Speaking of M. Night Shyamalan, this guy knows how to do great trailer for shitty movies.
Here's the latest one.
Speaking of M. Night Shyamalan, this guy knows how to do great trailer for shitty movies.
Here's the latest one.
I saw that last week. It looks so terrible.
While the trailer isn't bad, I'm going to wait until I can rent it at home to see The Visit. I really enjoy The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable (best one), Signs, and even The Village, but everything after that has been complete garbage.
On a different note, watched Starry Eyes today and enjoyed it. Very tense, very strange, and ultimately a well made tale of the dark side of ambition.
I really liked Lost River but it isn't quite a horror film.
It's obviously highly influenced by david lynch...it's like a fever dream.
it didn't get very good reviews but i dug it.
who knew that all of this dark insanity is what goes on in the mind of Ryan Gease-ling?
I was feeling under the weather this weekend so I watched quite a few movies.
First off, The Pyramid. It was ok. I don't want to spoil anything but I liked the concept behind what was inside the pyramid. 6/10
I also watched The Unseen, a relatively unknown (based on the number of ratings) 1980 movie. I don't really know what to think. The setting is in the day, which makes for a nice change.
It's not really scary but there is some enjoyable suspense I guess. 5/10
I caught "The Devil's Hand". Not very original but it was a nice mix of slasher-type and evil spirit stuff. 6/10
Then, I watched "Tales From The Crypt: Demon Knight. Cheesy & entertaining but definitely not scary. 6/10
Finally, a dud, "All Hallow's Eve". The 1st part of the movie kind piqued my curiosity but that was it. It went downhill from there and couldn't care less what would happen to the lead character at the end. 4/10.
This isn't really horror but it's worthy of showing off as I got a limited edition blu-ray steelbook (of 2000 copies I think) for $8.69 from Zavvi.
^ I snapped up a copy of that as well for around the same price, hard not to.. I guess i have to get the sequels now.
http://bloody-disgusting.com/news/33...geland-remake/
I really need to see the original.
Brand new trailer for Crimson Peak. It looks absolutely stunning!
Ay dios mio. Guillermo looks like he will deliver. I hope he wins the Best Director Oscar that it would be 3 wins in a row by Mexicans!
So people...
I just watched the first Scream film today. The first time I have ever seen it, I might add. Not from lack of interest or disgust but mainly for the fact I never really ever had an opportunity to. I bought the first three films and two documentaries in a blu-ray set at Target like last October or September. $10.00 for them all. Was a good buy. I also bought Scream 4 on blu-ray from there as well for $5.00 at the same time. I look forward to watching the rest, I really enjoyed the first, It was original and something I can say I've never seen in a horror film before. That entire last 20 minutes of the killer reveal and all the shit around it was awesome. I could only imagine how seeing this in theaters in 1996 must've been.
I hope MTV doesn't shit on the franchise with their planned tv series of it. I'm not impressed by their little teaser for it.
The Scream series are great, i consider them them "Mystery-thrillers" rather than horror movies but they are very entertaining, i confess i haven't seen part 4, but i will someday, lol.
Had no idea 'bout the TV series, as soon as you mentioned "MTV" i lost my boner...
First Scream is definitely a 90s classic. Scream 4 is the 2nd best in the series imo.
It's been kinda slow lately in terms of new horror releases.
The only one I saw last week was Deep In The Darkness. I would say it was above average. Not by much but definitely worth the watch. I thought the lead actor was great and made the movie a lot more enjoyable.d
it was a trip seeing it in the theater.
it was smart, it was funny, it was fucked up, and it was very fresh at the time. to me, it was kinda the paranormal activity of its day.
it was a much needed shot in the arm for the genre.
And seeing it in the theater, everyone, well, screamed
@Deepvoid and the rest of you horror junkies, i came across a copy of "it follows" with hardcoded korean subs.
i don't know if it's a cam, or if the flick already came home in South Korea.
Also, if you horror fans haven't seen twin peaks, it's just utterly fucking amazing. it's DEFINITELY the scariest tv show i've ever seen.
and the movie that follows it is pretty goddamn unnerving too.
the show is streaming on netflix. if you haven't caught it, get after it!
it comes on slow...definitely sneaks up on you. and it damn sure doesn't seem horrortastic at first.
but it is VERY dark, and when the shit DOES go down, it's mind blowing.
i'll probably watch it this morning. (edit: It Follows, i mean. My brain is not working very well. )
Last edited by elevenism; 05-22-2015 at 05:48 PM.
i don't understand what was so good about "it follows."
it wasn't BAD, but why the big hype? i suspect it's kind of like "omg, horror movies are stupid but this one isn't! it has like, a theme, and metaphors and shit!"
and THAT's why the critics go nuts. same reason they went nuts for the babadook (which was actually scary.)
also, 6 months of hype and searching for a way to see "it follows" had me thinking it was gonna just blow my mind.
that happens.
what i LOVED about "it follows" was the whole eighties throwback aesthetic, ESPECIALLY the music, by this cat called Disasterpeace.
But horror movies don't NEED themes and metaphors. that's not why most of us watch them.
i agree with the both of you, and i'm certainly not trying to come off as a fool here. @Space Suicide , i don't like friday the 13th at all. ALL slasher and torture porn flicks are mindless drivel in my mind. @Khrz , i definitely like clever flicks.
But i watch movies like No Country For Old Men and Inception, and, hell, MOST of the other movies that i watch to feel that spark of mental literary criticism, to realize deeper themes and meanings and pick out symbolism. The more of that type of shit there is, the better i like it.
That, for me, is what separates great movies from good ones.
What i'm saying is, i watch horror movies because i wish to be scared.
I get into paranormal horror. I don't grade it on the discussion worthy plot elements or allusions.
In the horror movies i like, the idea is that there is some sort of ghost or demon.
And that motherfucker is HORRIFYING.
Is the conjuring clever? is insidious, or paranormal activity?
To me, they aren't. They are just SCARY. There is some unknowable evil lurking in the shadows and its very existence and attempts to interact with humans is WRONG and disturbs my sense of what reality should be.
THAT to me is a good horror movie.
Now, It Follows was extremely clever with its std allegory. But it didn't scare me. Not a little bit. Not for one second.
The Babadook was great. It managed to create a monster that was actually scary and ALSO served as a great metaphor for the woman's depression and its effect on her child. But the metaphor wasn't what made me like it. I liked it because the titular BAAAbaaaaaDOOOOOOOK! scared the shit out of me.
So anyway, i don't know, to me it's almost like horror movies shouldn't even be reviewed the same way as regular movies.
If i'm asking you if a horror movie is good, i'm asking you if it's SCARY, not about it's intellectual merits, you know?
And don't get me wrong, i'll take allegory and symbolism and, hell, changing narrative distance, whatever you wanna throw at me. That's great, as long as the flick is still scary.
When i hear all this massive hype about a horror movie, i expect it to be because that shit was terrifying.
And that's why "it follows" kind of let me down.
It was a good movie. It just wasn't scary or disturbing on any level.
by the way
menace, menace maniac, undead slaughter, butcher death, twist and cut...?
menace menace, maniac undead slaughter, butcher death twist, and cut...?
lolz. you can slice that one up a few different ways.
Last edited by elevenism; 05-25-2015 at 05:39 PM.
4 is the best Friday the 13th. If you haven't seen it, remedy that ASAP. 6 is fun too.
i think It Follows was awesome. While slashers can be great, sometimes horror can use plot and theme, there's room for everything as long as it's well done.
Last edited by Swykk; 05-25-2015 at 05:41 PM.
Well, that's an entirely subjective problem here. It has less to do with what horror movies should be, and more with what you expect from them. Some people will think Guardians of the Galaxy is the epitome of science-fiction, and some other will point to 2001...
Personally I'm not interested in horror, fantasy is my thing. The Twilight Zone is my starting point. I don't care about violence, I loathe torture, and I see death as an unavoidable yet unnecessary trope.
Horror, as a genre, is to me the opportunity to explore the dark parts of our comprehension, those fears and questions for which we have no vocabulary, no real narrative. Every other genre explores a different set of human emotions, for which we have a clear map by now. Horror (since actual fantasy is pretty much a dead genre by now) is the opportunity to explore what's beyond that map, the "here be dragons" of the human condition. On that regard, I found Under The Skin amazing for instance.
That's also why I find most horror movies underwhelming eventually ; because I want my fix of eldritch mystery, only to find out it's all just another revenant/monster/psycho being all evil and bloodthirsty. Not that it surprises me, but by the time the movie has come to this, I have already explored its premise on my own with more satisfying results. As I said, it's subjective. It has its exceptions, the first Evil Dead blew my mind, because although it was about evil spirits/demons, it felt completely aimless, random, with no agenda other than having a wee bit of lethal fun with those lesser creatures stuck in a cabin with them. I thought Paranormal Activity was good, because for a long while it's just normal life going subtly wrong, details being slightly off, things that could actually happen in your life and that you brush off in a few seconds, like that time when a whole row of books fell off my shelf in the middle of the night.
On the other hand, a friend of mine hated Blair Witch because those campers were scared of a bunch of faggots (no pun intended, it's simply how he described the stick figures and that pun doesn't work in french anyway).
Just like critics expect Sci-fi movies to be more than spaceship dogfights and space cadets or Romance to be more than the main protagonist reaching third base, they want horror movies to be more than jump scares. I'm not saying that's what you expect from them obviously, just laying down the rationale behind the high praises movies like It Follows tend to get.
Last edited by Khrz; 05-27-2015 at 04:17 AM.
i think horror is the most divisive genre, because we all expect something different from it.
I look for a very specific kind of supernatural horror. And i LIKE jump scares if they work.
I also hate torture and such. I don't watch slasher movies at all.
What you said about paranormal activity, that's why i like those movies so much too.
It's like i said before, "There is some unknowable evil lurking in the shadows and its very existence and attempts to interact with humans is WRONG and disturbs my sense of what reality should be."
And if that can be done with surrealism, like David Lynch does, it's all the better.
@Khrz , jesus, you can write. and here i thought i could write.
you and @kleiner352 both blow my minds
oh, btw, the guy who made the soundtrack for It Follows is cool as hell. he took the time to shoot the shit with me on facebook.
I watched Oculus the other day/night (4 AM is such a hard to label space in time, isn't it?). It was far from anything amazing or special and certainly isn't anywhere near a favorite of mine, but it was actually somewhat creative and enjoyable to watch. That sounds way more harsh than I mean to be. I definitely don't regret watching it at all; I found the general concept interesting, and the way it bent and played with reality was very enjoyable, if somewhat predictable at times. The child actors in it were pretty great for child actors in a horror movie but things like The Sopranos, Carl in The Walking Dead, Sally from Mad Men, the kids in The Americans have all really spoiled me for child actors so I found them mostly just okay. The lighting and aesthetic was very strong, and in general it built a good mood/atmosphere.
What I really liked though was how it played with the old cliche of someone released from an institution suddenly in a horror situation. Very often that'll happen and it then revolves around, in the first or second act, them trying to convince everyone what they've seen is real while everyone writes them off as simply relapsing, whereas in this it's the mental patient who's recovered trying to convince the sane person that they're insane for what they're thinking. It was a fun role reversal and I really enjoyed the way that the mental patient would attempt to rationalize and use things he'd learned in the institution from his doctors to convince his sister she was having an episode or misinterpreting reality.
The way it blended present day events and flashbacks towards the end was a lot of fun, and had some great editing to help it.
I'm probably not going to watch it again most likely and it had a lot of problems, but it was just a good little thing that had more creativity than a lot of American horror in recent years has had. I'm personally not big on excessive gore/torture in horror films and find it quite lazy, so something that focuses so much more on psychological horror and atmosphere is always welcomed by me. I feel like the horror genre is just starting to really recover the Saw/Hostel era if that makes sense.
Totally agree... It's one of those movies you expect from the get go to make a mess out of their simplistic premise, and surprisingly, they don't. They're not mindblowing, but at least they aren't pretentious and manage to be humbly clever instead of being grandiosely stupid.
What little story it had was used well, and they managed to be surprising while using extremely familiar tropes, that's always refreshing.
Yeah, it won't be a favorite of mine, it's nothing mind-bending, it doesn't try be be meta, there are no metaphors or symbolism (@elevenism !), but it's simple and efficient, if far from terrifying.
My last post was about fantasy, that's what it is, it was almost like reading an old Stephen King...
Last edited by Khrz; 05-27-2015 at 03:34 PM.
I loved Oculus.
It had some genuinely scary moments (the part where the girl first takes the sheet off of the mirror, the part where all the people's mouths open and that alarm goes off...
And yes, @Khrz , it was like old stephen king, and king even talks about this kind of horror in Danse Macabre.
As far as the whole symbolism and metaphors thing, i don't care if a horror movie allegorically examines the life of christ , symbolically references the finer points of the french revolution, and metaphorically explores the similarities between McCarthyism and the salem witch trials, and ties it all together by alluding to the denied genocide in Armenia while thematically tackling the universality of Jungian archetypes even when seen through the lens of western, eastern and archaic cultures. If it SCARES me, then it's succeeded as a horror movie
I wasn't saying that horror movies SHOULDN'T have higher meanings, just that that's not the basis on which i judge them. To me, a good horror movie is a scary horror movie.
New teaser. Can't wait!
i liked midnight meat train quite a bit.
it was fairly clever.
one weird thing, and i can't believe i'm going to say this, but it was the first movie i've ever seen that seemed to address...ughhh...the illuminati thing.
All the "illuminati spotting" bullshit drives me nuts, but to me it's pretty blatant here.
If you haven't seen the movie, i don't want to spoil it, but there's blood sacrifice to wind up serving these evil beings who are literally running nyc from below. all of this happens after the protagonist is told that if his work becomes darker, he can climb the ladder of the art world. he also winds up with a triangle and three, god help me, trilateral lines in his chest.
And then the last thing we hear is a radio report about an upcoming European Union visit that will tour the subways, implying that world leaders are in some way connected to these beings.
did the clive barker story have these kinds of implications?
i REALLY felt like that was the meaning of the flick, that these demonic creatures run the world and there is a massive secret group bent on serving them, including our heads of state.
i'm always groaning when i see other people pointing out this stuff, but this time I was the one to catch it and it was very strange.
HAIL TO THE KING, BABY!
@elevenism My favorite Barker movie will always be Lord of Illusions. Although Hellraiser is scarier, I've always had a very soft spot for Illusions.
Anyone seen Poltergeist yet? Is it that bad that no one is talking about it? I'm seeing it this week. Sam Rockwell compels me.
i LOVE lord of illusions, @marodi . i just showed it to my wife the other night.
i love hellraiser too.
i haven't seen the new poltergeist yet but i can't wait.