Recently watched movies!

[klen7]

Cult of Chucky - well, Curse of Chucky was a refreshing entry, it played to the series strengths with a smaller scale film... This sequel falls back into old habits. It has a few moments, but overall it feels like a squandered opportunity. Fiona Dourif carries the film once again, but I'd be ok if they abandoned Jennifer Tilly's character

[Dr Kain]

Cult of Chucky - I really liked Curse of Chucky, so I was expecting it to be more of the same, but maybe with some good twists or something. I have no idea what the hell I sat though, but it was as generic and cookie cutter as if it were aired on the sci-fi channel. What the hell was this? The movie looked so cheap, but not in the stylish horror kind of cheap. The plot, if that is what you can call it made no sense. The characters were nothing more than a body count, and the ending was just terrible. THe only parts I did like was when Chucky was creeped out by the schizo lady and then when he couldn't decide whether or not to kill the doctor dude. Other than that, this movie was garbage. Also, what was the point of even having the kid from the original in this thing? God damn that was utterly lame. Unless you have to watch every Chucky movie, skip it. It's a 4/10.

[lhb412]

Burn, Witch, Burn!

Whoa, this early '60s flick is awesome! Why don't more people talk about it? If you love classics like The Haunting and Night of the Demon this is very much a part of that wave of smartly written horror flicks. It's written by two of the Twilight Zone's best writers, Charles Beaumont and Richard Matheson, and based on a book by Fritz Leiber (of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser fame!). In this story, a superstition debunking psychology professor discovers his wife has certain charms and talismans hidden all over the house. When he confronts her she admits she's been practicing witchcraft in order to protect him. He burns all the items and soon after bad things begin happening to him and I don't want to spoil anything else because you should see this movie.

Mad Love

I always dig this mid-'30s adaptation of oft-adapted Hands of Orlac. Peter Lorre plays a brilliant but creepy surgeon named Dr. Gogol who's obsessed with an actress who performs at the 'Theatre of Horrors.' The fact that her performance consists mainly of being tortured by inquisitors while Gogol watches with rapt attention gets as close to sexual sadism as you probably could get in mid-'30s Hollywood movie. Anyway, Gogol discovers she's actually married to successful pianist Stephen Orlac (Colin Clive, bringing the same nervous energy he had as Dr. Frankenstein), and when Stephen's hands get mangled in an accident his wife takes him to Dr. Gogol, who proceeds to graft the hands of an executed, knife-throwing murderer onto Stephen and then things get crazier from there.

[lhb412]

Ju-on: The Grudge

Sometimes I have a little theme for Halloween, like watch as many versions of Dracula or Frankenstein as I can, in addition to my usual diet of all the core Universal films and smattering of Hammer and Vincent Price. This year, hows about I try for as many Japanese horror films I can?

I didn't expect the Pulp Fiction-style narrative, with multiple vignettes following different characters that jump backwards and forwards chronologically. Kayako and Toshio are great 'monsters' in there own way, but in the end they're more sad than scary: just more victims. Oh, and the dad from Gamera: The Brave/glasses guy from Shin Godzilla is in this movie.


PS - Remember in the late '90s and early '00s in the USA when East Asian pop culture was everywhere? Foreign martial arts films were in theaters in addition to Hollywood films with foreign starts like Jackie Chan and Jet Li, and every major J-horror was being remade as a Hollywood film, with the original versions being available subtitled on DVD, of course. I also remember the Independent Film Channel in the early '00s seemed like all films from Asia all the time and I would watch Korean films while home sick from school. Anyway, somehow I missed the whole J-horror craze as it happened, aside from owning Ringu on DVD I'm not sure if I watched a complete film otherwise... oh, wait, no: I did watch Uzumaki (on IFC)!

[Dr Kain]

[lhb412]

^ Ah, so he's a genre fixture, huh?

[Dr Kain]

[klen7]

Office - South Korea has a way with serial killer films, and this is one of them. The film has a twist that knocks down the tension substantially, but the first 2 acts are pretty intriguing.

Blade Runner 2049 - I think the Wallace character is a complete misfire. Maybe casting an older actor would have made more sense, but he still comes across as a two-dimensional villain in a film that does its best to stack the layers. Otherwise a solid film that lives up to the Blade Runner name. Visually, philosophically and acoustically engaging. I wish Christopher Nolan would take notes on the sound design in this film.

[Dr Kain]

My biggest issue with Wallace is that he

[Benjamin Haines]

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016) - HBO recently made their programming available to stream for free on Hulu for one weekend, so I took the opportunity to watch this with my lady. She's been a Harry Potter fan since the beginning whereas I've only watched some of the movies with her, but I liked this film a lot. It's an imaginative story with a terrific cast and a menagerie of cool creatures. It blatantly borrows a lot of tropes from Doctor Who but it works really well. Now I'm looking forward to the sequel next year.

Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief (2015) - I also finally got to watch this HBO original documentary, based on Lawrence Wright's 2013 nonfiction book. It's fascinating. If you're interested in learning about the history of Scientology or just cults in general, I definitely recommend watching this if you have the chance. It features interviews with several former Scientologists who were previously high-ranking senior members and their insight into the cult's tactics is chilling and eye-opening. It also includes rare footage of Tom Cruise and David Miscavige speaking at private Scientology events.

Flatliners (2017) - If movies are judged based on box office grosses and Rotten Tomatoes scores, you might think this was a cinematic abomination, but it's not. It's just dumb fun, nowhere near as bad as something like what Asylum puts out. Silly premise, a cast that plays off each other well, some cringeworthy dialogue, and some trippy sequences. It's not scary at all but it's an interesting little ensemble story. It does make me want to check out the 1990 original.

[lhb412]

^Read, like, the first 30 pages of Going Clear the book a while back and it is bonkers.

[Dr Kain]

[Benjamin Haines]

[Dr Kain]

They Live - What can I say that I haven't been saying for the last few years of watching this movie? A solid 9/10.

[O.Supreme]

Rifftrax on Amazon Prime The Revenge of Dr. X. (originally entitled Venus Flytrap)

This film is all kinds of weird cheese fun.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_Flytrap_(film)

Not sure if I would like it without the riffing, but it did have some surprises. I thought the video generated title sequence was way off, especially for a film made in 1966, which of course was correct. I'd like to see the original credits sometime. Also I was shocked to see James Yagi (who also played the Japanese corresponded for English scenes in the Universal Pictures version of King Kong Vs Godzilla). Also this was apparently originally written by Ed Wood, though he is not credited, and was Distributed by Toei of all places ...

*edit* just found it on Youtube under its other alternate title Body of the Prey. Still cant find the original title sequence.

[Dr Kain]

Man, I haven't gotten to see a Rifftrax Live since Mothra. Is Dr X what they are doing this month for Halloween?

[O.Supreme]

No it's not a live show, just recorded and with the video on Amazon Prime. There several of them available.

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss ... s=rifftrax

They are doing night of the Living Dead Oct 25th I believe however.

[Dr Kain]

The same one they did a few years ago? Because that was the first Rifftrax Live I saw.

[jellydonut25]

Night of the Living Dead
Dawn of the Dead
Day of the Dead
The Crazies
Land of the Dead
Season of the Witch
Monkey Shines
Martin
Two Evil Eyes
Bruiser

Diary of the Dead - Hopelessly boring for the first half hour, it ends up finding its footing a LITTLE bit and gets some legs under itself for the final hour, even if those legs are zombified and shambling, at leas the movie finds a couple things to say and more importantly DO, and ends up being an admirable failure. 2.5/5

Survival of the Dead - Who directed this? Doesn't even feel like a Romero film. Perhaps slightly more entertaining than Diary, but where Night, Dawn, Day, Land and to a lesser extent Diary were punctuated by reasonable gaps in time and Romero commenting on the changes in our society and current sociological conditions, Survival is him just making a zombie movie just to make one. There's nothing here. No lingering questions, no commentary, just a middle of the road zombie movie. 2.5/5.

Monster Squad - I will admit having grown up on this movie probably adds some to my enjoyment, but I watched it with a newbie and their enjoyment was infectious. The film has charm up the wazoo and such great effects, it's just an absolutely perfect Halloween season film, though admittedly not a perfect film overall. Still, super quotable, ultra fun, and great to look at, Monster Squad is a total October movie in all the best ways. 4.5/5

The Final Girls - The jokes don't ALWAYS land, but that's a risk taken when the humor is often "Funny because it's not funny," and we could do with just a touch more gore, but this movie is really fun, and clever and at times surprisingly heartfelt. 4/5.

The H-Man - There's some fun stuff happening here that's a little understated but clues you in that everyone on the set was having fun and enjoying themselves and that kinda worms its way into you and pumps up the fun factor. The story doesn't totally come together and I RARELY say this about a 50/60s-era Toho film but the effects just aren't quite up to snuff, but there are moments that absolutely pop and the climax is solid. 3.5/5

The Human Vapor - It's a shame this hasn't seen an official stateside release because it's by far the best of the Toho mutant films. The story is interesting and layered, the characters are all well-realized, the acting is spot-on, and the Human Vapor is brought to life in a fun and reasonably believable way. There are a lot of stakes in this movie on all sides, and it's such a nuanced film, with a villain whose motives are WAY more noble than the typical sci-fi/horror villain (especially from Toho). Just a wonderful film all around. 4.5/5

The Secret of the Telegian - Probably the weakest of Toho's Mutant films in that there doesn't feel like a lot of personal stakes here. There aren't really any likable characters. The main villain is a revenge-driven murderer, but he's out to murder would-be murderers and smugglers and drug dealers so...who do we root for? The police? They're not given enough time to develop and we're not really given a GOOD reason to root for them to stop anything from ending tragically. Also, the ending is a problem. More than maybe any other Toho scifi film (FCTW included) this movie just SLAMS to a halt and BAM! that's the end. BUT it's a fast-paced movie and has some really cool effects work, and is a lot of fun to watch. It's enjoyable, but there's just not as much to chew on as there is in Human Vapor (or even H-Man) 3/5

Yokai Monsters: 100 Monsters - The weakest of the Yokai movies I've seen thus far (having seen all except Along with Ghosts). It's still actually pretty good, but the yokai themselves are MUCH more in the background than I was expecting given my experience with Spook Warfare and the Miike film. What we have in this one is something that plays out a little more like a Daimajin film, but we spend just a touch too much time with the villains (who are loathsome and in a way fun, and we definitely want to see them get their comeuppance) and not enough time is given to really working on a cast of protagonists. Maybe leaning MORE into Daimajin territory, and giving us a protagonist who was actively seeking out the Yokai to help the villagers in need, and put him or her through some trials in order to get the help of the yokai would bring that up a bit. I enjoyed it overall, but look forward to an eventual re-watch, knowing it's lighter on the actual yokai than the other two films I've seen. 3.5/5.

[Dr Kain]

Night of the Living Dead - This is one of the few remakes I think outdoes its predecessor. Tony Todd does an awesome job, but Barbara is actually a character in this thing instead of just a damsel in distress gimmick. It's far from a perfect movie, but it is an entertaining one. 8/10.

[jellydonut25]

[lhb412]

^The original NOTLD is so raw and immediate and visceral - even though Dawn is probably a better movie by most metrics I feel NOTLD's once-in-a-lifetime mood and tone push it to the top of the pile.

Dark Water

More J-horror. A woman currently fighting for custody of her daughter with her scuzzy ex-husband moves into a scuzzy apartment with aforementioned daughter and, just when she needs to present the most stable enviroment in order to retain custody, begins to unravel as strange things begin happening in the apartment building. Interesting parallels to Ju-on: emphasis on domesticity and banal modernity feeding into old ghost story folklore, social workers, dingy apartment hallways... Dark Water is much less scary and more sad, though.

[Dr Kain]

I would love to see the first two Youkai Monsters movies so hopefully someone will relicense them soon and do a trilogy box set.

Curious though, where did you get a copy of The Secret of the Telegian and Human Vapor?

[jellydonut25]

Human Vapor I’ve had a...”copy” of for like 12 years. I can’t even remember where I found it anymore. Telegian was given to me by a friend. Probably a gray market thing from a convention or something.

[Geno]

I saw Baby Driver like 2 days ago and I loved it. Wright's direction is the strongest it's ever been and the soundtrack really elevates everything. Definitely one of my favorite movies of all time.