Horror RECOMMENDATION or WARNING thread. - Page 91

One of Ebert's very first articles, not even really a review, puts the power of Night of the Living Dead in the perspective of how audiences in 1967 saw the film. Basically he describes kids going to see the movie expecting William Castle, but they got Romero instead. It's a great read from the days before the MPAA had a letter rating system.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19670105/REVIEWS/701050301/1023

Day is my favorite of the initial trilogy. Used to be Dawn, and I know I'll catch flack for this, but Dawn seems to drag a lot in the middle when it's just Peter, Fran, and Flyboy in the mall. I used to love every minute of it, and now it just drags. Day however, never fails to keep me glued to the tv for the entire running time. Night is greatness as well. Love it, and it was the first zombie movie I ever saw when I was 7 years old.

 

 

Found this excellent Halloween III teaser trailer. Pretty creepy.

 

 

Day

Dawn

Land

Night

 

I really dig Day's pessimism and cynicism over humanity. If the zombies don't kill us then we will kill ourselves. In the end the only hope for humanity are some bumbling scientist and racist military men stuck in a Florida bunker. Bub also works great in expanding the zombie mythology with his dormant intelligence just waiting to reemerge, he's probably the most sympathetic character too. The fantastic zombie makeup and gore effects help too.

 

Dan works the best with its social commentary, consumerism and all of that. The middle portion just sags a bit. All of the character work is excellent, Ken Foree is a bad ass. The biker gang also works well as another obstacle with their siege on the mall.

 

Land is fun but has its own flaws. I'm still not sure why money is suddenly important again. The gas station zombie is a nice attempt to show the continued evolution of the undead species. It's always nice to see Dennis Hopper.

 

Night is a classic but I don't really enjoy watching it. Because I'm a bad person. The ending is genius.

Night

Dawn

Day

Land

Diary

Survival

 

 

Night has stuck with me like no other film has. I saw it when I was probably five years old and spent the next five years trying to get my parents on board with my zombie emergency planning.

Day

Dawn

Night

 

My introduction to them was when a friend of mine in 4th grade was an extra in Day, and I wasn't able to go that day due to some family thing.  I then watched Dawn and then Night.  I think the order, plus the location of the mines used in day to my house (8 miles) had their influence on my affection for them.  I respect all of them though.  Go figure that I grew up sharing woods with a Camp Crystal Lake too.  

I can't really comment on the Dead series as I haven't seen Land or Survival yet and the others I saw them too long ago to accurately talk about them. I do need to watch all of them one of these days (or rather, years) because I'm sure it'd be nice to watch them all in a short amount of time. I at least was one of the few that say Diary on the big screen, with a small crowd... including a father who brought what looked to be about a 4 year old son with him! Thank goodness the both of them left pretty early on, but what a brilliant parenting decision on that guy's part, bringing a toddler to a Romero zombie film. I did find it to be flawed at times but it was still rather entertaining to watch and the jibes at the YouTube generation worked, at least for me.

 

Even though it was recently mentioned in here as being a poor film, I happened to notice that Mask Maker is on Showtime Showcase so I decided to put it on but have it on mute. I imagine not listening to it and not paying full attention is probably for the best; I also imagine that I saw the best moments already, which is when the hot lead girl walks around in just a tank top and black panties.

 

By the way, the original title of Maskerade is much better; I imagine it was changed when it got put out on DVD, given that on its IMDb page there's a poster with its original title. That sort of thing... sigh. I could rant and rave about how studios interfere with movies no matter which stage of the game it is (even when it comes to releasing something they didn't make) but that'll have to be at another time as it's too late to do that now.

 

Oh, and I imagine there's a real good story behind why Treat Williams agreed to appear in this sort of movie.

 

As for an entire movie I've seen,last week I rewatched The Burning and well, I don't need to plug that film around these parts. It's still a lot of fun, the not as satisfying as it could have been ending aside.

A while back someone posted asking about horror authors to check out. One that I like that is the literary equivalent of eating a bag of Hostess chocolate donettes is Bentley Little. He's a great idea man and he will often take a satirical idea and run with it for the length of a full novel. I don't know how great I would consider his actual written prose though...it can be a bit spotty in places. Also, the underground corporation in CABIN IN THE WOODS reminded me a lot of pure Bentley Little. He does a lot of mixing the mundane white collar worlds with the supernatural.

 

A couple I thought are worth a look for pure escapist, junky fun:

 

THE STORE...a riff on Wal-Marts and big box stores. THE STORE comes to a small Arizona town and slowly begins to take over.

 

THE IGNORED...I found a little of myself in this one at times. Basically about a guy who is so ordinary and so normal, that he becomes ignored by all those around him: his coworkers, his girlfriend, etc.
 

 

Little's novels can be fun, very much like a more playful Stephen King meets Monty Pyton. His The Association is good fun about a sinister Housing Association and The Postman's titular villian is memorable.

 

 

 

BUFFY did it first

So here's a movie about sharks eating people in a flooded grocery store:

 

 

I'm all over this one.  And how bout a shout-out to Shark Night 3-D, for tempering my expectations and setting the bar so insanely low that there's no way this isn't a significant improvement.

That screws with me so bad.  I LOVE shark flicks, but hate what they do to the opinions about sharks.  I'm all for shark conservation and the movies always make it so much harder to convince people they aren't all demon spawns intent of eating babies.  I know I won't be able to hold back, so eventually I will see it.  

 

 

What was the Buffy episode?

 

I've read The Association as well. Just pure junk food. He is pretty terrible at writing dialogue.

To be fair, once Jaws was made it'll take a LOT for people not to think of any sort of shark as anything but a vicious terrifying killer, as ignorant as that thought is. Even great whites shouldn't be villainized  like how they are.

 

As for Bait 3D, besides giggling at the title for several different reasons (including juvenile ones) the idea is so wacky and goofy I actually want to see it. It being Australian and thus being new Ozploitation is also tremendous. I haven't seen Shark Night yet but I should if only to laugh at how mundane it apparently it aside from the preposterous engine that drives the plot and to see if the scene where an African-American male holding and then throwing a spear that looked to be straight out of Africa is as appalling as I've heard it be described.

 

I'd REALLY like to see that film, but at this point, it looks like illegal options are the only ones available.  It was apparently supposed to be released as a Blockbuster Exclusive back in the fall, but it seems that fell through.  It's a shame that those guys will likely have directed four or five more films after it by the time it hits home video.  Same goes for All The Boys Love Mandy Lane.

 

 

It's OK, but nothing special.  West was fired by the studio about 2/3rds of the way through shooting and has disowned the film.  Watch The Roost instead.

 

 

I've been wondering about that one.  West never talks about it and I've always wonder whether it is because he's never asked or he just isn't proud of it.  All accounts point to him finally hitting his stride with House of the Devil though, which I loved.  I really need to see The Innkeepers.

 

 

That sucks.

 

 

It will be interesting to see what George does next and whether or not his finishes his "plan" for the Dead franchise.  Last I read, he wants to make two more.  One about the blonde who escapes in Diary and another about the African-American soldier and his posse.  I think he wants to do one as a noir, but I can't remember the genre for the other.  Anyway...

 

Ranking:

- Dawn

- Night/Day

- Diary

- Land

- Survival

 

Night, Dawn, and Day are fucking classics.  I dug the hell out of Diary as well, which seems to put me in the minority.  I've grown colder on Land as time goes on and never loved it as most seem to, but still really enjoy it.  Survival's goofy tone seems at odds with the rest of the film at times, but I still liked it.  They all really do feel like they belong to different decades in terms of style and commentary (for better or worse).  Night is the 60s, Dawn the 70s, Day the 80s, Land the 90s, and Diary the 00s.  I'm not sure where Survival really falls though.  Perhaps time will tell?

 

I'd like to see George finish the series, but I'd also love to see him direct a few other projects first.  Time and distance can only help in both instances.  The sad thing is that it seems that no one wants to finance any of his non-zombie projects these days.

Also, thanks for recommending Grave Encounters.  I really enjoyed it.  I tossed a bit of info on the impending sequel up on the main site in a catch-all horror article earlier.

 

I also finally sat down and watched The Sentinel.  Not a fan.  Impressive cast and a great ending, but a slog otherwise.

Give me one compelling reason we shouldn't destroy all sharks. Fuck sharks.

 

Arjen, watch a doc called sharkwater.  It's the film responsible for the captain of Whale Wars getting arrested this week.  Beautiful creatures that with the exception of a few species, don't really fuck with us.  

I agree.  I spent a week on a live aboard fishing boat while diving with great whites, and we had Jaws and Jaws 2 on loops in the galley for in between dives.  Love the movie, hate what it did for our ecological system.  

 

I am going to get my hands on a copy of the roost.  I am going to start watching some random pick I did called Urban Explorer.  I'll post back on here later today or tomorrow with an opinion.

 

The One with Clea DuVall, where she so ignored by her peers she turns invisiable

Pirahna 3DD - This is not a good film by any stretch but i did laugh my ass off a few times, its not as skilfully done as Aja's 2010 film and I know it may seem redundant considering its title but the film goes too far in the silliness direction to really qualify as a contender. David Hasselhoff playing himself is the best thing in here...

I thought The Dead was riveting and haunting.  It's just important to remember it is a drama, not a horror.
 

Is there a way to reply to a specific comment and have it appear beneath that comment?  Whenever I have tried using the reply button within someon's comment, mine just appears at the end of the thread, and out of context. 

The best you can do is quote the specific post, like I did yours, and then type your reply.

I think the forums would be a little too confusing if you could place a comment anywhere you wanted in a thread. Just imagine the havoc that would cause to the super threads like the B movie one.


I also like to add that I finally bit the bullet and watched Ghostwatch for the first time and loved every bit of it (I had to resort to watching it off the youtube channel on my Xbox), If only more TV could be like it.

It always amazes me that in the 80 some odd years since Orson Welles's War of the Worlds radio broadcast so few people have had the chutzpah to do their own version of the "live" fictionalized event going wrong.

Just finished Urban Explorers.  Meh.  Not worth it, other than to look at the beautiful Nathalie Kelley.  Cheesy story, bad acting, horrible lighting (overexposed red tint cover up tint way too often), some effects that don't even start on time and an overall lazy film.

 

On the other hand, I got postponed due to a friend handing me a copy of the korean thriller, No Mercy.  I will be putting up a little thing on the movie of the day column.  Not exactly horror, but very close to it.  Not as good as some of the others it mimics, but it was still enjoyable.   Along the same vein as Oldboy and I saw the devil.  

 

I am going to try for another horror film or two before I get lots of non horror loving in laws in town for our coming daughter.  Just please don't mention too much about Inside lol.

Any one out there follow David Wellington' s books?

He started on-line, posting weekly chapters of his novels as he wrote them, which then got put into print as books.

He's big on doing a series on particular horror genres, his first  featured zombies ( Monster Island, Monster Nation, Monster Planet) a grand scope adventure kinda like King's The Stand, with a group on a quest thru a ' world gone off'  landscape.

second was about vampires (5 book series--13 Bullets, 99 Coffins, Vampire Zero, 23 Hours, and the just released 32 Fangs), a determined Cop turned vampire hunter and her nemesis, centuries old  Justinia Malvern.

and then a 2 book werewolf series ( Frostbite and Overwinter). Woman trying to deal with curse, arctic surroundings, weaponized pursuers, old Native American 'spirits'.

His entire Plague Zone novel is still posted on-line to read for free, his only work not yet published as a paper book.

They're all real page turners, the kinda book that's hard to put down. You get to know  the main characters through the continuing stories and quickly find that  no one is safe from sudden demise.  He doesn't follow totally the previous conventions about the creatures, setting up his own mythos within the tales.

His pacing is good, very exciting action sequences, feel your pulse racing periods of tension.

Why no one has made a film out of any of his stuff is beyond me.

I finally saw Hatchet because... well just because.

I never was really much of a gore hound and only appreciated it if there was a good level inventive absurdity like the Evil Dead films or the Dead Alive. I didn't like Hatchet. I understand Adam Green wanted the film to be in the "so bad it's good" category, but personally if I ever found myself in the directors chair I think I'd be aiming for "So good it'd good."

But that may be just me.

Hatchet had its heart in the right place, I suppose, but man did the characters turn me off. The casting for sure (Joel David Moore is just fine playing a weird dork, but that's about it for me. As a smug lead he's unbearable), but I think it was mostly due to the writing. To my taste, comic self awareness in a horror movie has got to be one of the hardest things ever to pull off, especially if the writers aren't all that funny. Might be why I liked Tucker and Dale so much less than everyone else.

 

I've got a bit of a yen to see the sequel, knowing the characters I didn't like are now dead and in their place it features Tony Todd as a voodoo con artist, but truth is I probably still won't like it all that much.

What amazed me is I saw Frozen first, and I really like it.  Thought it did it's story extremely well, and the performances the actors let me think the director had to have a say in it.  I then saw Hatchet, and thought that even though I love stupid horror as well as high concept, it didn't do enough to make me remember it.  The over the top didn't do much because the most the characters were good for was the porn actresses.  Tony Todd's cameo was the best thing in the film.  

 

The second I attempted to see at the theater just because I wanted to support the NC-17 film being shown in large chains.  I drove an hour to see the movie on OW Saturday and found AMC pulled it on Friday.  When I finally saw it, I will say Danielle Harris is great.  She alone elevates the film to something more.  Not a lot, but enough to make it better than the first.  Other than liking her character more than the entire cast of the first one, I only remember crazy amount of gore, most of which was poorly done.

 

Adam Green proved he can make a good film with Frozen.  Time for him to do it again.  

I hated how in Hatchet's marketing and hype they tried to cram it down our throats that a new singular Horror Legend had been created. Also with Freddy, Jason, and Candyman present shows that the creators thought so too. Instead the main villain guy looks like a leftover from the Wrong Turn series with worse makeup.

Well, I guess you have to blame people like Harry Knowles who hyped up the movie that much; it's not like the marketing should ignore such grandiose statements being made, even if many say that those statements are inaccurate.

 

I recently talked about those three big Adam Green movies but I'll mention that now he's doing Holliston, a sitcom that happens to be horror-related; it's on FearNet and there's going to be a second season. I haven't watched a second of it so I can't vouch for it. However, starting real soon for him is... Hatchet 3. I know that won't make too many people around here happy, and I also wish he would do more movies like Frozen and less nonsense like Hatchet.

jahosive, Green's Spiral is probably more up your alley.  Not as good as Frozen, but you should check it out at some point.

 

I loved Frozen, liked Spiral, and enjoyed Hatchet to a certain degree.  I pretty much hated Hatchet 2 though.  It committed the greatest sin any horror movie can.  It was boring.  That film was an absolute slog to get through, despite the fact that I like a lot of the cast.

 

BTW, Adam Green is not directing Hatchet 3.  He's only writing and producing.  No word on what Green has lined up to direct next, but I hope it is more in line with Frozen in terms of quality.

I always forget he did that, but I did see it and I did like it.  I have a thing for Amber Tamblyn.  I also wanted to see if it was similar to the 2000 Japanese spiral, aka Uzimaki, which it wasn't really.  I think you saying boring for Hatchet 2 was my opinion other than Danielle Harris.  I guess that's why I don't remember a damn thing other than the bloody commercials, the NC-17 hype and Harris.  The rest wasn't worth it.  You like the original more than I do.  I watched it twice.  Once when it first hit video, a bunch of friends that love horror came over and we put it on, and found in room conversation much more appealing, plus a alcohol was involved.  I didn't remember much of it, other than losing interest, so I rewatched right before watching the sequel (and having seen and associated Frozen with Green).  Still found uninteresting, but I saw the sequel.  Guess I love punishment.

 

I'm going to try to catch his comedy show, Holliston, but it's not gonna have high priority.  

 

In the meantime, I keep picking stuff off here I haven't seen and trying to get to it.  Next up, Isolation starting now.

Hatchet II: Worse than Chinese Burns?

 

Boo-urns.

 

Kind of excited to hear your thoughts on this one.

I only got through 20 min before work (I was even going to hijack the Amazon Prime streaming to watch at work ssshhhhhh), but had to turn it off.  I am doing my best to watch every bad birthing pregnancy type film right now, as my wife is ready to drop our kid any day now.  I watched Inside for the first time 2 weeks ago, and was at the end of the cow scene when she woke this morning.  I'll get to watch the rest when I go to bed tonight.

 

In other more horrifying news, I was forced to sit through the scariest movie of the season this weekend.  Don't see What to Expect When Expecting.  You will never be able to erase that horror from your minds.

Isolation, truly an ignored gem. Watching that stupid ass Sci Fi channel movie he did you have to wonder what on earth happened to the director.
 

Watched STREET TRASH earlier this eve. Didn't expect it to have such a thin story but it's surprisingly badass for something that was made in the 80's.

jahosive, I did the exact same thing when my wife was pregnant with our first.

 

 

Paycheck cashing, I assume.  He finally has a "real" feature gearing up to shoot later this year.  It's a sci-fi thriller called Creeping Zero and John Boyega is in the lead.  I'm looking forward to it.

ISOLATION was a pleasant surprise.

 

MOTH DIARIES, from the director of AMERICAN PSYCHO, was an unpleasant surprise. To be fair, it really isn't even much of horror movie. Trying to be a psychological suspense film, but has a problem with redundancy due to the completely thin level of plot.

 

and to think the director went to become one of the most sought after cinematographer's.  Esp a stedicam operator.  Check his credits out.  It's unreal.   You see that in Street Trash - It's very stylish.

 

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0614013/#Cinematographer

 

Yeah, that is technically true.

 

I know from listening to a podcast a few months ago that he's writing a movie called Killer Pizza. It's about a young teenager who works at a pizza parlor that's actually a group that hunts monsters. OK then. I have no idea how that'll be but hopefully it's a better monster/kids film than Super 8 (sorry, that film ultimately disappointed me) and it's more like Attack the Block. It happens to have a famous producer attached to it: Chris Columbus.

 

From looking at his IMDb page, he's directing/writing a documentary called Digging Up the Marrow. The plot description is: A documentary exploring genre based monster art and the realities from which artists create their fantastical creatures.

Isolation was definitely a great surprise.  The monster effects kind of showed the budget, but almost nothing else did.  The farm made a great single location and created so many unique machines to use.  The acting was on par for low budget horror, but I would compare it to contagion mashed with The Thing.  Excellent low budget horror and a great find thanks to this thread. 

 

I will next be watching two other films I purposely avoided but have thought twice about many times, the [Rec]s.  I really don't like found footage, but Chronicle and V/H/S have convinced me they aren't all bad.  V/H/S still being my favorite movie of the year.  I'm going against my grain of preference, and they may take time for me to watch as my wife will soon be home bound, and as a native Spanish speaker, this will be worse for her.  

The case for COLD PREY:

 

http://badassdigest.com/2012/05/22/collins-crypt-movies-i-love-cold-prey-fritt-vilt/

I just finished Human Centipede II (Unrated).  To me, it wasn't much in the vein of horror, but it's not too far behind Serbian Film in terms of raw graphic violence.  Especially to the infants.  Holy Hell, that was everything I thought the first was going to be and more.  Needless to say, I had more fun with this one than the first, but still not great films.  No characterization, period.  

 

I think I have officially hit almost every bad pregnancy/baby movie I could in a short time, and half without trying.  The only purposeful one was Inside.  I then proceeded to watch Isolation, Orca (Talk on here got me wanting to see it again), and Human Centipede II.  I saw Serbian film a while ago, and don't need to go there again.  Even the Venezuelan action/thriller(La Hora Cero)I saw had a crazy birth and after effect int it too.  In fact, I don't need any more birth nightmares.  Now I am really off to [Rec] next.

I really liked [Rec], but absolutely loved [Rec] 2.  I'm definitely looking forward to the upcoming prequel and sequel.

 

Interesting; I'm pretty much flip-flopped.  I thought the first HC was wonderfully restrained.  Conceptually, its sick and twisted but Tom Six forces your imagination do a lot of the heavy lifting and I think its a more effective horror movie for it.  It also has the benefit of Dieter Laser's downright iconic performance.  While I dig some of the meta aspects of HC II, it ultimately became an endurance test for me, and the well-staged tension and calculated nastiness of the first film quickly devolved into a steady stream of escalating gross-outs.  I really like Six as a director, and I know a third entry is in the works, but I'm more excited to see him move on to something else.

I will second the move for six and look  forward more to his project after HC3 more than HC3.  I think the first one kind of stuck too much in limbo for me, caught between exploitation and horror.  I enjoyed it, but felt disconnected.  Every time the tension seemed to build, Six would fizzle out to me or go into the safe exploitation.  I haven't seen it since shortly after it's release, but I distinctly remember the disconnect.  I loved Laser's performance though, and he was definitely more "scary" than the guy from the second.  I also thought 2 was an endurance test, but it was so over the top and the goofy psycho gave it such a strange feel that to me kept my interest better.  I don't think it's a better film, I just think it was more fun.

HC2 is definitely more fun than the first one. But I also feel bad for the first film. It gets a lot of flack because of the mountainous buzz it fostered, which inevitably led to a blacklash and made the film a bit disappointing. I feel like if no one had heard of it, and people were just discovering it on Instant Watch or wherever, everyone would be jerking it off. It doesn't stand up well to the microscope, to be sure, but that's not really its fault.

Found a copy of When A Stranger Calls Back on Half.com for a decent price, due to the talk of it on here. That dvd is EXPENSIVE. Anyway, the first 26 minutes were pretty damn great. I'll even go so far as to say they're better than the opening to the first film. I like the new twist on the "Caller", and the end sequence in the apartment is tense and the reveal of the killer is chilling. It's a very well made tv movie.