1) Annabelle (Theater)
2) Carrie ('76, Netflix US)
3) Carrie ('13, Netflix US)
4) Scream 3 (Netflix US)
5) Hostel (Netflix Mexico)
6) The Woman in Black (Netflix Mexico)
7) Saw (Netflix Canada)
8) Dawn of the Dead ('04, Netflix Canada)
9) Child's Play (Netflix Canada)
10) Scary Movie (Netflix UK)
11) Saw II (Netflix Canada)
12) Saw III (Netflix Canada)
13) Las brujas de Zugarramurdi (Netflix Mexico)
14) Drag me to Hell (Netflix Sweden)
15) Scream 4 (Netflix Sweden)
16) The Craft (Netflix UK)
17) Dark Skies (Netflix UK)
18) Friday the 13th: Part 4: The Final Chapter (Netflix UK)
19) The Crazies (Netflix UK)
20) You're Next (Netflix US)
21) Day of the Dead (Netflix US)
22) Friday the 13th (2009, Netflix Mexico)
23) Big Ass Spider (Netflix US)
24) Night of the Creeps (Netflix US)
25) Nosferatu (Netflix US)
26) Videodrome (Netflix Mexico)
27) The Exorcist (Netflix Netherlands)
28) Scary Movie 2 (Netflix US)
29)The Taking of Deborah Logan (Netflix US) 30) Gremlins (Netflix Switzerland): 5/5 After Canoli2006's post on this movie, I checked Netflix and was happy to see it was up. I have not watched this movie since I was (maybe) a young teen. So I was very eager to rewatch it. This movie is still great. I absolutely loved it. On the rewatch, noticed how fucked up the movie was
the Mom stabbing one of the Gremlins, microwaving one of them, Mrs. Deagley being thrown out the window.
The whole bar scene had me laughing. So good. And I finally understand what the title is referring too.
31) Sleepaway Camp (Youtube): Without a doubt, one of the most crazy, campy, and fucked up horror movies around. It is definitely a so-bad-its-great film. The short shorts, old perverts, dialogue, ridiculous murders and the star of the movie, the twist. Well worth the watch.
And so I finish my marathon. It was a blast like last year. Loved the movies I picked out even though I winged it (for the most part). With that being said, I don't want to see another horror movie until next year.
Im finishing my month of subtitled movies with Haute Tension because it was the first subtitled horror movie I ever saw, and because I love the end. I know many people dont share that opinion. Lots of people really hate the ending, saying it makes no sense, that its clumsily done, that the twist betrays the viewers trust, makes a mockery of all thats gone before and creates a gargantuan plothole. I dont think any of thats true.
Anyway, opinions on the ending aside, its just a great film. Cecile de France is a fantastic actor, the gore is phenomenal, and it lives up to its original name by being insanely tense. One of my favourite films.
Verdict: Cest magnifique, just like this month has been.
Ravenous - I don't know what I expected, and after White Zombie was kind of iffy on GAF suggestions, but really fun movie. Dark sense of humor, original premise and some cool leads.
Film 32 - Nightmare on Elm St because it's on TV right now, and always enjoyable.
Another quick and cheaply made flick from Fred Olen Ray, Evil Toons was shot in 8 days on a budget of $140,000, which he got together himself after being turned down by producers (including Roger Corman) when asking for $250,000.
Considering that, it's not bad for a b-movie. They're clearly having fun spoofing their own cheap sub-genre. There's some genuine laughs and a ton what you'd expect from this kind of movie (character actors, goofy effects and of course, tons of nudity).
The lowered budget did unfortunately make an impact on the animated sequences as they're very few and as brief as possible. The title may be plural, but the actual animated characters are not.
Made it!! I think my favorite is a tie between Pumpkinhead and The Serpent and the Rainbow. Both are from the 80's which don't usually do it for me, but these were pretty creepy.
30. Saw V (Netflix) - Not too terrible but the twists were a bit ridiculous. I did enjoy some of the flashbacks and tie-ins to the original though.
31. Saw 3D (Netflix) - I guess there was a Saw 6 but it's not on Netflix for some reason. This one was by far the worst, starting from the very first scene - a glass enclosed Jigsaw trap for the public to witness? Stupid. The rest of the movie did not get much better...cheap cash-in on the 3D craze.
1. Cabin in the Woods (rewatch)
2. Absentia
3. White Zombie
4. The Den
5. Dawn of the Dead (2004, rewatch)
6. Grabbers
7. Pumpkinhead
8. Halloween (2007)
9. Supernova
10. Atrocious
11. The Sacrament
12. The Town That Dreaded Sundown
13. The Serpent and the Rainbow
14. Re-Animator
15. House on Haunted Hill (1959)
16. Phantoms
17. Monkey Shines
18. Dark Skies
19. Ravenous (rewatch)
20. Mine Games
21. Would You Rather
22. Darkness Falls
23. The Horde
24. Dead Silence
25. Dead End
26. Dead Snow
27. Bad Milo!
28. Texas Chainsaw (2013)
29. Saw IV
30. Saw V
31. Saw 3D
Probably my favourite slasher follow-up, which I get isn't saying much since slasher flicks direct follow-ups usually stink but it really is a quality movie that holds up pretty well. It is almost as funny and interesting as its predecessor while bringing in enough of its own ideas to keep me interested.
Movie #34: Scream 3.
I remember being disappointed with this movie when it came out and thought the end was really stupid. I don't know if time has been kind to it or my standards have just being lowered but I think I like it. It isn't nearly as clever as the first two films. It is funny but not in the way that the first two are. Still an entertaining enough movie. Also, I love Parker Posey and find it hard to hate anything she is in. I am weird like that.
And so bring end to my month of horror. I am going to take a nice long break from horror movies. Regain my sanity a bit.
5 Favourite movies that I watched for the first this month (in no particular order):
The House of the Devil
Suspiria
Let the Right One In
Sleepaway Camp
An American Werewolf in London
Happy Halloween everyone. Loved reading everybody's thoughts and I have a lot of movies to add to the list for next year!
I usually watch this and Dracula back-to-back, and it feels weird watching this after Dracula because there isn't as much horror or tense atmosphere in it. Much of the movie deals with Henry's balance between his big project and planning for his wedding, which his father is getting annoyed with, as well as the buildup to the big storm. The monster is great in design and acting, essentially being a 7-foot-tall child. It's a classic, and I do recommend seeing it. I also recommend seeing Bride of Frankenstein, which is also a classic that picks up right where the first left off.
Film #33 - I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer
I'm a broken human being, and there's just something about a late, direct-to-video sequel that always tickles my interest. And this film didn't disappoint. It had some questionable editing and direction. It had a really bizarre twist, to tie it into the rest of the series, but never actually explained in the film.
It also creates the cardinal sin of really having nothing happen in relation to the killer for like the first 75 minutes or so
Well, I managed to do it. I just wish I had kept up with reviews. Falling behind really killed any chance I had of writing about every movie I watched this month. Which is a shame. I enjoy doing my best Chas Balun impression.
24 Scream [October 29]
25 I Know What You Did Last Summer [October 29]
26 Urban Legend [October 30]
27 Wrong Turn [October 30]
28 House of Wax [October 30]
29 Final Destination [October 31]
30 Freddy Vs Jason [October 31]
31 Halloween H20: 20 Years Later [October 31]
Watching nothing but slashers was a fun challenge. I was impressed by just how many variations there are on the basic concept. Also other than a couple of dogs (Strangeland, Dark Ride and Midnight Movie) I pretty much enjoyed them all. It's a fun sub-genre that's unfairly maligned,
I cant believe its over so soon. Really had a good time. Seeing some of these pretty fancy summary posts reminds me Ive got to get my presentation skills up to scratch for next year!
Anyway, heres my final 2014 watched list, roughly ordered from best to worst...
Sweden wins the battle, France wins the war. Looking forward to next year already. I've got my theme sorted out, and the list is shaping up nicely. Cheers folks!
Like Inferno and Hellseeker, Hellraiser: Deader used an unrelated script that was rewritten to become a Hellraiser sequel. I personally don't mind this as I think the Cenobites work much better as a mysterious force behind the scenes like in the original movie, however Deader comes short of being a compelling movie.
The overall mystery just isn't fleshed out enough or told particularly well. Kari Wuhrer is okay as the lead and there's a couple of very cool sequences (that
knife in the back
scene was craaazzzy) but the Cenobites were almost nonexistent and the connection to universe was sloppy and underutilized.
It wasn't a terrible movie and I'm admittedly pretty soft on the Hellraiser series so I'm going to give this a Decent rating. Aside from the few cool scenes there isn't really much there to make it worth your time, so view at your own risk.
Decent, but probably worth a Pass unless you're a series completist.
30) Hellraiser: Hellworld (2005) (Oct 31)
Again, another unrelated script Hellraiser'd. I had expected this to be a hilariously awful Pinhead gone wild in a video game movie and hoped it would something as terribly awesome as Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth, but alas, it was not meant to be.
Again it's more of a mystery movie with Cenobites shoehorned in. The video game aspect is hardly used and serves just to get the characters to a party where the bulk of the movie takes place.
Initial disappointments aside, I didn't really think it was as bad as opinions would lead you to believe. It was a little sloppy and the whole
drug induced hallucinations
was just lazy writing. They definitely tried to be more ambitious than they should have and failed, so it ends up being one of those movies that had potential and could have been quite good with some changes at the script stage.
I know what I would have liked to see to improve it, but I doubt anyone really needs a detailed plot analysis of Hellworld, so I'm just going to give it the same Decent, but view at your own risk rating I have the previous Hellraiser.
Decent, but probably worth a Pass unless you're a series completist.
Next year: The final movie, Hellraiser: Revelations. I am not looking forward to it.
31) Elvira's Haunted Hills (2001) (Oct 31)
And to finish things off, one of the greatest Halloween icons and queen of the double entendre, Elvira!
Part tribute and part spoof of Roger Corman's Pit and the Pendulum, House of Usher and The Tomb of Ligeia, Elvira's Haunted Hills is exactly what you'd expect from the Mistress of the Dark. A campy and silly Gothic horror that's a ton of fun.
This was a great way to end off the exhausting marathon that I honestly didn't think I'd be able to finish this year. The first half or so had me giggling like a child almost nonstop. The humor is a bit front loaded though, as it takes a bit of a backseat to the story in the second half. The fun performances and great throwback style sets keep things going and make this one worth checking out.
Highlights: All the Colors of the Dark, Blood for Dracula, Ravenous Disappointments: Death Bed: The Bed that Eats, Nail Gun Massacre Complete Crap: ThanksKilling
Thanks to everyone for participating again! It was as fun as always.
Sorry about White Zombie. Hopefully next years' mandatory movie will go over better.
For me
Highlights: Pieces / Amer / A Bay of Blood / Rogue / Excision / The Beyond / Inside
Low points: The Dead 2: India / ABCs of Death 2 / Prom Night
For next year I might be thinking horror-series, as I've only seen the first Nightmare on Elm St, the first Halloween, the first Friday the 13th, the first Hellraiser etc so that could probably be a month-filling roster by itself, even though I also have a bunch of leftover horror stuff from my list and random recommendations and me bookmarking movies that people watched this year. Is it October yet?
For me
Highlights: Pieces / Amer / A Bay of Blood / Rogue / Excision / The Beyond / Inside
Low points: The Dead 2: India / ABCs of Death 2 / Prom Night
For next year I might be thinking horror-series, as I've only seen the first Nightmare on Elm St, the first Halloween, the first Friday the 13th, the first Hellraiser etc so that could probably be a month-filling roster by itself, even though I also have a bunch of leftover horror stuff from this year and random recommendations and me bookmarking movies that people watched this year. Is it october yet?
Heh, yeah it was tough this year with some family issues. Luckily I think I had a pretty strong set of movies for the last half, so that helped a lot when trying to catch up.
I didn't get to participate in the thread as much as I would have liked though and I still have to go back and read a lot of the longer reviews, but I will and it should help getting ready for next year (though I'm watching Amer ASAP!).
If you're gonna do the Hellraiser sequels next year, I'd strongly advise only going up to #4 (Bloodlines) since that's where the "true" sequels end.
Inferno and Hellseeker are worth watching (imo), but if you do all the movies re-written to be Hellraiser sequels (Inferno and onwards) at once, they tend to blend in too much. It's bad enough when I do 2 a year, I can't even imagine doing all 5 of them in a row.
I hated this movie more than anything else I watched this year, let alone this month.
#29. Day of the Dead
Somehow this ended up being the only Romero movie I watched this month. It's not his best, but I still really like it. Most of the deaths are fantastic.
#30. Cabin in the Woods
This is probably my favorite horror movie to come out in the past few years, and I find it endlessly rewatchable. I respect this movie.
#31. Rocky Horror Picture Show
This has been a tradition with my dad and I since I was a little kid, and I maintain it even when I can't manage to go out there.
I have one more movie I didn't get to because I was never stoned enough to really appreciate it, but I think I'll be able to watch it tonight. After that, I really need a break from movies. Watching one every day has been pretty inconvenient with my weird schedule, but I didn't want to give up early.
1. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
2. Shadow of the Vampire
3. Dawn of the Dead
4. The Cabin in the Woods
5. Spanish Dracula
6. Fright Night
7. Scream
8. Let The Right One In
9. The Stuff
10. Stephen King's Children of the Corn
11. Frankenstein
12. Tucker & Dale vs. Evil
13. Night of the Living Dead
14. Elvira: Mistress of the Dark
15. Day of the Dead
16. Rosemary's Baby
17. Ravenous
18. House on Haunted Hill
19. White Zombie
20. The Blair Witch Project
1. Lifeforce (Blu-Ray)
2. Sleepaway Camp (Blu-Ray)
3. White Zombie (Netflix)
4. The Video Dead (Blu-Ray)
5. Prince of Darkness (Blu-Ray)
6. Tormented 3D (Blu-Ray)
7. Night of the Demons (Blu-Ray)
8. From Beyond (Blu-Ray)
9. Body Bags (Blu-Ray)
10. The Dungeon Master (AKA: Ragewar) (DVD)
11. Cellar Dweller (DVD)
12. Contamination .7 (DVD)
13. Catacombs (DVD)
14. How to Make a Monster (DVD)
15. House on Haunted Hill (DVD)
16. Terror Train (Blu-Ray)
17. The Thing From Another World (DVD)
18. What's the Matter with Helen? (DVD)
19. The Vagrant (DVD)
20. The Godsend (DVD)
21. The Outing (AKA: The Lamp) (DVD)
22. Swamp Thing (Blu-Ray)
23. The Darkest Hour (Blu-Ray 3D)
24. Death Kappa (Blu-Ray)
25. Evilspeak (Blu-Ray)
26. Tales From the Crypt: Ritual (Netflix)
27. The Puppet Masters (Blu-Ray)
28. Rawhead Rex (DVD)
29. Sinister (Blu-Ray)
30. Mirrors (Blu-Ray)
31. Ravenous (Netflix)
I re-watched 3 of my favorite Halloween movies last night:
1. Hocus Pocus (Blu-Ray)
2. Halloween 3: Season of the Witch (Blu-Ray)
3. The Nightmare Before Christmas 3D (Blu-Ray)
If White Zombie hadn't been mandatory I would still be unaware of the awesome majesty that is Bela Lugosi. I have lined up Dracula, Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Raven to watch in December.
Also, I would have missed out on watching the excellent Nosferatu as part of the marathon, if I hadn't been switched on to the idea of watching older movies in general by WZ.
So yeah, personally I was really happy to have my horizons expanded!
So I ended up falling asleep during Night of the Creeps (not that the movie was but, just me being tired I guess). Guess I'll leave that for next year. I think I could picked better movies for the 31st since I felt like my finale to the marathon was underwhelming.
It was fun doing this one more time with you guys, can't wait untill next year!
I've taken to reviewing my October movies elsewhere, but it was this series of threads that gave me the idea. So, here's the list I watched this month:
Jack Frost (awful) The Conspiracy (pretty good, and on Netflix) Megan is Missing (not bad, with a great last 20 minutes) Picnic at Hanging Rock (classic, not scary but eerie and very well done) Gone Girl (sort-of a horror movie if you squint? Very good) The Haunting (classic, with phenomenal cinematography and direction) Shivers (early Cronenberg is meh) Tucker and Dale vs. Evil (very funny) Dog Soldiers (it's no The Descent) Grave Encounters (some neat ideas, but go read SCP entries instead) Hellraiser VI: Hellseeker (told from the worst possible perspective; boring movie, good ending) You're Next (a crowd-pleaser, very fun) Carrie (the remake: totally worthless) The Dark Half (not bad, but held back by the source material) Fermat's Room (very neat, a Spanish death trap thriller, definitely worth tracking down) Triangle (utterly amazing, go in blind if you can) Dark Water (original) (moving and horrifying, Nakata's best work) The Exorcist (Director's Cut) (same as it ever was, but the original cut is better) Pandorum (some very good stuff but also some silly horror/action sequences; worth watching overall) Pitch Black (very, very excellent, very smart movie) Looking for Mr. Goodbar (not really horror, but very cold and cynical; hard to find) The Fury (pretty bad, but Youtube the last scene for lols) Teen Wolf (not very good, but does feature a werewolf playing basketball, so) The Frighteners (boring and overwrought, but great FX work) Frailty (this movie is awful thanks to one of the worst, most offensive twist endings ever; why does nobody talk about this?!)
Ils (the movie that inspired The Strangers; starts okay but gets better as it goes along all through the excellent ending; this pure horror filmmaking) Education for Death (the disturbing 10 minute short, Disney anti-Nazi propaganda, must-see) The Call of Cthulhu (B&W pastiche is somehow the perfect medium for one of Lovecraft's best stories) The Poughkeepsie Tapes (impossible to find except on Youtube, this mockumentary chiller was never released; a real shame, as it's one of the scarier found footage films) Yellowbrickroad (utterly awful, skip it) Cronos (beautiful, lyrical horror, one of Del Toro's best movies and a lovely and original take on the vampire movie) Something Wicked This Way Comes (not as good as the book, but how could it be? Still a fine, spooky children's film) Anthropophagus: The Grim Reaper (boring and terrible, but at least there's a bit where the killer rips a fetus out of a woman and bites into it like a watermelon) Hellraiser VII: Deader (actually not bad, as far as Hellraisers go; I like the lead and the premise but the second half goes downhill) Burn, Witch, Burn (aka Night of the Eagle) (like a good, feature-length lost episode of the Twilight Zone, written by Richard Matheson and Charles Beaumont) The Tall Man (one of the all-time great movie twists, in a pretty good movie by the director of Martyrs) Bubba Ho-Tep (an absurd concept taken seriously, with decent results) Detention (the find of the year, a 2011 Scream-meets-Scott-Pilgrim masterpiece of ADD cinema by the director of Torque; it's on Netflix and afterwards you'll be like "why haven't I heard of this?!") Evil Dead (the remake: utterly brilliant, the best horror movie of its year) The Thing (the premakequel: not bad, but kind of pointless) Eyes Without a Face (supposedly a classic, but I don't see why people like it so much) Night of the Living Dead (the original, of course, still great) Birth (a fascinating premise dealt with fairly over the course of a Kubrickian drama starring a very creepy kid and Nicole Kidman, never better) Fire in the Sky (a based-on-a-true-story alien abduction movie; not terribly good, but the abduction sequence itself is worth the price of admission, horrifying, believable, GOAT) Hellraiser VIII: Hellworld (the best Hellraiser since Hellraiser VII! actually it's pretty entertaining, especially the ending) Society (didn't care for this one; certainly the last 20 minutes is some of the weirdest stuff I've ever seen a movie, but that doesn't make it good) In a Glass Cage (Misery meets Apt Pupil in Spanish, as a Nazi-in-exile-now-in-an-iron-lung is alternately controlled, tortured, and worshipped by one of his victims posing as a nurse; pretty good, albeit too slow) Misery (still good, but not as good as the book) Hellraiser IX: Revelations (absolutely awful; if there is any God in this world, He will stop this series from continuing) Scream 4 (not unwatchable, and has the best ending since the first one and the best opening since the second, but the middle leaves a lot to be desired and the movie never successfully makes an argument for its own existence) Man Bites Dog (really neat, albeit repetitive; they beat Leslie Vernon to the punch by a couple of decades) The Bad Seed (creepy but overly theatrical and overly long) Stoker (beautiful, creepy, awesome update of Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt) The Ring (one of the best horror films ever made, still holds up after like 8 viewings) Let the Right One In (one of the best horror/romances ever made, an exquisite movie featuring impressive visual control from director Tomas Alfredson)
Special shout-out to these threads for mentioning Detention, which I have now seen three times. It's an amazing, amazing film and it's a crime that nobody else seems to have heard of it.
If you'd like more in-depth reviews, they can be found on my blog.
If White Zombie hadn't been mandatory I would still be unaware of the awesome majesty that is Bela Lugosi. I have lined up Dracula, Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Raven to watch in December.
Also, I would have missed out on watching the excellent Nosferatu as part of the marathon, if I hadn't been switched on to the idea of watching older movies in general by WZ.
So yeah, personally I was really happy to have my horizons expanded!
I'm glad you got something out of it. I was starting to feel like it was just a big waste of everyone's time, so thanks for mentioning that.
I'm leaning towards The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) for next year's move along with another Netflix. Since Caligari is a silent movie it's probably going to be even more divisive than White Zombie.
Does anyone have any strong opinions on that? There's not much to choose from in the public domain.
I'm leaning towards The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) for next year's move along with another Netflix. Since Caligari is a silent movie it's probably going to be even more divisive than White Zombie.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is considered by many critics to be one of the best films ever made and one of the greatest horror films of the silent period, and holds a very rare 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 37 reviews.
Nice. Caligari it is then. I'd like to do Nosferatu as well, so I'm going to mentally bookmark that for the year after. I'd imagine most people have seen NotLD, but if when we run out of good alternatives that will be a good pick.
Finished up my 31 this morning, making the entire month all movies that I had not seen before (which is getting increasingly difficult, especially as I watch films during the rest of the year). On the side I also rewatched Trick 'r' Treat and The Hills Have Eyes (remake). I started watching The Color Out Of Space but never finished it, and never got around to watching the other Kōji Shiraishi films, which I will definitely do soon. Overall, I loved doing this again and will absolutely do it next year.
27. Rifftrax Live: Anaconda (theater)
Loved it. Absurd horror and lots of funny moments. Awful movie as expected, great time.
28. Ginger Snaps (Youtube)
Not too bad. The dynamic between the two sisters was really good. I appreciated the use of practical special effects whenever possible.
29. The Village (Youtube)
Holy crap the cast in this is nuts. I knew the twist going in, so I was curious to see how it would be handled. It had it's moments, but it didn't really hold up at all.
30. The Crazies (Youtube)
This was pretty neat. I was expected things to get a bit crazier, but overall it wasn't bad.
31. Creepshow (Youtube)
Somehow I had never seen this before, and it was great. Very 80's, and for the most part it holds up (the last segment with the
Finished up my 31 this morning, making the entire month all movies that I had not seen before (which is getting increasingly difficult, especially as I watch films during the rest of the year). On the side I also rewatched Trick 'r' Treat and The Hills Have Eyes (remake). I started watching The Color Out Of Space but never finished it, and never got around to watching the other Kōji Shiraishi films, which I will definitely do soon. Overall, I loved doing this again and will absolutely do it next year.
27. Rifftrax Live: Anaconda (theater)
Loved it. Absurd horror and lots of funny moments. Awful movie as expected, great time.
28. Ginger Snaps (Youtube)
Not too bad. The dynamic between the two sisters was really good. I appreciated the use of practical special effects whenever possible.
29. The Village (Youtube)
Holy crap the cast in this is nuts. I knew the twist going in, so I was curious to see how it would be handled. It had it's moments, but it didn't really hold up at all.
30. The Crazies (Youtube)
This was pretty neat. I was expected things to get a bit crazier, but overall it wasn't bad.
31. Creepshow (Youtube)
Somehow I had never seen this before, and it was great. Very 80's, and for the most part it holds up (the last segment with the
35. Repulsion: Thought it was pretty good, the descent to madness was depicted well. Liked a lot of the imagery of walls cracking and hands coming out of them. Probably a movie I will appreciate more over time. I'm not saying that dude deserved it or anything, but breaking a door down when someone clearly doesn't want to talk to you is kind of extreme.
36. Rosemary's Baby: Excellent movie, has a very leisurely pace and at almost two and a half hours might feel a tad long, but it just builds itself so nicely that it doesn't matter. The one nitpick I do have is that Farrow's delivery of the line "This is no dream, this is really happening!" or however it went was hilariously awful, though not entirely her fault. That line should never have even been written.
37. Night of the Demons: Good movie for Halloween. Has a very good balance between attempting to be scary and not being too serious about it. One of those movies I wish I had seen as a kid. Has one of the best opening title sequences I remember seeing.
38. Return of the Living Dead: Classic, probably my favourite zombie film so rewatched it before seeing the sequels for the first time. Has the most emotionally effective zombies despite its comedic take on it all: the idea that they are rotting and feel the pain of being dead is kind of messed up. Not sure how eating brains is supposed to solve that, or how did all those corpses get out of their graves if they're as strong as humans, but it's all so fun I don't care. Must see film.
39. Return of the Living Dead Part II: Captures some of what makes the first so great, but doesn't match it. Seemed to pretty much ignore the ending of the first one, but would have probably been very difficult or at least very expensive to go that route. Worth checking out if you enjoyed the original.
40. Return of the Living Dead 3: Surprisingly good. Clearly breaks some of the established rules of the series because of reasons, but I didn't really mind. I'm surprised it had so few comedic aspects, though it didn't really harm the film. The romance shouldn't have worked but it kind of did. The Riverman invented paying it forward. Some of the zombies and deaths were great looking.
Watched it last night. At first the kid was annoying, but as the movie got on, you began to see what the director was going for with that performance. By the end of the movie, I adored the kid.
Really enjoyed this movie. Great use of lack of sound. No cheap jump scares. Incredibly confident and unnerving. Nice play on leaving it up to the audience to determine whether the Babdook was an actual thing, a metaphor for her inner demons, or a metaphor for something specific that the director might have gone through personally.
Did a crappy job with the numbers but I did watch a lot of non-horror movies too. I'm just proud I've watched more movies this month than ever!
1. Monkey Shines (Netflix)
Really weird and the beginning was slow, but it was total bait for commentary. Fairly enjoyable and pretty memorable.
2. House (Netflix)
It had a lot of promise with a protagonist with PTSD and a missing child, but the cartoony SFX ruined it for me. Plus, the score was dreadful. At least the neighbor was cool.
3. Day of the Dead (Netflix)
I though the first half was REALLY slow, but when the doctor discovers human emotions in the zombies and shit goes down then the movie gets good. The SFX were SO GOOD and revolting no wonder this influenced zombie gore for decades to come.
4. The Frighteners (Netflix)
Really entertaining supernatural comedy. Michael J. Fox did a great job as did almost everyone. Why can't Peter Jackson make more movies like this than SFX-heavy epics?
5. Trick R Treat (Blu Ray)
A NeoGAF-favorite that I just didn't like much. Each story has its moments but I thought it didn't feel cohesive or have good continuity. An anthology story doesn't need to have so many connections. But damn, that werewolf orgy scene was awesome.
6. Sinister (Showtime)
Spookiest movie of them all! I'm a brave guy and my heart was pounding all the way through. 8mm snuff films are an underrated horror concept and that hooked me from the beginning. I thought Mr. Boogie looked too much like a black metal musician to be terrifying but I wouldn't want to meet him in my house. I fucking loved the weird score and the use of Gyroscopes by Boards of Canada solidified this as a new favorite.
Ranking: Sinister > The Frighteners > Day of the Dead > Monkey Shines > Trick R Treat > House
The original Fright Night is a classic and will always have a special place in my heart. I decided to watch the remake with an open mind, and by my surprise, I really enjoyed it. Is it better than the original version? I actually don't know, what I know is that it's without a doubt on par with it. Yelchin, Farrell and Tennant all did a good job with their roles. Not to mention that Imogen Poots and Sandra Vergara are absolutely gorgeous in the movie.
Yeah, loved the remake and how it subverted my expectations. For example, Jerry's reaction to not being able to enter the house without an invitation is shockingly different from the original movie.
Finishing up with an even 50. This has been a good month.
#45 - The Beyond
Yeah, this is definitely the best Fulci flick I've seen. Great nightmarish imagery, and the plot, while thin, is at least enough to keep the film afloat, which is all it really needs. I just wish Fulci had managed to break away more from his fascination with zombies, because the typical zombie tropes bring the film down more than anything else. I guess I might have felt differently if I hadn't watched a shitload of Fulci in the last week or so.
#46 - Cemetery Man
A delightfully demented and irreverent zombie movie. Well, I guess calling it a zombie movie doesn't really do it justice since there's so much more going on. It's a brilliant surreal comedy, and easily one of the best films I've seen this month.
#47 - Mad Love
A great adaptation of The Hands of Orlac directed by Karl Freund and starring Peter Lorre who gives an excellent performance as usual. The film is pretty strange for its time, and I can see why it wasn't too well received back in 1935, but it's definitely aged well. Some of the motives and plot developments are a bit heavy-handed, but it makes up for it with great performances, interesting visuals, and a decent amount of comedy to boot.
#48 - The Fearless Vampire Killers
I'm not sure why I didn't watch this sooner, because it's awesome. It's beautifully shot, and it has some great physical comedy characteristic of silent films. It also has a typically wonderful score by Krzysztof Komeda.
The title is pretty damn funny too, considering they don't kill a single vampire.
#49 - Phantasm
Silly but fun. Some dumb characters and contrived plot devices, but it's got a cool soundtrack and Angus Scrimm is an awesome villain.
#50 - Creepshow
Romero, King, Savini...pretty much the definition of a dream team. This movie is a blast, and while the shorts are a bit uneven in quality, none of them are bad. Great practical effects, and really funny. A good way to finish out the month.
Top Five:
Phenomena
Amer
Jigoku
Kwaidan
Cemetery Man
Bottom Five:
V/H/S
V/H/S/2
Blood Feast
Halloween II
Frontier(s)
I'll have my big dump of reviews going back from the 24th up after I get off of work today. I'm finally out of my funk and wrote up a storm yesterday, with only one movie left to do a full write-up on. I didn't get the chance to watch Street Trash yesterday, but I was kind of proactive on Friday night when I watched two films that day, one of which I had seen before, but not in the traditional method. All I'll say is that Mike and the Bots were much better editors than the actual filmmakers were.
If White Zombie hadn't been mandatory I would still be unaware of the awesome majesty that is Bela Lugosi. I have lined up Dracula, Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Raven to watch in December.
Also, I would have missed out on watching the excellent Nosferatu as part of the marathon, if I hadn't been switched on to the idea of watching older movies in general by WZ.
So yeah, personally I was really happy to have my horizons expanded!
Same for me: thanks to WZ, I ended up watching lots of old public domain movies.
I also think that WZ was worth watching for Bela Lugosi's performance and for its "historical" significance as the first feature length zombie film.
I'm leaning towards The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) for next year's move along with another Netflix. Since Caligari is a silent movie it's probably going to be even more divisive than White Zombie.
I'm glad you got something out of it. I was starting to feel like it was just a big waste of everyone's time, so thanks for mentioning that.
I'm leaning towards The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) for next year's move along with another Netflix. Since Caligari is a silent movie it's probably going to be even more divisive than White Zombie.
Does anyone have any strong opinions on that? There's not much to choose from in the public domain.
I think it's a great idea... I have a beautiful Image DVD of the film I'd happily watch again.
As for my 31st film, had a pretty hectic Halloween and got called in to jam a party gig at the last minute, so didn't get to sit and watch Trick 'R Treat as I wanted... c'est la vie...
So this is the Final View List 31 Days of Horror 4, 2014 - The (mostly) Hammer Horror edition :
It's this version, right? With the amazing sountrack?
BTW, if this archive.org version (which is apparently on Netflix too according to a comment on the page) is indeed the one from Image, I wonder if it's really public domain; I don't know much about intellectual property.
1. The Rocky Horror Picture Show 2. White Zombie 3. Critters 4. 28 Weeks Later 5. Scream 4 6. Brain Damage 7. The Others 8. Dawn of the Dead (2004) 9. Scanners 10. Triangle 11. The Stuff 12. Let Me In 13. Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth 14. The Faculty 15. Chopping Mall 16. Ravenous 17. The Nightcomers 18. I Spit on Your Grave (2010) 19. Demons 20. Bubba Ho-Tep 21. The Dentist 22. Some Guy Who Kills People 23. Maximum Overdrive 24. Heartless 25. The Funhouse 26. The Sinful Dwarf (Dværgen) 27. Tremors 28. Army of Darkness 29. The Thing (2011) 30. Ghoulies 31. Paranormal Activity 32. The Human Centipede 33. The Boogey Man (1980) 34. Martyrs 35. Repulsion 36. Rosemary's Baby 37. Night of the Demons 38. Return of the Living Dead 39. Return of the Living Dead Part II 40. Return of the Living Dead 3
Some closing thoughts:
Rocky Horror Picture show is probably the one I'm going to rewatch most often out of the films I saw for the first time. Just a lot of fun. The Others was probably the one that came closest to actually scaring me with its creepy atmosphere, so I would say it was the best movie strictly from the perspective of horror. Return of the Living Dead is of course a classic, but I was pleasantly surprised by the sequels. Brain Damage is another one that is just crazy fun.
I also discovered that I have very little substance in my life after managing to watch 40 horror movies in a month despite taking about a ten day break at one point.
A well-executed Hitcockian exercise, Road Games succeeds where a lot of imitators fail by making sure it isn't content to just ape from the master and builds its own scenes of excellent suspense, using that approach as a skeleton for the film, rather than taking the muscles and organs along with it.
Rather than going for traditional protagonists, director Richard Franklin coaxes some rather inspired performances from both Stacy Keach and Jamie Lee Curtis, both of whom use their respective oddball charm and sassy charisma to great effect, leaving an indelible impression. As it is mostly Keach's show, you learn the ins and outs of the ways he passes time out on the road, and even as the situation escalates beyond anyone's control, there's still an unexpected witticism he'll drop that will leave you in stitches just before you can feel the noose getting ever-so tighter. Never before has a man and his dingo been so fun to watch.
It's a sharp-looking film filled with some fun visual gags (my favorite is an early bit involving a newlywed couple), and Franklin directs the hell of the suspense and chase sequences, particularly in the run-up to the final stretch where things may not have been as clear as we once thought, followed by a riotously entertaining finale that toes the line between campy and serious quite ably. It's not a film that's aiming to change the world, but what's there is pretty damn fine.
Patrick doesn't fair as well as its descendant Road Games, thought it's not a conceptual issue. An invalid robbed of all five of his senses so that he's able to develop a rather potent sixth sense of telekinesis is a strong idea, especially in the setting of the hospital where he's undergoing care, and to the film's credit, there are some strong scenes where a lot of that potential is realized. Director Richard Franklin can draw out tension really well in the battle of will-he-or-won't-he with Patrick without having to resort to more overt means of expressing it, lending the scenes where his menace becomes physical a great power. Helping out is actor Robert Thompson, whose unforgettable gaze helps sell Patrick as a threat to everyone around him. Not bad for a guy who is bedridden.
The stuff that's not directly related to Patrick isn't so lucky, as the film tends to drag whenever it's away from the direct influence of the character. Try as the film might, it never manages to create compelling relationships for the other characters, particularly for our heroine Kathy, whose various interactions with the rest of the cast seem to reinforce the opinion of her being somewhat frigid to be around. It's through no fault of the actors, who all seem to be having quite a bit of fun with the material, but I'd rather watch Patrick stare from different angles to fill in the time those scenes took.
Objectively speaking, Nightmare City is atrocious. The story is a complete shambles from the first page, the acting would be painful on mute, the editing sucks, and there may never be a film where the director so boldly features such staggeringly awful makeup and seems OK with it, especially with as little effort to hide setups for already terrible effects being in plain view before the movie is ready to present them. The film finds increasingly more and more bizarre ways to get some boobs in it every 15 minutes, and I think it gives up the last time and just has them hanging out there, just because. There's an enormous cast of characters, and yet the film never does anything with them, opting to kill some of them off and ignore most of them. It's a film of surprisingly grand ambition when it comes to the scale of the story (and to its credit, Stelvio Cipriani's soundtrack is pretty damn good without any qualifiers), but neither budget or the talent to pull any of it off.
That being said, it's hard for me not to be impressed with the reckless abandon that the film was made with when it manages to be so unabashedly entertaining. Nightmare City is a wild ride from beginning to end, thanks in no small part to how much oddness it crams in there. Exploding TV sets? Check. Disco dance troupes? Check. Marveling at the tight offensive infrastructure of radioactive vampire/zombie/vampire-zombie (trying cover all the bases here) people/things, outsmarting military might at every step of the way? Check/check/check-check. An incredible montage of back-to-back-to-back-to-more-backs-than-I-can-recall headshots? Checks for as many as there were. A twist ending of trolling so epic that it winds up trolling itself as soon as the credits hit? This may come as a surprise to you, but that box is checked, too.
Simply stated, Nightmare City excels at throwing everything and the kitchen sink at you, and thanks to its breakneck pacing, it never stops long enough for its ineptitude to overwhelm the fun you are having. To drive this point home, there's a scene late in the film where our heroes (such as they are) come across a church, thinking they've found a safe haven from the growing radioactive vampire/zombie/vampire-zombie apocalypse. They find the priest charged with keeping the church in good shape. Looking at him from his left side, he then spins his chair around to his right, revealing to the audience that he, too, is of the recently undead, stunning both in surprised shock. If you're doing the math in your head like anyone with a pair of eyes and a brain is able to do, the shock is a bit unwarranted as they would have already seen his infected face before spinning around, yet the movie goes along with it like they were blind until the dramatic chair spin. The film doesn't care how little sense any of that scene makes, and, somehow, I don't either. A film like 28 Weeks Later pulls off the same concept in a far more coherent manner, but last I checked, only one of those films has one of its antagonists pointing a flashlight into an elevator of fresh victims, possibly to help light the scene for the crew. Nightmare City is terrible, and that's what makes it so wonderful.
Night of the Creeps feels more like a proper 50s B-movie than many of the various remakes in the 80s of various B-movies did, and that's a pretty good thing. While not completely slavish to that style of filmmaking, as it's hard to imagine any film from back then going through as many genre shifts as this film does within the first half-hour, it retains that same sense of straddling the line between self-serious and self-aware that many of the classics had in common. Since it is the 80s, however, there's definitely far less left to the imagination, as the film is a great showcase for some spectacular gore effects and practical creature work. Zombie heads have never exploded into slugs so well before.
The script is a lot of fun, too. Our heroes, Chris and JC, have some great banter between one another, and they definitely can lay into each other harshly enough to be well intended. The film reserves its craziest lines for Tom Atkins, whose Detective Cameron is an absolute riot of mixed metaphors and snappy comebacks. Best of all, the writing knows when to pull back on the humor for some very effective moments of horror, including a spine-chilling audio-only revelation of a character's fate played straight and quite starkly.
If I have quibbles, there are some plot threads that don't go much of anywhere (particularly Detective Cameron's backstory), which can make the film's pacing feel a bit patchy at times. But once the dates arrive for the finale, you're not going to mind much that they're dead when the film feels so damn lively so often. Great, great fun.
Frank Henenlotter is certainly a rather unique filmmaker. Basket Case was rough as all hell, but the blend of humor, horror, and themes of fraternity in trying times helped elevate the material well beyond what the budget could allow for. So what can he do with a bit more money?
Brain Damage is definitely a much more ambitious film, tackling drug addiction at its most alluring and its most destructive. Here, Henelotter crafts some rather effective transitions between reality and delusion, including a rather accomplished first rush that is accented by impossibly blue liquid washing over our hero while his ceiling transforms into an eye looking back at him. It's some potent imagery that sticks with you.
Of course, since this is a film from the guy who made Basket Case, it gets a shitload fucking weirder than that, thanks in no small part to the drug dealer being a foot-long alien named Aylmer, who asks for just a few live brains in return for giving out more of his hallucinogenic brain juice that he squirts right on it. Aylmer takes his brains any way he can get it, burrowing into heads as well as...well, you need to see it to believe it, but suffice it to say, that part didn't make it into any mainstream release of the film.
I feel like Brain Damage is a much more balanced film than its predecessor, thanks to the film not treating the drug addiction angle as much of a joke as you might think, as it includes all the messy, ugly things it does to the user as well as his loved ones. Sure, an attempt to go cold turkey becomes something of a musical number, but it's nicely undercut by the desperation going on around it. It's a disgusting film about a really messy subject, but one made with a lot of heart and a surprising amount of intelligence. And a lot of exposed brains.
For it's first half hour, you have to wonder what all the fuss is about. Had it not been for the title character's physical appearance, The Baby could just as well had an actual baby in that situation and play out largely the same: fiercely dedicated social worker wars with a weirdo matriarch and her devious daughters over how an infant should be raised. There are some small moments that show off a bit more depth to it, particularly the social worker's personal life being shown as a bit mysterious but tinged with tragedy, but nothing too outrageous.
And then, a little more than a half hour into it, Baby steps out of line and receives his punishment from mommy, and it's a whole new ballgame.
The Baby is at its best when you're uncertain of what's happening next, as the technical aspects of the film can be quite dubious. Director Ted Post isn't much of an aesthetician, so the film largely looks like an episode of a 50s TV show, where you see what you're supposed and nothing else. Visuals alone don't make for a riveting film, but I feel like the lack of panache in this regard is enough to be a major detriment, given the material.
And what deliciously demented material it is. After the standard introduction, The Baby morphs into whatever it gets its hands on. It earns its right to be called a proper horror film with its finale, but it's certainly not a conventional one. The story never goes where you think it might, and even though you might think you're getting ahead, there's always some twist you didn't think of that occurs, and goes much further than you might expect, leading to an unforgettable finale that, depending on your mood, could easily be a happy ending or as bleak and depressing as an ending can get. Possibly both.
For a little while there, Torso (or its even better Italian name, which translates to The Bodies Show Signs of Carnal Violence), had the makings of a solid if a bit unspectacular giallo. It looked nice, it had a decent atmosphere, the soundtrack was pretty OK, and it had what felt like the right amount of sleaze: gory, but not overwhelmingly gory; lots of nudity, but not so much that it felt like a softcore porn. The film has low aims, but manages to hit them with precision. There's a decent 80 minute film in here.
The problem is that it's 10 minutes longer than that, and while that doesn't seem like an eternity, the finale of the film gets the bulk of that padding, which doesn't so much rob the film of tension so much as it leaves it in a desert dying of thirst. The film finds more and more ways of keeping the heroine in the house where all her dead friends are, and it gets less and less intriguing the more it keeps going on. Even the requisite killer reveal and subsequent final fight go on for a beat or two longer than they needed to, which is further compacted by the hero being a late arrival in the film without much of anything to latch onto for investment, and the killer being exactly who you think it is the entire time, since lesser giallos all relied on the same "it's the person we don't show doing weird things all the time" trope.
It's weird to talk almost entirely about third act problems, but that's the thing with a film that doesn't try to do much of anything novel in the first two. It's definitely not the worst thing you can watch in the genre, but with so many more interesting entries, it sticks out as being particularly egregious that it doesn't stick out at all.
I can basically copy my review that I did for Nightmare City for Pieces, as it has pretty much the same problems and the same solution to those problems, but I have to restrain myself since Pieces is somehow more insane, and the more of that that's left unspoiled, the better. Suffice it to say, Pieces is the best terrible Spanish giallo ripoff starring Christoper George and the guy that played Bluto in the live-action Popeye movie that you will ever see. It's exactly what you think it is, and so much goddamned more. This movie is the Miami Connection of slasher films. Its shittiness is transcendent, and its ineptitude will spoken of in revered tones for millennia to come.
Spoilers ahead, but here's a list of some of the things I loved:
-The police immediately clearing the young boy, covered in blood and in the same room as his dead mother, of any wrongdoing.
-"The most beautiful thing in the world is smoking pot and fucking on a waterbed, at the same time."
-Speaking of, how the hell does a college have a public waterbed? Can you imagine the programs that had to be cut to accomodate it? Those things cost more than this film did!
-I loved how the girl in the swimming pool could have avoided dying by diving underneath the net. She was purposefully holding onto it, and that's wonderful.
-The police have a tennis pro waiting to go undercover at a moment's notice. Not an actual police officer, but a tennis pro.
-The world's worst game of tennis.
-SUDDENLY, Bruce Le trying to kick a woman's ass.
-The elevator victim clearly seeing the killer's chainsaw before getting on the elevator, as he's getting on the elevator, and seeing it just before he revs it up, but only when it's on does she realize that yes, it's a chainsaw.
-The ending: I would have thought that the jump scare with the composite mother would have ended the film, but it went on a little bit after that for reasons that I did not know, and certainly wasn't prepared for. Despite being the hero, Kendall is one of the most intensely deplorable protagonists this side of Michael Brandon's character in Four Flies on Grey Velvet, especially since the film goes out of it way to show how awesome he is at everything, including that amusingly gratuitious dick shot. Composite mother ripping his dick off had me on the floor cackling like a hyena and cheering hysterically, proving that cosmic justice does have one hell of a fucking funny bone.
Even without Mike and the rest of the crew aboard the Satellite of Love, Hobgoblins is such an immensely silly film. Trying to be sleazier than the film it ripped off, it manages to feel more wholesome, thanks in no small part to the combination of the ridiculous titular creatures and the lack of a budget to do much with them other than sticking some hands up their asses to move them around. The film tries to punch it up with things like a rake fight, a phone sex operator that is less explicit than Sesame Street, and all sorts of other stupid things, but where it runs into trouble is when it finally hits Club Scum. The MST3K version cut down a lot of redundancy, particularly with a full-length performance by whatever local band the director liked enough to throw in the film to pad it out, but it feels like the movies spends half of its time there, halting the moronic momentum to a grinding halt. Thankfully, gratuitious explosions by the dozens wake it up out of its slumber, and it's back to more "aw shucks" schlock. It's stupid fun, with a lot of emphasis on the stupid part of the equation.
