Halloween 2015

[lhb412]

Watched the original The Mummy, always a favorite... well, I didn't care for it as a youngster because I wanted a more traditional monster film.

Always get a kick out of David Manners apparently being some sort of archeologist who has to be reminded about basic aspects of Egyptian mythology.

[jellydonut25]

[klen7]

Sometimes im watching a movie with a family member and 30 or 40 minutes in they pipe up "Oh i have seen this" which to me always seems weird.. how can you get that far into a movie without remembering it... well about 50 terrible minutes into Mimic 2 i remembered that i had actually seen it before...what a ridiculous direction to take the plot from the first film, and what terrible characters. I think there is a reason i blocked this film from my memory... i was planning to watch the third one as well but after this, im going to need some time.

From the Dark a low budget irish horror film about a couple stranded in the countryside with a vampire creature. The opening scene really sold me. Theres a farmer digging a deep hole in a field, and he hits something... he pulls it out and its a wooden stake... he looks a little further and finds that it had been impaled into a body. I love that concept, that there's a vampire buried somewhere, but due to modern sensibilities/ignorance, the stake that keeps it trapped is removed. The movie does a lot with a little. Some typical horror tropes mostly with the way the distressed couple handle themselves, but different enough that its worth checking out. I thought the imdb score for this was surprisingly low.

[lhb412]

Hey, my first Bava film! Black Sunday is like a film that was expressly made to string as many cool horror moments and images as possible. I can sense the influence this film has, because, while it does brings back the gorgeous gothic decay of classic Universal films, it often invokes the way horror films were shot in the '70s and '80s. The camera suspensefully follows potential victims in much the same way as a slasher movie, for example.

[jellydonut25]

Insidious Chapter 3 - This series just keeps getting worse. This time, it feels like the visuals are actually mostly back up to snuff (especially the character designs), but everything else is shoddy and lazy and the decision to make it a prequel is a huge mistake. Rumor has it future installments will also be prequels. DO NOT WANT. 2/5.

The Final Girls - smart, fun, funny, and charming, at times it dips a little too far into parody rather than meta, which isn't that big a problem except that SOME of its parody moments are a little bit lazy (think along the lines of someone doing a Godzilla parody where there are zipper jokes)...but these instances are FEW and far in between and the moments that work FAR outweigh those that don't. Truly creative, I think this stands up with other recent great horror comedies like Tucker and Dale vs. Evil. And the ending is NEARLY PERFECT. 4/5.

Tales of Halloween - I didn't have higher EXPECTATIONS for this, but I really HOPED for better. It actually really started off winning me over in a big way too: the opening credits sequence is a bit of fun, Adrienne Barbeau does a semi-reprisal of her character from The Fog (she plays a radio DJ who does some voiceover "intros" to some of the segments, with just some semi-random "Here's a scary little diddy for you that will have you running for the covers, maybe I'll join you there..."), and the first segment creates a pretty interesting Halloween monster and reminded me a lot of the Father's Day segment of Creepshow, in that nothing super unexpected happens, but we get some cool makeup and it's a fun segment overall. Then it just slips into varying between mediocre and outright terrible for a bunch of segments, and then ends with a really good one, that was a lot of fun.
So, the segments are:
Sweet Tooth - a story is spun about a little boy whose parents ate all his Halloween candy and were too strict to him so he killed them and ate their guts to get the candy and now he's a demon who demands a piece of candy from every trick or treater or he kills them. I don't think I have to add spoiler tags to tell you that this is the kind of movie where the story turns out to be true. Directed by Dave Parker of basically nothing I've ever heard of.
The Night Billy Raised Hell - a little boy goes to prank an old man, only to find out that he's the devil and then the two go out and raise hell all night long together. There's a twist here that actually might have made it interesting if the whole thing weren't so stupid and goofy (the devil makes a joke about being a fan of some celebrity on Twitter...that's what passes for "humor" and "clever" in this segment). Directed by Darren Lynn Bousman of Repo! and several Saw films.
Trick - a group of friends are harassed (to death) by angry trick or treaters. It's a little straightforward but not bad. Directed by Adam Gierasch of Night of the Demons (2009)
The Weak and the Wicked - a bunch of bullies pick on kids, except one swears he will exact revenge by unleashing a demon on them. Another straightforward one, that has a neat creature design, but is pretty slipshod in its direction. Directed by Paul Solet of Grace.
The Grim Grinning Ghost - a woman is stalked by a ghost. SUPER straightforward, not interesting, and featuring an acting cameo by Mick Garris who looks utterly LOST in front of a camera (and he doesn't even have to do anything, but while everyone else in the scene is staring at a person telling a scary story, he's looking around the whole set, like he doesn't know what he's supposed to be doing or where he is). Directed by Axelle Carolyn of nothing I've ever heard of.
Ding Dong - a man winds up realizing his wife is a witch or demon who wants to eat kids. It's got an idea, and some stylistic flair to it, but something doesn't hit home here...and it winds up feeling/looking kinds sloppy or amateurish...maybe the budget lacked for what they wanted to do and had to decide to spend most of it on the (genuinely interesting) witch/demon makeup. Directed by Lucky McKee of May (highly recommended).
This Means War - two neighbors get in a fight over the way each one decorates for Halloween. Not very creative or interesting or fun. Co-directed by Andrew Kasch and John Skipp...two different people put their heads together on this one and THIS was the best they could come up with...smh.
Friday the 31st - the first truly interesting concept since maybe the first segment, but it's botched by really bad comedy. A Jason-like slasher fights an alien because the slasher doesn't have candy and the alien wants to trick or treat. Directed by Mike Mendez of Big Ass Spider and Lavalantula.
The Ransom of Rusty Rex - Two guys try to kidnap a rich dude's kid only to wind up realizing that it's not his kid, it's something more sinister. I could see this one coming off as terrible and stupid to a lot of people, but it KINDA worked for me...there's a lot of comedy and the "kid" seems harmless and silly, but is actually threatening and unstoppable...it's not the worst. Directed by Ryan Schifrin of nothing ever.
Bad Seed - a guy carves a jack-o-lantern, and it eats him, then sprouts vine-like legs and runs around eating people. Super fun and creative. Directed by Neil Marshall (the descent, dog soldiers, doomsday).
Overall, Tales of Halloween is kinda hard to RECOMMEND, but MAYBE you'll get a little more mileage out of it than I did? I dunno, just figure out a way to watch the first and last segments and forget the stuff in the middle even exists. 2.5/5

The Gallows - I can't even think of "funny" or "smart" ways to bring this one down. It really sucks. 1/5

The Human Centipede 3: Final Sequence - Let me tell you a little bit about the universe of this film:
The first two movies are movies, not actual events in the universe.
Dieter Laser is a prison warden who sexually harasses his hot secretary in ways that boggle the mind with as much a casual air as you or I might get a glass of water.
The prison is comically overcrowded, like, 8 guys to a cell overcrowded.
The prisoners are comically over-violent. They are constantly reaching their arms through the bars to try to claw, punch, scratch and tear at anybody walking by.
He broke the right arm of a "monkey ape N-word" because it was his masturbation arm and the prisoner had fought with one of the guards. He does this, saying that phrase in quotes, while at least a few of his guards are black.
He thinks he is going to be literally raped to death by the prisoners to such an extent that he has several disturbing visions about it, one of which involves getting shivved in the kidneys and being raped through the wound while a bunch of prisoners chant "death rape" over and over.
He eats dried clitorises that he orders from African witch doctors because he believes it will give him superhuman strength.
Also, whenever anyone talks about the first two movies, they always say how amazing they are, and Tom Six appears as himself and the hot secretary says he's even more handsome in person and everyone worships him. They also, mid-film, go through a list of all the ways the Human Centipede concept has impacted pop culture.
At one point, the hot secretary gets beat up in a prison riot and as she's recovering in the prison's medical center, Dieter Laser rapes her because he says battered women are a serious turn-on for him.
The grand master plan is to attach all the prisoners into a human centipede as a punishment, and deterrent, with the attachment being less permanent, such that they'll be disconnected at the end of their sentence, with only a few scars on their face, which will show society that this man has been in prison, and he will be fully reformed because he doesn't want to eat poop anymore.
One guy likes to eat poop, so Dieter Laser just shoots him because he doesn't want anyone to enjoy being a human centipede.
The prisoners on death-row and/or serving life sentences are given a special punishment.

The CRAZY thing is, in a way, this is what I think a human centipede sequel SHOULD be. Over-the-top for the sake of parody of both those who decry the original film as too gory/disgusting despite never actually having seen it AND those who claimed the original was too reserved. This is what Six said he was going to do in the second one, but instead of doing it as parody, it felt like he was legitimately trying to "go for it" in terms of the grossout and disgust factor. This time it definitely feels more tongue-in-cheek. Problem is all the people literally worshiping Tom Six and the Human Centipede films and listing all the ways they impacted pop culture, as if he really wanted these moments to stroke his ego. It might literally be one of the worst movies I've ever seen, and yet, I'd rather watch something like this that is just mind-bogglingly terrible than something like San Andreas which is just unbelievably BORING. Negative 3.5/5 (yeah, negative...because it's wildly entertaining to the tune of a 3.5, but really a terrible movie)

[DannyBeane]

The Human Centipede 3 description... and I've seen the first two...

[klen7]

We watched Toy Story of Terror which is a cute horror themed Toy Story story.

Also watched +1 (plus one) which was categorized as horror, and my inclination is to disagree with that categorization, but it gets a bit murdery and there is a certain existential terror involved. You know those movies that are basically one of those ridiculous party where a bunch of young 20 somethings have a rave with a budget of tens of thousands, complete with sound stage and strippers? Its one of those movies... i dont like those movies. You know those movies where the guy does something wrong so his girlfriend breaks up with him and he mopes around trying to win her back? Its one of those movies... i dont like those movies. You know those movies that have a unique but simple Scifi concept that allows you to explore interesting questions about human nature? Its one of those movies... i do like those movies. The final products may or may not add up to the sum of its parts, but i was interested to see where it was going.

[Dr Kain]

In the Mouth of Madness - This is definitely Carpenter's last good movie. It isn't as good as his top hits, but it is still a really well done movie and I love all of the homages to Lovecraft. I give it a 7/10.

[klen7]

Hocus Pocus - I had seen this when it came out, so i didnt really remember anything other than the scene with the cop... I actually got some decent chuckles out of it at a few points.

The Last Winter - This is a Larry Fessenden film. I really liked where it ended up, but i wish it had gotten their sooner. Overall pretty ambitious for a smaller film.

Zombeavers - I will say this... never have i seen a movie so fully embrace a concept and run with it

[Dr Kain]

Halloween month continues with a look into the Boogiepop franchise. From novels to movies to television, this series was a phenomenal hit in Japan.

[DannyBeane]

last night I watched the original Night of the Living Dead. Its always a good film.

[lhb412]

The Tomb of Ligeia is really appropriate a week after Crimson Peak, right? It seems that Roger Corman's legacy is his frugality, but I'll always think first of just how he pushed these Poe films into shocking weirdness. Some pretty location footage here, too (the previous Poe films were all studio-bound and stylized).

[klen7]

TWD S6E2 - I didn't expect this storyline to pop up so soon into the season. Carol continues to be the best written character on the show. Carl needs a haircut.

[Dr Kain]

Crap, time is running out and I don't have time to get through everything I hoped I would. I finished Tales from the Crypt S5 thankfully, but I doubt I will get to 6. I've also decided I will pass on watching The Thing and They Live this year and most likely the 32 Mummy since I'm going to be seeing the Dracula TCM double feature this Sunday. Hopefully I can at least get to watch The Shining since I skipped it last year.

With that said,

Halloween III - This is such a great movie and probably the second best entry in the franchise. It does something unique and original and it is a shame people didn't like it just because Michael wasn't in it. Talk about being selfish pricks. Anyway, there is so much going on here with its atmosphere and weird execution that it just relishes in it. In fact, this was probably the last true Halloweeny horror movie to come out until Trick r Treat in 2009, which is also a shame. Overall, a great 8/10 stars.

[jellydonut25]

Edit: wrong thread.

[XvGojira]

Deep in the Darkness - City family moves to the country side and it turns out the town is some how controlled by feral people living in the woods. Doesn't make much sense. Apparently there was a demonic element in the book it's based from but was cut due to budgetary reasons. It was alright.

Odd Thomas - felt a little cheap and almost DTV feel. I liked this movie. I'm a sucker for paranormal detective stuff.

[klen7]

^ Have you seen "John Dies at the End"?

[jellydonut25]

The Gift - I think there's a slight misstep made here in that Jason Bateman's character is a jerk pretty much 100% of the time, and never likable, which takes away from one of the feelings I would have liked the movie to leave me with, but it's clever, well-acted, well-directed, and I'm glad it has the gall to go to the places it goes. 4/5

[Dr Kain]

[kiryugoji04]

[Dr Kain]

The Shining - Such a great movie full of atmosphere, mood, with an excellent score and incredible cinematography. I love the shots that just follow the characters from in front or behind. Unfortunately, it isn't perfect as Wendy is about as bright as coal and Jack Nicholson's breakdown into insanity doesn't come off as natural as he feels insane right from the get go. Despite these flaws, it is a 9/10 movie as it is one of the best horror movies ever made.

[XvGojira]

[lhb412]

^ Dark Horse released a thick paperback of several early Dylan Dog comics a while back. It's a hugely popular Italian (I think?) comic series that's not really well known here. In the original comics Dylan's assistant is a Groucho Marx look-alike impersonator who lost his memory and is now Groucho all the time. For rights issues Dark Horse erased the mustache and renamed him Felix. Apparently, that Dylan Dog movie considered going with the Groucho character at first, but they found out it would eat up half their meager budget to license Groucho's likeness!

[alienhulk2099]

[klen7]