme.

There is quite a few annoyances but it's worth it just to see some cool settings, monsters (including a clown with a chainsaw) and it's sometimes quite hilarious how terrified some contestants get.
I've heard that there is going to be different versions across the world, I'd like to see how far some countries take it.

This is the best clip I can find. This guy is put in a genuinely terrifying situation. (hope this clip isn't geographically restricted.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMVJkdTajCE

In the episode I saw, the contestants claimed not to know they were coming on this show, as if they were just being taken to any old gameshow; but that's difficult to believe considering what the tasks puts them through. I wonder what precautions they take for the dog chases.

BA-BUMP

I've blown through the first five Child's Play movies this week. The first three (the only ones I'd seen previously) are meh-to-mediocre, but Bride of Chucky is pretty solidly goofy, and Seed of Chucky is campily batshit. I get why it was panned, and it certainly isn't great cinema, but I feel that it's easily on the same level as Henenlotter or Larry Cohen's better efforts. I have the box set, so I'll report back on the surprisingly well-reviewed Curse of Chucky once I've seen it.

Also watching lots of Tales From The Darkside lately. Working my way through the first season, and for every semi-solid episode there are two or three loose stool installments. I hope it picks up. I recently got the complete classic Outer Limits so I'm kinda itching to move onto that.

Stuff I'm hoping to watch/rewatch this season:
Freaks
at least one thing from the Val Lewton box
at least one thing from the Universal monsters box
You're Next
Rob Zombie's Halloween reboots
Kwaidan
Evil Dead 1&2 (still have never seen any of these)
God Told Me To
Possession (just got the less special version of Mondo Vision's bluray release, trying to decide whether or not it's advisable to watch it with one's significant other)
and I kinda want to watch all of the Paranormal Activity movies (never before seen) and then see the new one theatrically (assuming the first five aren't all shit, although I have it on good authority that at least the last two are exactly that)

I've also ordered short story collections from M.R. James and Clark Ashton Smith and Ramsey Campbell (none of whom I've read before) to help spook up my autumnal commute.

The first three (the only ones I'd seen previously) are meh-to-mediocre, but Bride of Chucky is pretty solidly goofy, and Seed of Chucky is campily batshit.

agree w this assessment altho I have a soft spot for the first one. Saw Bride of Chucky in the theater and laughed my ass off.

now that we switched from cable to streaming I can finally see some of the recent things unavailable from my local video store. So far that means I've put the following on my list:

The Tall Man
American Mary

gonna scan this thread for others...

ah yes have been waiting for years to see Homebodies! def on the list this year

Impulse bought a Vincent Price DVD set with Witchfinder General in it after noticing that the first volume of Shout! Factory's VP blu ray collections had suddenly gone out of print. So that's on the docket now.

any decent horror comedies recently?

Not super recent, but Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil is recommended if you haven't seen it.

yeah that was okay. I think it's a tough trick to pull off but when it works - Slither, Cabin in the Woods, the Evil Dead movies, etc. - it's one of my favorite subgenres ever

Wow @ It Follows, deserved all the hype.

Spoilidad: at the end, when they're at the pool, the monster appears as her dad, yeah?

If that's correct, I totally missed that!

I had a few issues with the film--mainly in line with the criticisms Tarantino had re: the inconsistent parameters around which the "monster" is defined--but yeah, the plaudits are mainly justified.

I didn't think it worked as a horror movie but I liked it a lot as a doomed coming-of-age movie.

Dad only shown in photos but thats what it looked like to me - also would explain why she didnt want to tell the others what she saw.

Yeah. Also fits in the other kid being killed by his mother, the Evangelion-style parentless town, etc.

Curse of Chucky was fine, if a bit of a letdown after Bride and Seed. It's still better than the first three. Probably the closest the series has come to a straight horror film, competently directed, pretty decent cast (Brad Dourif's daughter is solid as the lead actress). It feels very contemporary and almost seems like a reboot until the ending makes it clear that it's a continuation from previous installments. If you go in with zero in the way of expectations, it's a fun and forgettably-middling horror flick.

trying to decide whether or not it's advisable to watch it with one's significant other

would lean no, but obv depends

just a few days ago I was nearly going to suggest to my gf we watch "Going Places" ('74 Bertrand blier) cuz I knew it was expiring from Netflix and that it was French and she knows a bit of the language -- dodged a bullet there lmao, its not horror but it is like extreme nasty French misogyny/nihilism. its hard to be convincing and be like I swear I had no idea this was the subject matter! even when that is 100% true ~

watched Demon Seed (1977) last night, man that is not a good film. There are decent ideas and elements in it but it just doesn't cohere or have the tension required to really make it work. Too much exposition, too many sub-2001/Star Trek TMP visual interludes (which are amusing at first but become tiresome the more they are used). Watched it because I find Cammell kind of a fascinating figure and Fritz Weaver is always reliably creepy but it just doesn't work. Big "reveal" at the end is also sadly comical. Whole thing feels sub-Cronenberg even if it's before Cronenberg was a thing, but while watching it I couldn't help thinking how much better a film it would've been if Cronenberg had done it.

Huh, I never posted a top 10 in this thread.

Pretty sure my horror poll ballot still holds, more or less.

I watched the entire 1931 Dracula for the first time last night. What a weirdly-paced and disjointed affair that was. It gets a ton of leeway, though, as it's maybe, what, the second?? talkie horror film ever made. I get that there were still some kinks to work out and formulae to codify at that point.

Bela Lugosi and Dwight Frye are total weirdoes, in completely different ways. The latter's laugh is one for the ages. The hissy ambient noise and absence of a score was effectively creepy. The set design was pretty great. The movie was borderline incoherent but I'll give it points as a mood piece.

(After accidentally posting this in the 2015 politics thread.)

Was paging through this book and (spoiler alert):

http://www.brendanhalpin.com/.a/6a00d8341cae6453ef0133f2cd4900970b-pi

They picked as their #1 horror movie the Hammer Horror of Dracula ('58), which seems not only unorthodox but downright bizarre. I know Hammer has a devoted following, but I wasn't aware that any one of their films stood out from the pack enough to merit a #1 placement on an overall list.

While I still don't think I've actually seen any of the Hammer films (partially because their DVD slate in the US is super patchy), reviews and commentary I've read suggest that Horror Of Dracula (followed by their first two Frankenstein movies) is at the head of the pack, and many seem to think it's the best film version of Dracula. It is a strange choice for all-time greatest, though, for sure.

I've tried to sit through some Hammer stuff before and they're just too boring for me, sorry.

very curious about Horror Express though, really wanna see that one

I think the book's reasoning was that vampires are the #1 greatest horror characters, Dracula is the #1 greatest vampire, and this movie is the #1 greatest Dracula movie, so this has to be #1. They also mentioned the library scene being second only to the shower scene from Psycho which, again, news to me.

I've been reading M.R. James on the train. When he isn't engaged in exposition diarrhea, he's effectively creepy for his era. But seriously: the exposition. He expounded for two pages about every nook and cranny of a church's interior before describing the ostensible antagonist of the story as "an almost phenomenally ugly man". Come on, M.R.

While I wouldn't place Hammer Dracula anywhere near #1, it's a good one

read that as "when he isn't engaged in explosive diarrhea..."

I guess that's "Count Magnus"? I love that one.
There is a bunch of annoyances in classic quiet horror fiction, like lots of mannered blathering, far too many antiquarian loners and detective uncovering of mysteries and not enough payoff but it's preferable to the mass market tropes (mostly 70s onwards) like family orientated sentimentality, ridiculous bloat and constant shoehorned in dominating focus on characters who aren't nearly interesting enough.

I don't like Hammer's Dracula much. The best Hammer film I've seen by a long way is Curse Of The Werewolf (Oliver Reed). Gorgon, Reptile, Brides Of Dracula and Curse Of Frankenstein are fairly enjoyable in places.

I rewatched C.H.U.D. last night. It was mildly diverting. Reading up afterwards, I was surprised to learn that it was a one-off film for both the director and the screenwriter, so not bad as a first-and-only effort. It would work well as the middle on a 'grungy NYC horror' triple bill with, say, Q The Winged Serpent and Brain Damage. This, however, is the only scene that you really need to see from the film:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvZN9t5HDAw

Always mix that one up in my mind with C.H.O.M.P.S.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDKNZmwm6hI

lol @ CHUD scene wtf is that

It makes roughly the same amount of sense within the context of the movie.

I know I've seen CHUD w/in the past decade too

I've started watching the first season of the Friday the 13th series, which I'm sure I saw when it originally aired but barely remember. It's already waaaaay better than the first season of Tales From The Darkside and feels a bit like a low-budget proto-X-Files or Buffy. The special effects are maybe among the least special I've ever seen, but it's surprisingly watchable overall.

I just finished reading Danse Macabre. It was interesting inasmuch as I like King pontificating about horror. Less interesting in terms of his recommendations, as his tastes have historically been a little...uneven? I'd really love for him to write a follow-up someday, particularly since I realized this probably written during the same blackout drunk period as Cujo.

I watched Tourist Trap last night, partially based on the book's recommendation. So-so as a movie but there's a lot of effectively creepy shit in there. All of the mannequin/animatronic stuff is skin-crawling, and the killer is pretty inspired (with a mask that's a ripoff of Leatherface but which is somehow even creepier). I think it could be terrifying in the right/wrong state of mind. And it's rated PG, somehow (I guess the absence of nudity and cursing and much in the way of blood is how)!

Oh, I also just saw Salem's Lot for the first time. I think I actually liked it a lot. The relaxed miniseries pace worked really well with the slow dissolution of the town. Lots of good scares that were handled just right. Kinda puts paid to notions of Hooper as a hack. That poor guy.

Barlow's reveal in the jail cell is probably the most epic jump scare in TV horror history.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcHmWLYmwgo

Oh, yeah. My girlfriend flipped out.

I dearly hope something in a book or film scares me as much as that vampire scared me when I was in early high school. I felt like I was losing my mind.

Been wanting to see Tourist Trap a while now.

Tourist Trap is fantastic. It's creepy from the get-go and the final freeze-frame still gives me the serious shivers.

Going to watch Phantasm for the first time this Halloween.

And possibly Burnt Offerings.

wait wait what

*awkward silence*

Still haven't seen the latter but you've made a very wise choice with the former, VG.

Burnt Offerings is great

Going to watch Phantasm for the first time this Halloween.

^^ i envy you. still, it's one of those movies that always looks a little different every time i see it.

recently came across this new anthology called 'tales of halloween' on VOD and i'll give a try. great cast overall and if paul solet, lucky mckee, neil marshall and dave parker hit the right notes it will prob be worth.

I've been looking forward to that one. I'm a sucker for anthologies.

Watched The Funhouse tonight. Kinda meh overall as a horror movie. Or as a movie where anything of consequence happens. But I'm realizing overall that Hooper is (or at least was) the master of the slow and unassuming horror shot set-up. A must-see if you ever wanted to see Frankenstein get a handie.

Well duh

I find anyone who didn't grow up with The Funhouse generally finds it offputtingly slow.

I was referring to even the idea that people don't want to see a Frankenstein handie. My grandpappy didn't die in the mud and muck etc

I seen Funhouse about 5 years ago and I'm quite fond of it. I consider it kind of a mood piece. The ending drags out but I really love the dingy beauty of the early Hooper films. Elizabeth Berridge too.

I have seen the Funhouse far more than most run-of-the-mill horror movies, almost inexplicably so. Like My Bloody Valentine, although I really like that one. To my mind it is one of the few Hooper movies that are competently made.

I agree that it worked more as a mood piece than as a coherent horror film. It didn't seem to know what it wanted to be. It started off with the fake-out Halloween/Psycho pastiche, threw out hints of supernatural doings that ultimately went nowhere, morphed into a grimy carny noir, and wrapped up with the characters being menaced and picked off by a shrieking, reluctantly-murderous mutant. It was just a bunch of disparate and disconnected horror elements jumping out at the viewer...almost as if we were in a funhouse. Whoa.

The first third (or maybe almost half!) of the movie, which only had an eerie air to it and absolutely zero violence or overt horror, was the best, imo.

Slowness in horror movies is hugely underrated.

The grimy carny noir aspects sort of act as template for Rob Zombie. Isn't his next movie about killer clowns or something?

The "Meet Mr. Barlow" is my go-to clip for Halloween now. It's hard to find a great scare clip that doesn't involve stuff you can't show to a grade 6 class, or that can stand alone and doesn't require a lot of introductory explanation. Reactions vary quite a bit. I had one class that went nuts (screaming, etc.), one class that laughed, another that had hardly any reaction at all. No explanation.

Do you open every class with a movie clip?

Yes. We spend 47% of the year on movie clips, the rest is divided up between six or seven subject areas.

(I show the Salem's Lot clip once a year. On Halloween.)

Best thing about being a grade-school teacher, unless you're in the wrong place, is that no one's ever looking over your shoulder--you pretty much do whatever you want to do. Obviously, I do show a lot of movie clips; it you were doing this, I bet you would too, Eric.

Unquestionably.

Main point is, I agree: incredible jump-scare, and it requires about three seconds' worth of set-up. "Weird stuff has been happening around town...here's a guy asleep in his jail cell."

While that scene in isolation works wonderfully (I'd unfortunately already seen it before I watched the movie), the general air of protracted, quiet menace in the lead-up made it even more effective.

Tangentially related to the discussion (though not to horror at all): Last week I did an exercise with the (university) Children's Lit class that I work with where I had them anonymously write down what they would like me to keep doing, stop doing and start doing during class time, and they seem to overwhelmingly want me to talk less and show more videos. I've already shown them Little Red Riding Rabbit during our unit on fairy tales, and I sent them an optional link to Apaches (the emotionally scarring "don't play around farm equipment" British PSA from the 70s) for our unit on moralistic literature. This week is Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, which presents a variety of options, I guess, but I'm not particularly in love with any of the film versions I've seen of it, so idk.

So yeah, movie clips as a teaching tool is fun, but I'm gonna have to get creative.

In keeping with the thread topic, there are a number of early film versions of Alice (including a silent or two?) that are kinda terrifying.

Well there's always the Jan Svankmajer one

Having a couple of people over to watch Larry Cohen's The Stuff and an undecided second film on Saturday...right now the titles in contention are:

Re-Animator
*The Blob (80s remake)
Uzumaki
*Society
Phase IV
Happiness of the Katakuris

* = I haven't seen it yet

Phase IV is probably out unless people express interest; it's an awesome movie and one of the two people coming loved The Hellstrom Chronicle but it's probably not a good followup for something I picked to be fun while extremely drunk.

Dunno how properly "horror" it is but I finally sat down and watched A Field In England the other day and found it really deeply frightening in places. An amazing balancing act with the humor and almost Greenaway-ish detachment and dry humor actually working without undercutting the really horrible stuff (I am thinking specifically of the slow-motion tent/rope scene here, but there were a handful of other moments that managed the same trick of scaring me more with their implications than anything explicit).

The Blob is p good but really if yr having a drunk viewing party Re-Animator is the way to go imo. (Society is also great but takes forever to get to the payoff iirc). Phase IV is more of a stoner/hallucinogen movie imo.

if you want to keep the Larry Cohen theme going, "God Told Me To" would be my other rec. that movie is insane.

God Told Me To is a classic fer sure

Society is required viewing, esp with an oblivious audience.

if you go with Society I'd say watch it first

Yeah, Society is awesome but tbh I've enjoyed it more on re-watches, b/c I know the pay-off is coming and I know it's going to be great, whereas the first time I saw it I was a bit "bleh, this is a bit of a stupid film" most of the way through.

I really want to watch Uzumaki, the comic is amazing.

Blob remake is quite good value and recommended. I'll second all of the stock Cohen recommendations and offer up the dark horse pick of It's Alive 3: Island of the Alive, which is cheesy and terrible and delightful and amazing.

Basically, anything Cohen or Henenlotter makes for excellent drunk viewing.

I haven't seen it since 1990 or so, but I remember really digging the 80s Blob as a kid during its initial cable run.

Saw a screening last year, definitely holds up - my first time seeing it too. Fun all around, great ending set-up.

I had a huge crush on Kevin Dillon bcz of the Blob

The Blob it is. Especially since this lets me use an awesome/terrible idea I've had kicking around for the while and serve strawberry jello shots with boozy whipped cream on top.

Just watched Evil Dead for the first time ever. I was prepared for something like Dead Alive (maybe the second one is more along those lines?) but the effects and makeup and sound design were horrifying and super over the top (they really made the most of their $250 or whatever the movie cost to make!). Surprised the hell out of me. It was great, of course. I'm sure this isn't news to 95% of horror fans. I'm probably going to watch Evil Dead 2 for the first time ever tomorrow (jealous?).

omg 2 is the best, you can't handle how great it is first time around imo

super jelly!!! round it off with Army of Darkness!

just watched Hellraiser for the first time, love those creature effects... and the lustful housewife. plan to go through more of them as they all seem to be on Netflix right now

AoD is oooooook but not a patch on the first two imo

Evil dead and hellraiser are both the rare examples where #2 is the best, but for decidedly different reasons

ED2 for me is what a Looney Tunes horror movie would look like & it's the reason I will love Sam Raimi forever

Nhex, do yourself a favor and don't go too far with the Hellraisers. I managed to make it as far as the fourth one based on my love of the first two, but they get dire very quickly. I thought the third was stupid as shit when I was in high school and barely had the critical faculties to discern whether a movie might be awful. If anything, I'd recommend checking out some of the comics (which maintained the vibe and had some decent creators, and which had a recent revival actually written by Barker) after watching the second one.

The third is fascinatingly dated. Some 90s films look like they're from a different planet. It's similar to the cheesy 90s Image comics that were supposed to be ultra modern and super cool.

Just watched the first two hellraisers last week. Loved the first one, thought the second one was good in places but kind of sucked. Not planning to continue.

The third features a DJ cenobite that shoots deadly CDs out of its mouth. That's pretty much all you need to know.

Oh man, yeah. The third is rrreally fuckin' dumb. There's also a cenobite with a video camera stuck in his head where the best they could come up with is "he...I guess he leans in real close to people? and the lens through his eye telescopes out and stabs them in the face?"

I'm kind of regretting not setting aside some money for Arrow's recent, now sold-out rerelease of the films. It included #3, which is a bit of a downgrade, but Arrow do amazing extras, and even managed to dig up the borderline mythical "surgeon scene" from a VHS workprint:

https://drinksandwings.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/hellraiser-ii.jpg

Really, the Hellraiser 3 cenobites are indistinguishable from PLEASURE TOAST. Take an underpaid character actor, jam a household electrical appliance through their face, bam, done.

good lord that sounds dire. ok, i may take this advice, depending on how much my brother wants to torture me

Hellraiser III is ludicrously on the nose and lol '90s ...

https://31.media.tumblr.com/eea4f0f54d157f40e0b5588cbb8a0d47/tumblr_my6ok02oQp1rp0vkjo1_500.gif

OMG @ EVIL DEAD 2. Don't I feel like a stupid idiot for never watching it before now. Like a goddamn roller coaster, that thing. Raimi and Campbell bring it 150%. It's kind of impossible to believe that this was made by the same guy responsible for Spider-Man 3 and Oz The Great and Powerful.

I'm way more excited about Drag Me To Hell now so I might fit that in sometime this weekend.

Drag me to Hell bears zero resemblance to ED2

That's a bit extreme - it has some of the same kinetic energy. (Personally I love it but it might be the most divisive horror movie of the aughts.)

It also has a lot of errant fluid in unwilling mouth gags.

It's plenty like Evil Dead, the possessions, demons, splatstick and regular assaults are there and she even says "I'm gonna get some! Yeah!" in a very Ash manner. But most of the visual style is completely different.
I'd recommend Within The Woods too (a short before Evil Dead that follows roughly the same template).

I've never seen his Crimewave but I've heard it has a very similar style. The trailers certainly support that.

Dare I once again mention how much I LOVED the evil dead remake from last (this?) year?

I think most people liked it better than they expected. I thought the outdoor scenes looked beautiful, nice and wet.

omg that Pleasure Toast thing had me rolling, thank you TT

Drag Me To Hell is great, very much in the style of the older Raimi

Drag Me To Hell was indeed great! All the talk about multiple instances of nasty shit going into people's mouths made me a bit wary but the OTT audacity of it was cracking me up. I wish it had happened more, if anything. My only quibble was the obvious transparency of the envelope mix-up (even if said transparency was clearly intentional on Raimi's part) but the bluntness of the ending definitely made up for it.

Truly the best horror movie finale since I don't even know when.

haha yes. great use of main title and the front and finish, too!

http://www.avclub.com/article/25-best-horror-movies-2000-227068

got all the way to 25 before i realized this list was total garbage prepared by sacs of trash

There were some good ones in there, but the order was all kinds of f'd up.

Drag Me to Hell (which I still love) is basically Night/Curse of the Demon, right down to the train station finale.

I believe both Drag Me To Hell and Night/Curse of the Demon (which is still in my Halloween queue for this year) are based on M.R. James's 'Casting The Runes' (which I recently read and which, to be honest, bears only a superficial resemblance to Drag Me To Hell).

After I first saw it I was amazed there was not so much as a "adapted from" or "inspired by" credit.

Some strong scary movie contenders I thought of have been Grave Encounters and the first two Rec films. Oculus has also stuck with me. And has anyone (or I?) mentioned "S&Man?"

Ohhhh yeah S&Man! Jesus. That thing creeped the SHIT out of me.

Fans of S&Man, see Megan Is Missing, which seems like it ought to be illegal to watch.

Didn't someone describe that in one of the other horror threads as Deathdr0ne: The Movie? I am as likely to watch that as I am A Serbian Movie. Which is to say: no.

"A Serbian Film" was kind of surreal in its ridiculous horrificness, and while I've since read a couple of things about the civil war there to make me reconsider many of the objections I've had, the movie still works better in a vacuum than in practice. But S&Man was clever and sort of incisive (or at least provocative) about why we watch horror films.

I was lumping Megan Is Missing in with A Serbian Film, if that was unclear.

Read the synopsis of MiM, ugh. At least ASF was claiming to be making a point, however facile one thinks it.

Hate torture stuff, but I still think this is the one I want to see the least:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/91WVkmGhDJS._SL1500_.jpg

Wow, that's big, sorry.

when did that come out?

cuz it looks like a cheap ripoff of a Grant Morrison Batman villain

Dunno. A decade ago?

Also, there was Grotesque (2009, Japan), the first film to be outright banned in UK for a long time. Director also did Noroi, which I didn't care for much but lots of people seem to love it.

Don't have the interest or patience for endurance test torture films anymore. Not my preferred cup of harrowing.

It's not even just the torture, it's the entire direction I'm not interested in.

The Butcher is 2009, this is 2007:

https://images.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fbatmanytb.com%2Fbios%2Fvillains%2Fp%2Fpyg01.jpg&f=1

There are pig masks all over horror movies.

the pig plus butcher's smock plus chainsaw is def something that appears in the comic, I just couldn't find an online image

Pig mask plus chainsaw is also in Motel Hell (1980).

And like 40 other things

huh ok then

I have seen Motel Hell but only remember random things - the "harvest" etc.

Wait sorry, like 400 other things.

Megan is Missing is brutally brutally sad among other things. My tastes run towards the bleak in horror so I thought it was excellent, but yeah, it's a rough watch on a lot of levels.

Xpost Korean Butcher also 2007, actually. It's a tie!

Man, reading a description of Grotesque makes it seem 10x worse than A Serbian Film. Ugh. I need a shower.

I once listened to a podcast of horror fans watching it and they were pretty mortified and not in a way they liked.

As it happens, "GROTESQUE: UNRATED VERSION" has been banned in U.K. I'm quite delighted and flattered by this most expected reaction from the faraway country, since the film is an honest conscientious work, made sure to upset the so-called moralists.
In Japan the unrated version is available in DVD.
It's a suitable film for couples, so please take advantage and watch it in your quality time.

Koji Shiraishi, Director/ Screenwriter of GROTESQUE

Megan Is Missing has the bones of something quite good but oversteps the mark on four or five occasions in a way that renders the whole thing prurient and sordid. I'd imagine the director would argue that without the shock factor, the message would be no stronger than after-school PSAs in terms of influencing naive teen behaviour irl, and it does apparently carry a recommendation from a guy whose daughter was killed in similar circumstances, but it's not easily defensible. It's unnecessary too - it wouldn't be any less powerful with the more lurid bits taken out.

Turned off Megan is Missing because I could not rid myself of the suspicion throughout that it was made for creeps to masturbate to, and the suspicion became conviction when the last bit of "found footage" was introduced, and life is too short and good horror movies are too enjoyable for that shit. "Torture porn" as a metaphor is bad enough, don't need the real thing.

― Three Word Username, Monday, June 23, 2014 8:23 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeech. not touching that one.

Rewatched OG Halloween 1 & 2, confirming yet again that (challops alert!) I'm just not that into the first one and that the second one is about as good as the first. And I think I'm beginning to realize that my opinion isn't just colored by age or the extent to which later movies aped Halloween's moves. The characterization kinda sucks, the dialogue kinda sucks, the suspense isn't really all that (and I'm a pretty big Carpenter fan otherwise, at least in part because he eventually learned how to stage horror scenes really well). It really doesn't rise much above the level of what the Friday the 13th movies eventually did. None of which is to say that I dislike it or think it's a bad movie. It's just, at this point, not so much something I would prefer to actively watch as much as I would rather put on in the background as a mood-setter while I was doing other stuff.

Funny, I just rewatched the first one too and still love it immensely, and as I watched it I thought, man, all the subsequent copies can't match this one. Especially the Friday the 13th series, which is often poorly directed and worse acted, with even less characterization and dialog. I agree that Halloween II is underrated, though. Though in both cases the score does the heavy lifting.

The closest thing I've managed to Halloween viewing in the last few days was an impulsive decision to finally sit down and watch Trouble Every Day after its inclusion on that (fairly shaky) AV Club list. Loved it to pieces, but if Under the Skin was dropped from their ballot for not being a horror film, then wtf was Trouble Every Day doing there? The cannibalism is almost incidental, and most importantly, I never felt like Denis wanted to scare the audience, other than a constant nagging concern for the safety of the two sick people's spouses. It's far more sad than frightening.

If I can get the time tonight between class projects, I'm going to try Footprints on the Moon- I hadn't even heard of it until I watched the commentary track on Berberian Sound Studio. Strickland mentioned it as an atypical but beautiful giallo soundtrack, and further investigation showed it stars Florinda Balkan and has some gonzo nutshit moon landing conspiracy stuff; I've avoided looking too much closer and just bought the DVD blind (along with The House with Laughing Windows) in the hopes of being pleasantly surprised.

Haven't seen Footprints on the Moon, but found House with Laughing Windows a bit of a chore tbh - lacks the urban flashiness I associate with the best gialli.

I wasn't much into it either but it has enough fine moments to give it a light recommendation. I hope to see Avati's Zeder and Arcane Enchanter someday.

House With Laughing Windows starts well and ends really well but the middle is a slog and a half. Footprints On The Moon is fantastic, maybe my favourite non-Argento Giallo atm.

So Halloween 4 is, unsurprisingly, not a very good movie, but there's something about the aesthetic of not very good late-'80s/early-'90s horror movies that I enjoy so I'll cut it a little slack. And the ending is decent. Michael Myers looks like a total doof in this one, though, and is occasionally blonde?

Dyes his hair, getting vain.

Finally watched the Evil Dead remake - not terrible. Raimi and co. would do well to tap Jane Levy for Ash vs. The Evil Dead.

the evil dead remake is absolutely, 100%, undeniably terrible. "you see the actual evil is heroin addiction!!" fuck that.

I mean the actual dialogue and major aspects of the setup were def awful (esp the characterization/backstory, echh) but the gore was inventive enough and the atmosphere satisfying enough that I'd call it passable.

i loved "bone tomahawk" and it's not really horror, but it was definitely more tense and upsetting and frightening than any horror qua horror movie i've seen in a long time.

I hated nu-Evil Dead so much. I've told the story, but there was a crying kid the entire time I was in the theatre, until I went out to the ticket booth, told them it's fucked up they let people bring little kids to that, got my money back, then just left.

kurt schwitterz otm re: terribleness of evil dead remake

I'm going to try Footprints on the Moon; I've avoided looking too much closer and just bought the DVD blind (along with The House with Laughing Windows) in the hopes of being pleasantly surprised.

^^my two fav gialli(ish?) along with 'a quiet place in the country'. love them all to pieces, but the first one holds a special place.

I watched Phantasm tonight, first time ever

I am losing my mind over how great it is! Like, the execution literally defines the differnce between a good movie & a bad one. It could have been SO shitty and so stupid so easily, in so many ways - bad lighting, bad sound, bad editing etc but everything was done so right. I yelled involuntarily at least twice, Angus Scrimm scared the living fuck out of me lol

Damn that was fun!

What blows me away is that on paper that story is bugfuck bananas & it STILL works. What kind of acid eating freak comes up with dwarves from outer space made of corpses & a flying silver ball drill. Jesus.

Coscarelli, man. I loved Bubba Hotep but I clearly had no idea. I am bowing the fuck down.

Wonderful news! Revisit in a year or so and marvel at how much you've seemingly missed/forgotten.

Watched The Fog and Fright Night for the first time last night (the original versions...I'd totally forgotten that there was a remake of the former until just this second). Both very solid '80s horror. I particularly enjoyed The Fog. It's as surefooted with respect to atmosphere and the staging of spooky scenes as Halloween is heavyhanded and plodding.

We also started The Uninvited but the gf got sleepy and we had to stop. It was shaping up nicely. Also watched Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, and it was without a doubt a movie of roughly ninety minutes' length, and it was really effective at being Paul Rudd's cinematic debut.

Phantasm DVD commentary is great too, Coscarelli giving a masterclass in low budget film-making and Angus Scrimm pompously intoning non-sequiters from what sounds like a completely different studio.

i spent last night reading synopses of some of the films mentioned here (and on that other one) and man idk how you guys do it

Don't know how we do it like "those movies sound scary!" or don't know how we do it like "those movies sound like shitty wastes of time!"? Both reactions are valid.

Oh, are you talking about the extreme, ogrish.com shit? Because, yeah, I have zero interest in that stuff.

i'm thinking more about the ones like "megan is missing" and the like, i got physically nauseated reading about that one (and grotesque and a serbian movie and the like)

scary movies i like, gore doesn't really bother me (i have, after all, taken gross anatomy and scrubbed into surgery), but torture stuff really really squicks me

xp yeah

I haven't gotten around to the two gialli yet, but after my Halloween plans fell through last night I watched Fulci's City of the Living Dead for the first time. It's a weird one, even for Fulci- it's way more low-budget and ramshackle than The Beyond, and has one of the worst English scripts I've seen in a dubbed horror film ("I would find a such an unusual paradox of tremendous appeal terribly stimulating, if I were a sleuth")- that said, I haven't seen the infamous Burial Ground and its "nigths of terror," so I know I haven't scraped the linguistic bottom of the Italian zombie barrel.

It's really good, though! I kind of wonder if the creators of Silent Hill were familiar with this part of Fulci's "Gates of Hell" trilogy especially- there's constant billowing fog (and gale-force blasts of maggots, which are maybe a little less subtle), a creepy little town with an occult past hidden away from the rest of the world, and the same general air of reality gone completely wrong.

There's also something kind of adorable about a film of a certain vintage where they're so obviously proud of their FX gags- I'm pretty sure the infamous gut-puking lingers long enough to go through every organ in the alimentary tract in order, and they were so goddamn proud of the brain-yanking thing they did it three times, virtually identically.

why did I have to look up ogrish.com

i'm thinking more about the ones like "megan is missing" and the like, i got physically nauseated reading about that one (and grotesque and a serbian movie and the like)
--jason waterfalls (gbx)

I have zero interest in this strand of horror film so you are not alone.

just reading the Wikipedia summaries of those two was enough for me to be like NOPE

btw watched Hellraiser II. not bad, but not a solid film like that first one was. i can see why others might like it more (a lot more action) but I was a bit disappointed. lol why are there two separate recaps of the first movie? also, too many animated snake tentacle penises spewing knife blades

Not going to defend any of these stupid films but I suspect reading Wiki summaries is actually worse in some cases than seeing the films themselves if the mind is filling in the details.

Yeah, the Wikipedia page for Blood Sucking Freaks makes it sound similarly horrible rather than the (mostly) cheesy campfest that it is.

"I read the cliff notes, and this Hamlet deal sounds pretty poorly written".

I've seen and enjoyed movies that showed or implied worse things happening (in the "would you rather be boiled or skinned alive" sense of worse) than Megan is Missing -- it's the tone of the violence that makes a movie unappetizing for me. If there's no reverence for life, there's no reason to fear death, so there's less at stake for me in a "people are just meat" movie.

Empathetic portrayals of human suffering and stark depictions of real-world horrors have their place but it's not what I personally look for in horror fiction. When I watch a horror movie, I just want a relatively low-stakes 90-minute trip through a haunted house where I come out the other side largely unscathed. There's plenty of room for legitimate scares and thoughtful approaches that linger after the trip is over, but I don't particularly want to feel like I was in a horror movie. No McKamey Manors for me, thanx.

Yeah, though I guess there are lots of movies that take you through the emotional wringer and leave you upset or unsettled, horror or no.

xpost I agree. The process becomes the whole point, which is where the torture porn idea came about. It's not about story or plot, it's about the scenario that sets up the money shot and nothing more. Just kind of mechanical. Though I admit there are subtle distinctions, which is why so many prefer, say, Hostel II to the first one, or why I'll defend A Serbian Film, even though I never want to see it again. Or, I don't know, why I've told so many disbelieving friends that Human Centipede is not nearly as bad as it sounds, despite it sounding as bad as can be.

I should specify that, for me, empathetic portrayals of human suffering and stark depictions of real-world horrors have a place that's somewhere outside of the genre of horror.

Human Centipede manages to pull the neat trick of not being unwatchable because it has a sense of humor about itself -- it's hopeless and grim, but isn't mocking the victims or the audience any more than it mocks itself.

The example I always pull up is Testament, which is honestly probably the scariest and most dread-filled movie I've ever seen but which is pointedly very, very far outside of the horror genre (they showed the thing uncut on PBS). If it had been framed as a horror movie and lingered on the most horrific elements of the scenario, it would've felt exploitative.

I feel like I'm on the edge of reiterating a lot of things that were talked about here:

Enjoying horror films - why do we (or don't we)?

I thought I remembered this discussion from somewhere.

"I read the cliff notes, and this Hamlet deal sounds pretty poorly written".

― a strawman stuffed with their collection of 12 cds (jjjusten), Monday, November 2, 2015 9:10 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh pwease

having read a bit of that discussion thread --- i'm kinda like DJP w/r/t this stuff i think. i'm not being dismissive of it out of hand, i just sorta think "welp that's Not For Me"

though tbh now that i think about it a big part of that is the fact that i live alone! i could probably handle some More Intense Stuff if i was watching it with other ppl and could talk about it afterwards

1. Get a big dog with a loud bark
2. Watch all the horror

i wanna big dog with a loud bark anyway :(

http://41.media.tumblr.com/a663576841bb3d2e53dd27638d4407ce/tumblr_nn7414D6Vs1qzfmh5o1_1280.jpg

I'm just saying that judging an obscure horror film off of the wiki plot description is not going to be a great indicator - if it's either written by a hater or a creepy gore teen, the wrong things are going to be emphasised (for example Megan is Missing does not focus on "gets fed dog food" but that wiki person clearly feels that's a key plot point which just idk)

Also, like I said in that thread, I totally get the "not for me" reaction - I'm not even sure why I respond to it the way I do, I'm sort of a weird softie that tears up when furiosa hits the end of the desert, this seems like an odd mix but hey, I am what I am.

I basically got this shit underway early last month. Halloween is just going to morph into a year-round celebration for me at some point.

I've been digging into the old stuff lately, watching cinematic horror figure itself out in the '30s, seeing it dissolve into the ubiquitous sci-fi stew of the '50s (side note: the book Keep Watching The Skies!, which comprehensively covers this period, is highly recommended), still circling around the '40s and my still untouched Lewton box set.

Watched since last year and recommended:
Mad Love (from '35, with a super-freaky Peter Lorre performance that is the source of some of Ren's insane ranting from Ren & Stimpy)
King Kong (the original, yes it was my first time watching it, it's totally fun and goofy)
Robot Monster (finally watched the whole thing grinning from ear to ear, the 'worst movie ever' label is so amazingly off the mark and untrue)
Lake of the Dead (aka De dødes tjern, a spooky 1958 Norwegian psychological thriller-cum-ghost story)
The VVitch
Starry Eyes
Dementia (aka Daughter of Horror, from 1955, have only watched the former version thus far, a dialogue-free psychological horror noir that everyone needs to see now, the latter version apparently features running narration by Ed McMahon!)
Tourist Trap (if mannequins or dolls or masks freak you out at all, this will mess you up, man)
You're Next
What Lies Beneath (opinions seem divided but I thought it was a decent little ghost story thriller)

On the docket for this year (some carried over from previous years):
a Lewton film! (Cat People is in the player as I speak)
The Witch (one, along with the following, of a pair of intriguing-looking Finnish horror films from 1952)
The White Reindeer
Frankenhooker (one of only two Henenlotters I haven't seen)
I Married a Monster from Outer Space
Kwaidan
Session 9
Witchboard
Night of the Demon
Carnival of Souls

I would love to watch Kwaidan again! Is it criterion/hulu?

I hope NF streaming adds some shit this month. The horror pickings have been paltry for awhile.

Most recent viewing was The VVitch and I may have to watch it again before proceeding to other stuff. Also wanna continue my traversal of Night Gallery which I find super satisfying and inspiring on a deep level.

Also i have a download of The Sorcerers which is a prior film by the director of Witchfinder General and this'd be a good time to finally watch that.

Oh yeah I want to show some twentysomething friends of mine a couple episodes of Nigel Kneale's Beasts.

I'm reading the fantastic Tryon novel Harvest Home and I'm a slow reader so that'll probably be my october reading-wise.

Kwaidan is Criterion, don't know about Hulu.

Mentioning Night Galler, I'm right on the cusp of taking your previous suggestion of working my way through all of the horror-y anthology shows. I've been watching Alfred Hitchcock Presents pretty regularly, finally got a nice set of OG and '80s Twilight Zone and the suddenly OOP Monsters complete series, occasionally dipping into Tales from the Darkside and Tales from the Crypt and Outer Limits and Friday the 13th (kinda anthology-ish) and Ray Bradbury Presents. A lot of important work ahead of me.

I have a Laird Barron collection in my bag that I have yet to crack open. Just finished Christine and just started Pet Sematary but was super annoyed to realize that a huge chunk was somehow cut out of or left unscanned in this ebook so I kinda just stopped out of disgust. Another vote in favor of paper!

Oh hey Jon, you should check out the score to the aforementioned Dementia/Daughter of Horror. It's something else.

Filmstruck, the new streaming service carrying Criterion, launches on the 19th. Kwaidan will be available there.

i hope they have a free 30 day trial! Is it TCM library as well?

I really wanna see Friday the 13th TV series. I totally missed out on that originally.

I don't remember it being very good tbh

I don't need it be good, exactly. I need it to catalyze certain processes in me.

It's surprisingly not terrible. Not as frequently has Tales from the Darkside has sadly proven to be. The special effects, however, are among the least special I've ever seen, from any period of filmed entertainment. It's almost awe-inducing.

I'll need to see Dementia/Daughter of Horror. There's not many horror films left I really want to see. But I don't think I'll bother this Halloween unless I see some deals in Fopp.

Here we go again!

Top ten I've watched in the past year:

The Old Dark House (1932) (Tod Browning really was the business. This thing is so weird and good.)
Frankenstein's Daughter (Really stupid and fun '50s nonsense full of teenagers and musical interludes and monsters you know are female because they're wearing lipstick.)
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (I'm mostly certain I'd seen these last two decades ago because my mom loves them.)
Kwaidan (Haunting! Hypnotic! Gorgeous! I need more Toho.)
Phantom of the Paradise (Somehow exactly what I expected it to be. Ludicrous and lots of fun.)
The Witch Who Came from the Sea (A very messed-up psychological thriller which bears no resemblance to its title.)
Death Bed: The Bed That Eats (Very interesting and kinda batshit in ways beyond what the title might suggest. Shot on a budget of $5, apparently.)
House (1977) (This is not only the best horror movie I've seen in the past year, but I daresay it's in my all-time top ten. I've never seen anything remotely like this.)
Green Room (The movie is not fucking around. Tense and brutal and relentless. I may have edged right up to a panic attack.)

Thanks to Criterion and Kino ravaging my bank account with their stupid October sales, I'll soon be able to watch these beauties for the first time:

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
Nosferatu (1922)
The Phantom of the Opera (1925)
M
Vampyr
Black Sunday
Black Sabbath

I've finally gotten around to watching Hannibal, which really is maybe the best horror show I've ever seen and almost mind-blowingly OTT with the gore and disturbing imagery. I actually had to look away from the screen during the most recent one I watched, which I never feel compelled to do. I guess the censors must have passed out five minutes into each episode.

Over the past couple of weeks, I've read House on the Borderland, The King in Yellow, and a goodly amount of Lord Dunsany. All just so, so good. It's good to know that there are still so many classic horror rocks for me to turn over. Currently working on Stephen King's Revival, might dig into the Penguin Ligotti collection after that.

M is incredible

Credit where credit's due--The Old Dark House is James Whale, not Tod Browning

Speaking of those two, You Must Remember This just launched a series on Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff.

Enlightening or prurient?

Oh, I'm a dunce. Of course The Old Dark House is Whale. I recently watched Browning's The Devil Doll, another film of the popular '1930s horror movies featuring inexplicable senior citizen cross-dressing' subgenre.

i dont really like or seek out horror but this is my approx top ten of movies i think are good & have horror elements:

psycho
suspiria
possession
the shining
wolf creek
eden lake
entrance
lake mungo
pulse
night of the hunted

suspiria
jacob's ladder
high tension
rosemary's baby
the others
house on haunted hill (1959)
the birds
it follows
the shining
nosferatu (herzog)

i dont have a ten right ths minute BUT my #1 is Black Christmas

Black Christmas is always a good answer

I’ve got to think about this a bit, honestly, kids make seeing things hard. Initial quick reacts would be

Get Out
The Wailing
Green Room
Raw
Baskin

Just looked back at my first post in this thread and want to be clear that “Dream Home” should not be confused with “Dream House” which is reaaaaal bad.

Wait, did I just see Creep this year? Creep was great.

Just saw HAUSU. As crazy as everyone says. I dug it.

Hausu is all time amazing.

30th anniversary remaster of Christopher Young's Hellraiser score is fucking gorgeous

new to me in the past year:

the exorcist iii
the beyond
carrie
the house on sorority row
phantasm iv: oblivion
hello mary lou: prom night ii
ghostwatch
fright night
the initiation
daughters of darkness

I finally watched Michael Powell's Peeping Tom this week, which I liked, but is kind of another case of the old Casablanca vs. To Have and To Have Not debate where I've heard enough "better than Psycho" arguments that I'm just not buying. I think my main problem was that I couldn't believe the neighbour's attraction to him, which survives not only their first uber-creepy meeting, but the countless red-flags that follow. Marion, in comparison, is kind of trapped into interacting with Norman Bates and regards him with a far more believable mixture of sympathy and suspicion. Also, as I'm pretty sure Scorsese is a big fan, I can see the seeds of the Robert De Niro/Cybil Shepherd relationship in Taxi Driver, though that one, again, feels more plausible than the one here.

Trying to decide what other classic horrors I want to catch up with this week: Black Sunday? Eyes Without a Face? The Bird with the Crystal Plumage? Fade to Black? (Advice welcome!)

Have you seen blood on satans claw?

read this thread title to the tune of men without hats 'we can dance / everybody look at your hands'

xpost

I have not! The titles I listed are the ones I just grabbed from the library and, since I don't know if I'll get around to all of them this week, I was more wondering which ones to prioritize. Plus, I tend to like to watch something that I've seen before and that I know is classic on the actual night of Halloween. I'm thinking The Fog this year.

See Black Sunday.

Just got my copy in the mail yesterday so I'm on it.

In addition to all of the unimpeachable old-school classics I have lined up, I also got some new-school stuff I haven't seen yet but that I already know will be half junk (Annabelle, Conjuring 2, Ouija twofer) but I'm looking forward to the half that isn't (and, okay, yes, I'm looking forward to the junk, too).

I'm pretty fond of Eyes Without a Face, Black Sunday also good

I hear the second Oujia is actually not crap!

That's really the only reason I bought the set. Although I'm not sure why the good word-of-mouth re: the second Annabelle movie necessitated my buying the first.

I also have an unwatched copy of Eyes Without a Face! There are only so many movie-watching hours before Halloween is over! Guess I just need to call in sick or something, huh.

Late on the revive but I've been tearing it up in the usual style. Here are some things I've seen for the first time this month:

Witchfinder General
Night of the Demon
Mandy
Ghoulies

Okay, so one of those things is less awesomely classic than the others, but it was pretty entertaining cheese. Mostly I've just been watching episodes of Friday the 13th: the Series, which is extra extra cheesy but so watchable.

Also, I decided to stop pussyfooting about and jumped all the way back to the beginnings of gothic fiction a couple of months back, starting with Castle of Otranto. Lots of Ann Radcliffe on the docket.

Been watching Haunting of Hill House on Netflix which is surprisingly good value thus far. I bought a copy of Heredity sight unseen. Hopefully I can coerce company into watching it this evening.

Tell me what's good, peeps.

as documented elsewhere i watched every halloween movie this month. tbh one of the better horror franchises, gets a bad rap bc the original is so totemic but the sequels all manage to have incredibly distinct identities and approaches to the mythology of michael myers (which i can't really say for friday the 13/jason or nightmare/freddy). the "shitty" ones (five and six, mainly) have a "recorded straight to a vhs tape that was then buried 100 miles underground" quality, even in crisp hd. the zombie films were both better than i'd remembered. i is a total failure, its two parts don't match up at all, but ii is fascinating, dreamy, and sad, aka a true halloween movie

if i had to rank them:

halloween iii: season of the witch
halloween h20: 20 years later
halloween ii (2009)
halloween (1979)
halloween 4: the return of michael myers
halloween: the curse of michael myers
halloween ii (1981)
halloween (2018)
halloween (2007)
halloween 5: the revenge of michael myers
halloween resurrection

beyond that these were all new to me:

messiah of evil (fucking incredible early '70s horror that's not quite sure what it is, theater scene is legitimately terrifying)
let's scare jessica to death (budget-less droning early '70s horror that's not quite sure what it is, completely awesome)
mandy
the fog
hell house llc (found footage haunted house trash but a surprisingly well-done version of it)
the haunting (1963) (god i fucking love robert wise)

Just rewatched Legend of Hell House last night which I think, at this point, officially seals the deal on that as an annual tradition. Love that thing to pieces.

Yes, Season of the Witch is absolutely the best Halloween movie. Aside from the new one, Resurrection is the only one I have not seen and do not own, and nothing I've heard suggests that I need to change that state of affairs.

Really want to see Let's Scare Jessica. Come on, Scream Factory. (And also come on with the dozen movies I ordered from you a month ago and hoped I'd be able to watch by tonight.)

halloween resurrection is sorta fun after the opening twenty minutes, which are unfortunately... insulting. great busta performance

I haven't watched a damn thing this season. my local video store shut down (waiting for Alamo to re-open whatever rental service they're going to run with their acquired stock) so I don't have a good reliable source for stuff anymore.

I have 100s of spooky movies on the shelf with many still unwatched so I don't really need to indulge myself, but I understand Shudder is good value.

Having read an inordinate amount about the French Revolution of late, I've found myself wondering: is it possible that no one has ever done a historical horror film about la Terreur? And if not, for the love of god why not?

I've stepped up the pace a lot for International Halloween Month

Glad to watch these again on Shudder: Halloween (1978) and The Fog (1980), Argento's Tenebrae and Inferno

New-to-me on Shudder: Wolf Guy (Sonny Chiba!), Demons, C.H.U.D., The Lords of Salem

Best recent re-watching TCM: Bride of Frankenstein, The Cat People (1942), Carnival of Souls, Black Sabbath

hell house owns. really well done

i loooove Wolf Guy

saw a 35mm screening of Witchfinder General tonight, that is some stark doom in there

In the Mouth of Madness wound up being the pick of the evening. It's possible that I love it more every time I see it (in an empty theater, laughing maniacally as my mind unravels).

Definitely underrated.

one of my faves

we rewatched Fright Night last night & i decided i dont like it anywhere near as much now as i used to. The overracting really bugs me now, and the makeup effects are really unpleasant. Especially evil ed’s janky teeth & chris sarandon’s weird red gekko eyes

aw i loooooooooooooooove fright night and the sequel

the music is still great tho

at the time (pre-Scream) the meta-commentary aspects of it maybe made it seem more clever than it is. cuz yeah I don't love it so much anymore either.

Perhaps u would like it better if it starred Colin Farrell, and if so I have good news 4 u.

u r incorrect

last night's Halloween pick was JAWS, which my wife had never seen before. It's on streaming in what i assume was the most recent clean-up version and it looks amazing. I enjoyed her reaction to some of the choice moments: Ben Gardner's face popping down into the open hole in the hull, the actually horrifying moment the shark attacks the boy on the raft behind the other people in the water (something in this version made it even more shocking), the buildup of suspense before the shark attack in the "pond" with the kids and the fake fin, and the girl on the shore who spots it. It's all just as good as I remembered.

And also it's an extremely amusing film in a very naturalistic way that seems to have been replaced in current films w/more meta humor, the latter really irrationally embarrassing me bc i can see the snarky effort from the writers. Compare that to Jaws w/Brody's little asides and replies and the timing in those moments, Hooper's perpetual bemusement mixed with shock at the ignorance of the people he's dealing with, and also the very easy, low-key funny way Brody and his wife deal with each other.

my wife noted correctly that it's not a horror film, it's more a seafaring adventure thriller, but it does show a knack for horror moments that a lot of more mediocre directors of horror aren't very skilled at.

I love all the moments w Sherriff Brody & Mrs Brody

the makeup effects are really unpleasant. Especially evil ed’s janky teeth & chris sarandon’s weird red gekko eyes

― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, November 1, 2018 4:06 PM (two days ago)

Wrong type of unpleasant? Or do you mean they were low quality? I always quite liked the scary faces in the first two films.

unpleasant as in, idk - they look like they are REALLY uncomfortable to wear? like those contact lenses are so big, too big for Sarandon’s eye, and almost completely opaque, and they look really thick. i just look and think OW. and Ed’s vampire teeth are way bigger than his mouth & he can’t really talk... like that set of teeth would be comically oversized on an adult & with the added saliva effect it’s just kinda hard for me to look at him

the visuals were cool when i first watched the movie though, no real diss against them as effects.

but the practical aspect stands out to me more now

Somebody should write a history of sharp teeth on film actors. So many years of vampire teeth looking a bit silly and concept artists cant really go crazy with the teeth because it probably wont work.

i looked up the wikipedia & jfc @ this:

The most excruciating part of the makeup process for the cast were the contact lenses. In those days the lenses were hard plastic, which Steve Johnson hand-painted (throwing some glitter into the mix), lacquered and sanded.[22] The cast could only wear them for a maximum of 20 minutes because they were virtually blind in them, and they were thick, painful and dried out their eyes. A set was made for Stark to wear when he's in his final pursuit of Peter and Charley, but he kept tripping on the stairs. Holland told him to take one out, and he was then able to perform the scene.[9][22] Three sets were made for Amanda Bearse, but one of them caused her agonizing pain which she initially tried to endure. When it finally became too much to bear, she took the contacts out and the crew realized they'd forgotten to buff them.[22] For the scene in Mrs. Brewster's bedroom, Geoffreys kept his contacts in for nearly 40 minutes, resulting in scratches on his eyeballs for months afterward.[22]

and this is nightmare fuel O_o

The makeup for Evil Ed's wolf transformation took 18 hours.[22] While he had the wolf head on, the crew began pouring what they thought was Methylcellulose into his mouth to create the illusion of saliva, but when Geoffreys began to complain about the taste, Mark Bryan Wilson realized they'd been using prosthetic adhesive, which was gluing his mouth shut.[22]

there are awful stories from back in the day too...the shit that karloff went through for the Mummy, Frankenstein etc sounds godawful (and painful)

I first heard about those lenses on the commentary to Evil Dead, but I don't recall there being any mishaps like those examples above.

I recently acquired a trove of unseen (by me) classics. But which do I watch on this All Hallows' Eve?! Which!?!?

Dead of Night
Trilogy of Terror
The Night Stalker
The Girl Who Knew Too Much
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (1931)

considering when it was released, Dead of Night is damned scary

I haven't seen Trilogy of Terror since it came out but Karen Black vs. devil doll is classic

I saw The Night Stalker again recently; the comic elements haven't aged well, but Barry Atwater as the non-speaking vampire is better than 98% of all other vampires

The Girl Who Knew Too Much aka The Evil Eye is an entertaining proto-giallo, if you can get past the silliness of the protagonist; extra points for John Saxon as her romantic interest

The 1931 Jekyll & Hyde is the best J&H if you like the property, but none of the film versions do much for me

so I'd recommend watching them all in the order listed

is dead of night aka deathdream? watch that immediately

No, it's the '40s Dead of Night. Too damn many Dead of Nights out there.

Deathdream by any title is creepy as hell, even though it looks like they spent about $500 making it

Bob Clark's career was weird as hell.