Horror RECOMMENDATION or WARNING thread. - Page 93

 

Have not seen FROM BEYOND yet, but the film that's given me the Lovecraftiest feeling remains IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS.

I completely forgot that Dagon was Stuart Gordon.

Yeah, DAGON is Gordon and Yuzna again. They just can't stay away from Lovecraft! Despite its title, it is an adaptation of "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" and not "Dagon." Isn't as good as FROM BEYOND or RE-ANIMATOR, but it is under-appreciated I'd say. Got some great weird shit in it. And a very nasty flaying scene. Its biggest problem is that the lead is kind of annoying and unlikable. I think Yuzna and Gordon should have made it a clean trilogy and cast Combs.

So I've always liked the idea of drive-in movie theaters...the ones that show drive-in quality films. We have a drive-in where I live and I'm sad to say last summer was the first time I'd ever been to it. They play first-run material so going there was never on the top of my list. They are not opening this season however. I've had the idea to do my own "backyard" theater for awhile- where I could screen the kind of movies I would like to see at the drive-in. I finally started exploring it some and recently jumped in. There's some detail in the home theater thread in the Chewer Tech forum:

http://www.chud.com/community/t/114264/the-home-theatre-thread/100#post_3341119

As far as horror films go, I've watched "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" and "Humanoids from the Deep" (and to a lesser extent in terms of horror, "Jurassic Park"). DBAotD was out there on Netflix and I was already burning the midnight oil on my first night with the new setup, so I went ahead and gave it a watch. Humanoids was definitely open-air worthy. Jurassic Park too.

Part of the idea was to be able to enjoy movies with my family and guests outside with age-appropriate material. Probably your typical fare. The other part of me looks forward to going through Netflix Instant's catalog of b-movies. Most of which I probably wouldn't watch inside under "normal" viewing conditions. Being outdoors and watching on a huge screen really does add something to the experience.

This post may be a little off-topic but I'm sure I'll be using it as a reference and I will say this: Humanoids was sufficiently gory with plenty of t&a, but typical. It played well outside though. DBAotD, while not great, also played well outside.

Hell, tonight, even though it's a Tuesday, is going to be a nice night weather-wise. I may lug the projector, AVR, 360 and a couple of speakers out and find something bad to watch :)

Cast a Deadly Spell is pretty excellent Lovecraft. There was an article on it here not too long ago. It's a shockingly good Philip Marlowe/Lovecraft mash up, before anyone made mash ups.

Agreed. I in fact wrote one of those articles. But I'm curious to check out more proper adaptations (now that I just got the complete Lovecraft for 99 cents on Kindle). Not that any of the adaptations are particularly similar to the stories. It's kinda funny where Gordon took FROM BEYOND.

I've heard decent things about The Dunwich Horror adaptation, I'd have to think that the Corman/Price The Haunted Palace has to at least be watchable, and I certainly like the HPLHS' productions of Call of Cthulhu and Whisperer in Darkness, but Lovecraft really hasn't been served well by direct adaptations outside of Stuart Gordon.

 

Indirectly, I recommend The Quatermass Xperiment and "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill" from Creepshow which is pretty clearly a riff on The Colour out of Space.

Heh, it's not apropos of Lovecraft, but 'Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill' always reminds me King saying how ironic it was that the guy who drove into him was basically one of his characters. 

Nice coincidence, as I just recently bought and watched From Beyond (which I've not seen in since I was a child and couldn't really remember). It's good, but it has serious pacing problems and oddly enough, due to some lackluster sets and uninspired staging, often looks cheaper than Re-Animator, despite costing millions of dollars more. Combs is good, as he always is, Ted Sorel as Edward Pretorius (love the reference as I am an unabashed Thesiger lover) is fine, but his character often feels too similar to that of David Gale's in the aforementioned Re-Animator, Ken Foree is wasted as the "voice of reason", and though Barbara Crampton's range at playing the female inversion of the classic Lovecraft "seeker of forbidden knowledge" is kind of not all there, because she is, almost effortlessly, an incredibly sensual presence, that side of her transformation is really effective.

 

 

I wouldn't bother. I've seen positive comments for Grave Encounters here and there, and I don't really get why. It's just a bad movie. And that's from someone who will watch any old found footage crap.

 

I wouldn't disagree that there is a similarity, but I think the two are different in respect to the nature of their films. Gale is more of a haughty douche, to fit the academic setting of the film. Sorel seems far more deranged and obsessed. Pretorius isn't after power or prestige. It is more personal and hedonistic.

 

It is funny about the budget though. I think it has everything to do with the setting. RE-ANIMATOR is small comparatively with the FX. But its story spans a greater series of locations and characters. FROM BEYOND is about three people in a house. Its scope is narrower.

If you can find it.

 

Indeed.The lack of locations and Gordon's not terribly dynamic setups create, I think, an unintentional claustrophobia. Pretty much all of the non-SFX, dialogue scenes are something of a snooze.

Tonite at midnight on HDNMV: Arachnophobia. Pretty great for what it is, a creepy B movie, deftly mixing comedy and horror. With apologies to William Shatner, it stands as the definitive spider movie. I know I'm not alone in loving it, am I?

Thank you! I though I was alone. Found it to be the usual mediocre-bad found footage fare (and I'm like you when it comes to this subgenre) but then a lot of people started praising it. I'll give it this: impossible, shifting floor plan/geography is a cool idea to incorporate into the found footage context, I just wish it was used in a better film.

Just saw The Dark Half on Netflix for the first time in twenty years. Remembered nothing about it, and for the first half hour or so, I thought it might be a forgotten gem. It's the absolute Stephen King-iest of all Stephen King adaptations, and even though the premise is quite a bit insider baseball, it's got some fun stuff with sparrows and eyeball tumors and a veritable clown car of stock Stephen King supporting characters, from the sleazeball blackmailer to the affected New England bumpkin to the heroic small town sheriff to the hippy reporter and on and on. The build up is good, and it sets up some nice Jekyll and Hyde red herring stuff along the way. But then it gets long and slow, and just sort of plays out. Timothy Hutton ends up being a fairly unsympathetic lead, and appears to be having absolutely zero fun in his duel role as the redneck villain. So what started as something as passably enjoyable as Secret Window or Needful Things ended up closer to the rote blahness of Thinner. Still, it's got an interesting good guy performance by Michael Rooker (back when he could play a normal person), and Amy Madigan is kinda cute in it, which stands as chilling evidence of just how old we're all getting. I remembered it being a very gory film, and a couple of decent gags notwithstanding, it doesn't quite go as far as it needs to. Still, an ok nostalgic trip.

I joked that showing the kids Arachnophobia would be worse than showing them Jurassic Park. While that may be true, I'm still glad they fell asleep 20 minutes into JP. My daughter was already having fits re: the bull and then seeing them put the goat out to lure the T-Rex.

 

Arachnophobia is creepy and entertaining. It might make a good outdoors double-bill with Eight Legged Freaks (which I haven't seen since it was released 10 years ago- I don't remember if it's any good at all).

Arachnophobia is much much better than Eight Legged Freaks. Ah, for the days when a Jeff Daniels and Harley Jane Kozak pairing could be the lead couple in a studio monster movie.

 

How is the Paul Schrader-directed, Dennis Hopper-starring sequel:  Witch Hunt?

 

 

I haven't seen Gordon's Castle Freak (based on Lovecraft's "The Outsider"), but I've heard good things.  The silent film-style version of The Call of Cthulhu is great, if you haven't seen it.  The Resurrected is pretty decent.  The Unnameable is terrible though.  Obviously Fulci's more offbeat horror offerings (City of the Living Dead, The Beyond, House by the Cemetery, Manhattan Baby) are extremely Lovecraftian, but I'm assuming you have seen and/or own them.

 

Gordon has been trying to get an adaptation of The Thing On The Doorstep off the ground for a couple years, but hasn't seemed to luck out just yet.  Here's hoping he doesn't give up.

 

 

Fixed that for you.

 

 

Agreed.  I love Arachnophobia!  It hits Blu later this year, by the way.

ARACHNOPHOBIA is kind of the last hurrah from Spielberg's 80's producing hot-streak. Holds up great.

 

I rewatched EIGHT LEGGED FREAKS recently to give it a second shot and once again I didn't care for it. I comes close, but I really don't like how they handled the spiders. All the Frank Welker creature sound work they did completely kills the movie for me. It just becomes TOO silly and cartoony.

The goofiness of EIGHT LEGGED FREAKS works for me. it's a charming B throwback. And how many times do we get a not annoying David Arquette? Essential Doug E. Doug.

 

Never thought I'd read that in any context.

Mr. Plissken, Witch Hunt is great fun, if you enjoyed CaDS you'll dig this. Decent practical effects, Hopper actually acting and a generally funny, well written screenplay. It does have Penelope Anne Miller, but hey, no film is perfect. Except Re-Animator, of course. 

Witch Hunt has some fun ideas, and the villains are played by Eric Bogosian and Julian Sands, so that's cool. Dennis Hopper is a poor substitute for Fred Ward, I'm afraid, at least as a protagonist. I've seen it a lot less than Cast a Deadly Spell, which I owned on VHS, like a champ. If someone put those out on a nice BluRay two pack, I'd snap that right the hell up.

Watched the 1972 Hammer film, Vampire Circus last night, outdoors, under a clear sky with a nice little fire going. For some strange reason IMDB, Netflix and Rotten Tomatoes all have this film listed as PG. While I've been wanting to see it (because I'm a sucker for horror films that involve the circus), I almost passed on it last night because of the rating.

The film opens with a boatload of T&A and violence. It was obvious the PG rating was way, way wrong. Especially mid-way through the film when the tiger tamer does an interesting interpretive number with a girl wearing only body paint. Basic Instinct's got nothin' on this movie.

The cinematography is quite good. The vampires are sufficiently nasty sporting HUGE fangs. Several kids bite it. It's a pretty gnarly film. I was surprised. During one pretty tense moment a deer snorted, loudly nearby. The hair on the back of my neck... hell, on my whole head... stood up. Good stuff.

 

For fans of Star Wars, it also features David Prowse, 6 years prior to his role as Vader.

Amazon has it listed as Unrated. I believe that rating is correct.

Recommended!

Edited by whiskaz - 6/15/12 at 8:02am

 

You had me at "boatload of T&A".

Love Vampire Circus, one of Hammer's best late-period movies. Makes a great double feature with Twins of Evil or Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter.

Right now I'm watching Horrors of the Black Museum, which opens with the old spiked binoculars arriving in the mail gag. Great stuff. Later - Psychomania, my favourite suicidal biker/toad worshipping movie of all time.

Tonite on TCM: HAUSU Freaky, weird, and wonderful. If you haven't seen it, don't miss it tonight.

"We Need to Talk About Kevin"......jeez louise, I really can't remember watching another movie that tries this hard (and succeeds) in making me physically uncomfortable. Everything about the editing, sound, music, cinematography was brilliant. I shifted in my seat dozens of times, and all because of a little kid with terrible teeth. I thought this movie was bone-chillingly fantastic, but I'll never, ever watch it again. Bravo to this cast and filmmaker. Bravo.

 

Plus, Kari Wuher and Scarlett Johansson playing mother and daughter! It isn't in the same league as Tremors or Gremlins, but Freaks works better than it has any right to.

As far as Lovecraft goes, I recently saw The Resurrected on Netflix Instant and loved it. It's an adaptation of "The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward" and while I haven't read the story, I've read about it, and it seems to be a pretty faithful take on the book. Chris Sarandon does a great job in the film too.

 

 

Arachnophobia. LOVE that movie. Ever since seeing it as a kid in the theater. I've got the dvd, but I'll most certainly upgrade for the Blu-ray.

 

 

More love for Vampire Circus here. Got it cheap from Deep Discount in December and hadn't seen it, but it turned out to be a solid blind buy.

I was reading Final Girl's (a great blog you should check out) mixed review of the indie Horror flick EVIL THINGS, and it was just positive enough to make me want to seek it out. Any of you guys seen it?

 

http://finalgirl.blogspot.com/2011/06/exhibit.html

We talked about Evil Things a page or so ago and agreed it's probably not worth your time. It's pretty much the living definiation of a two star horror movie.

 

 

I wouldnt even say it was a two star movie....Its found footage that completely forgets from the very beginning that its supposed to be found footage so there is an orchestral score and footage filmed by someone outside of the main group of annoying teenagers that doesnt even make sense if its supposed to be footage found by the FBI.

 

There is also a classic moment where the teens are lost in the woods and start to freak out, they seriously debate eating each other and then it turns out they are a mere two minute walk from their doorstep. It has to be seen to be believed!

 

so yeah half a star...

I was probably being generous because the movie did have a bit of atmostphere, thou I completely concede that your points are on the button. I'd only give 1/2* ratings to truely terrible bores like Fingerprints or Gamer.

glad to read someone else found that film stupidly charming

glad to see someone else found this film stupidly charming...

I'm going to show Piranha 3DD outside tonight on the big screen with a few friends and a 6 pack. I'm not expecting much. Hopefully the drive-in atmosphere elevates the film's perceived quality some. The feedback on it sure has been bad.

Even though it's a work-night, I would like to do a double-bill since Piranha has a short running time. I need something with a similar running time that's worth staying up for. Suggestions?

I went back in the thread a few pages when the topic was found footage. I gave Noroi: The Curse a watch several months ago. I was expecting more but it had some genuinely creepy moments. I watched it on my phone, in bed, in the dark, with headphones on. During the last 10 minutes when things are starting to pick up some (and I was fighting sleep), my low battery ALARM blasted through my headphones. Holy-shit-my-pants-jump-scare, Batman. I almost fell out of bed. Unfortunately, that was probably the scariest moment of the whole film for me. There were a few chill-up-the-spin inducing moments though.

Watching The Living Dead At The Manchester Morgue. First saw it back in 2008 on dvd under the title Let Sleeping Corpses Lie. It's a pretty good zombie film that doesn't really follow the "traditional" zombie tropes. Very atmospheric and creepy. I've got the Blu-ray and it looks really good. Check it out if you haven't seen it. It's worth your time.

All I can figure about Piranha 3DD's horrible feedback is that expectations must have been really high and if you go in with LOW expectations and maybe a little drunk, it's not a bad way to spend 70 minutes. Honestly, aside from being a piece of nostalgia, the original Piranha is dull in comparison to both Aja and Gulager's films. That said, Piranha 3DD didn't really earn the "Double the action. Double the terror. Double the D's." tagline. There's plenty of violence and t&a but I don't think it topped the 2010 film. I enjoyed the nod to a classic scene from another man-eating fish film- it wasn't subtle but the way it was done (and maybe being on beer #4 or 5) worked for me.

 

I also really dig this poster:

http://www.impawards.com/2012/piranha_3dd_ver2.html

I went in with low expectations and still hated Piranha 3DD.  Its a horrible unfunny piece of shit that tries way too hard.  

I loved the first Piranha, but once I saw Hasslehoff in the trailer I pretty much checked out right there and then.

Any of you guys seen THERE'S NOTHING OUT THERE?

 

From Brian Collins' "Badass Digest" write up:

 

"The film was released years before Scream, but contains the same sort of meta/referential humor that Craven's film was much lauded for. However it's not a slasher; the film has more of an Evil Dead vibe, depicting a group of pals driving to an isolated cabin in the woods (the timing of this screening is not coincidental) and being besieged by a frog like monster. Cliches are mocked and then embraced, the female characters disrobe for comedic pleasure, and we finally learn the difference between a cabin by the lake and a house by the pond. And the boom mike makes the best cameo in film history."

 

I'm gonna watch it tonite on Amazon Instant.

Edited by Fat Elvis - 6/20/12 at 4:54pm

 

Really recommend this one, folks.

 

Up next: finally getting to Lucky McKee's THE WOMAN

Watched an interesting British Horror movie on Instant SPLINTERED.

 

Plot: a group of teens go exploring in an isolated woods, looking to get documented/photographed proof of a mythological creature. When they stumble on an abandoned estate that was formally an orphanage, they meet a deranged former resident and the prowling creature that may be a werewolf.

 

Verdict: plot twist is a bit of a buzz kill (in fact the whole last third is), but for the most part a very effective, atmospheric film. During parts of the film, there's a palpable sense of dread. Considering the low budget, props due. However, attempt at being a Freudian fairytale not quite successful. Messy as it is, worth a look.

Just caught Disco Exorcist. It's appropriately mock-Grindhouse-y, but it's less of a horror thing than it is a soft-core porno. There's some decent gore near the end, and the choppy seventies aesthetics are sound. I guess if you still have a tolerance for those fake throwbacks, then go for it.

 

Netflix just sent me DEMONS 2. Never saw any movies in the series beyond the first one, are any of the Demons sequels any good?

Browsing the backpages of the "Final Girl" blog, I stumbled upon this defense of Tobe Hooper's underrated THE FUNHOUSE:

 

http://finalgirl.blogspot.com/2010/11/film-club-funhouse.html

Kim Morgan's Top 20 Horror Films

 

http://finalgirl.blogspot.com/2010/10/shocktober-kim-morgans-top-20.html

 

Richard Harland Smith's Top 20

 

http://finalgirl.blogspot.com/2010/10/shocktober-richard-harland-smiths-top.html

 

John Kenneth Muir's Top 20

 

http://finalgirl.blogspot.com/2010/10/shocktober-john-kenneth-muirs-top-20.html

Edited by Fat Elvis - 6/24/12 at 5:33pm

 

Love Kim, and it was the only entry I read, but she spoils the hell out of Don't Look Now. 

Have any of you guysl seen IN MEMORIUM? It's been in a few places compared favorably to PARANORMAL ACTIVITY.