Recently watched movies!

[Dr Kain]

Halloween H20 - Okay, this one was quite good and on par with the second movie, if not a little bit better for the slightly lower body count. I was expecting like 20 people to die, but I believe only 6 people did. That was kind of nice. Anyway, I normally hate retcons, but this one did it right and that was not something I expected. The only thing I don't understand is why Myers took 20 years to show up again, but whatever, the movie was actually well thought out. It is far from perfect, as it doesn't really have too much suspense in it, but it was a competent movie with a nice ending. I just love how Laurie is like "OH HELL NO!!" and takes Myers so she can finish the job. And why did it take 6 movies for someone to dismember him? They should have tried that way back in the beginning. Anyway, overall, I give it a 7/10 and I really am unsure how Resurrection even comes into play given Michael has been decapitated, but I guess I'll find out tomorrow.

[Dr Kain]

[XvGojira]

[jellydonut25]

Resurrection is actually not THAT bad for the first fifteen minutes...and then...oh....then...

[jellydonut25]

Possession (1981) - I...umm...well...hmmm...So Sam Neill...wait, no, um, so the girl...nooo...

this movie is freaky deeky.

[XvGojira]

[eabaker]

[lhb412]

Black Narcissus

Best nun-centric movie ever!

Maybe it's the proximity to Halloween, but I really noticed the horror elements in the last act this time. It's a smooth transition for the film, since there's this strange, otherworldly tone throughout.

[Dr Kain]

Halloween Resurrection - Boy does this movie suck! It isn't as bad as 6, but that isn't saying very much. The opening was kind of suspenseful despite spitting all over the ending of H20 just to keep Michael alive, but other than that, this movie blows. The plot was stupid but it was the whole aspect of giving Michael a reason for being evil that really makes this movie plain about terrible. I also don't get the strength of Michael's knife. It is strong enough to chop a person's head off with a quick slash but it can only cut another person's leg? That makes absolutely no sense. Sarah (I think that was her name) should have lost her leg since the other girl lost her head. It is sad that the best thing about the movie was the ridiculously over the top acting and dialog of Busta Rhymes. One other thing that sucked about this movie was its soundtrack. IT seemed like the only music in the movie was the Carpenter theme and as much as I love that theme, it would have been nice to have had more music in this thing. Overall, I'm giving this movie 2/10 and that is only because of the opening and Rhymes yelling at Michael thinking it was a different guy.

IN the long run, I am glad to have finally seen the Halloween series, but none of them lived up to the original. Outside of H20 this series progressively went downhill as it went on as each movie seemed to get worse than the previous one. The original is an incredible piece of work, one of the best horror movies I have seen in a long time (yes I know, that sounds stupid, but since I saw the movie for the first time last year, #dealwithit) and I can definitely see how it started the slasher genre of horror. Carpenter was a master at his work (at least for a time, as it seems like he lost his touch in the early 90s) and looking back on it, I don't think there is a slasher movie that I can say is better than the original Halloween. Sure, the first Nightmare on Elm Street is pretty good, but between the two, I'll say Halloween is superior. Nevertheless, I'm going to rate the series as a whole a 5/10 just because that is what my scores average out to. If I just rated it based on the original, II and H20, I'd give it a 7/10.

With that said, October has just begun and there are still lots of movies to watch this month, and I just go this in today and cannot wait to revisit these movies (some i haven't watched since I first bought the Legacy Collection DVDs):

[XvGojira]

[jellydonut25]

The Halloween series is an interesting animal for me.

It has the best film of any of the major slasher franchises in the original, but the greatest disparity between the best film and the worst (pt 6). Also, while NoES has three films that I really dig (I, III, and New Nightmare), Halloween has maybe two (I and III) and then a few additional entries that I kinda sorta like depending on my mood (II, IV, H20, Z'sH2).

At the end of the day, it's a tossup for me if I like Halloween or NoES better. Does the more consistent quality of Halloween outweigh NoES's three really good films? It's a tough call because those three NoES movies that I really like form a pretty spectacular trilogy...on the other hand, there's Freddy using the Nintendo Power Glove to make some kid hop around...



Watched the new Evil Dead last night to kick off the month because I bought it a week ago and have been itching to watch it. I really like it a lot. I look forward to sequels big time.

[eabaker]

[XvGojira]

[lhb412]

Dracula (1931)

It's become fashionable to discredit this film for being stagey, a bit dodgy in continuity, and generally less polished than the later Universal Horror films... all of those things are true, but I still like this movie a lot. I love the sets, the atmosphere, and most of all Bela Lugosi and Dwight Frye (naturally, the opening in Transylvania is my favorite part because of those preferences).

Spite Marriage

Buster Keaton's last silent film. This is ground zero of Keaton getting his creative freedom taken from him after a decade of self-producing his series of masterpieces in the '20s. Soon Keaton would descend into alcoholism and bad/sad stuff blah blah blah... but this is before things got too bad, an it's an okay film. You can certainly see the battle between the studio and Buster, as more Keaton-esque gags occasionally pop up in what is a more generic farce.

[jellydonut25]

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon - This is a really neat film. The Cabin in the Woods before there was The Cabin in the Woods. Scream done right. However you want to characterize it, it's a fun movie with a cool premise and I'm really glad I took the plunge and bought it cheap (though talk about a SH*TTY release...no menu, no features, no nothing)

[eabaker]

[lhb412]

[Silver Kamen]

[eabaker]

[lhb412]

^I can't remember much about Renfield in the Spanish version (indeed, after mentioning Count Floyd all I can think of when I think of Spanish Dracula is SCTV). I just remember thinking him inferior to Dwight Frye at the time. I'll probably watch this again this month, as it's on the Blu-Ray.

[eabaker]

^From a purely subjective standpoint, I do prefer Frye - I grew up with that movie, and was absolutely in love with that characterization. Pablo Alvarez Rubio's performance, however, succeeds in one thing that Frye's did not: in places, he is genuinely kinda scary (a lot scarier than Carlos Villarias as Dracula, that's for sure).

[Dr Kain]

Ghosts of Mars - Wow, this is like the greatest movie ever. The acting is so great. I love seeing everyone having one emotion. I love how the editing of the movie is all over the place. I love the music to the movie. I... oh **** it, this movie sucks balls!!! Now I remember why I forgot what happened in the entire movie, it just blows. How the hell is this a John Carpenter movie? The entire concept is just stupid and the "plot" is boring. It's like they had no idea what to do with the movie and just filmed random crap and then stitched it together while doing countless action scenes just to fill up the time. There is nothing positive I can say about this movie at all and I give it a generous 1/10 stars. I really can't give it a 0 as that would mean putting it on the same level as Battlefield Earth (what I consider to be the worst movie ever made) and it is at least battle than that.

BTW, I took out of the library a Carpenter movie called Dark Star. Should I watch the 68 minute version or the 83 minute one?

[eabaker]

[Silver Kamen]

[jellydonut25]

I doubt Kain will like Dark Star. I'm not even sure if I like it. It's interesting, seeing where Carpenter started, but I remember it being a bit cheap for my tastes.


Watched a movie called Monster Brawl last night. A good concept gone wrong, (i hope) limited mostly by budget constraints. The story is that 8 monsters have come together to battle to the death in a series of wrestling matches. The problem is that the "live coverage" doesn't have the live coverage aesthetic, the background stories are all kinda boring (there's opportunity here, they could have done each one in a different style: found footage, news report, documentary, flashback, etc), and it doesn't FEEL like a wrestling event: the announcers don't sound like wrestling annoncers, they should have used people who've done it before, and the monsters don't have entrance music, that would have been really fun to see each monster with an awesome or funny song, and there are no PEOPLE at the event, which is a major missed opportunity to amp up the fun and maybe have one of the monsters go berserk.
End of the day, it was slow and plodding and BORING.