Horror RECOMMENDATION or WARNING thread. - Page 111

How come the ghosts that kill people never get haunted by the ghosts of the people they kill? Or more like afterlife revenge? I think that would make a great Cabin in the Woods/Scream/Behind the Mask style take on the haunted house genres.
 

 

 

They touch on that a little in the first season of American Horror Story

Boils and Ghouls, stay the hell away from the recent wide release ghost story The Pact. It genuinely had the single worst third act twist I've seen in recent memory. Ruined what was a reasonable ghostly thriller up until that point.

Damn. I really enjoyed The Pact.

Heh, I noticed you mentioned the reveal as a moment of the year in that thread. I had exactly the opposite reaction. A really angry reaction as well.

Oh well. Then again, I also liked Lovely Molly and I've yet to meet anyone else who felt the same way.

 

I am all aloooooooone!

Don't worry Saxon, I liked both, especially LOVELY MOLLY.

And I think without that particular plot development THE PACT is fine but pretty run of the mill. Not that it launches the movie into the stratosphere or anything but it distinguishes it a bit.

*Hugs Dan Benenson*

 

Hurrah! I feel vindicated!

 

Oh I agree completely The Pact was nothing extraordinary prior to the reveal. But I had a Lost finale type reaction to the reveal.

 

I also saw A Serbian Film this weekend for the first time, and felt that was just a bit of a bore, so at least I'll remember TP long after ASF has faded from memory :).

In case anyone missed this on the main page: http://www.chud.com/118318/andrew-trauckis-newest-killer-animal-horror/

 

I'm eager to see the film. THE REEF really took me by surprise.

Speaking of Andrew Trauckis, I just found this incredibly freaky detailed account of the true story that BLACK WATER is based on: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/jan/19/weekend.barbaramcmahon

I saw the Collection last night.  May try to write a blog entry about it, but overall I don't see the festival hype it was getting.  I will say it took the problems most people had with the first film and worked hard to erase them from the sequel.   Even so it still remains a strange marriage between torure porn and slasher, while invoking the law of predictability. In other words better than the first but still a shell of the movies it pulls from.

 

Hey! He's my very old CHUD review for that movie.

 

Still need to check out The Reef.

I saw THE COLLECTION at a festival and really didn't get everyone else's reaction either. I thought the first film was better, and that was very so-so itself.

I actually liked THE COLLECTOR a lot, which, believe me, was a big surprise. Perhaps that was purely anomalous, but I'm looking forward to the sequel. At the very least it seems like they've amped up the giallo-esque visuals.
Edited by Dan Benenson - 11/29/12 at 1:31pm

THE COLLECTOR was very well done. I respected that aspect of it a lot.

I really want to see The Collection. I very much enjoyed both The Collector and Home Alone.

So on my recent bout with the flu I saw Trollhunter and Frontiere(s).  I liked both, frankly.  The found footage thing is really irritating but Trollhunter was so fun, and the trolls so cool.  And Frontiere(s) was insane, over the top, crazy awesomeness.   My only complaint was the final shot, which made no sense, but the rest was great.  I've got a trial of Amazon Prime, which has a ton of movies, but I'll probably stick with Netflix.
 

I really liked Frontiere(s) too. I saw it back-to-back with Martyrs and was convinced that French horror was now the new J-horror, and that my shelves would soon be swollen under stacks of great French horror movies. Alas, things didn't turn out that way. Both Inside and Livide were okay but lacked something, and I haven't seen any other French horror movies.

 

I'll have to check out Trollhunter at some point. Keep hearing good things about it.

 

I didn't see Lifeforce for the first time until two years ago and I absolutely love it.  Mathilda May nude or not, it's a solid flick in my eyes.

 

 

I'd love something like that.

 

 

Yeah, same here.  Going to try and give it a go this weekend.

 

 

I love Lifeforce a lot. I REALLY want this poster.

 

 

 

 

 

Had that been the poster for the U.S. release, this film would have made dump truck loads of cash, AND provided lots of guys with masturbation material. Total win-win there.

 

Yes, between those and Haute Tension, for a while there it seemed like there was a French horror renaissance. 

I watched GRABBERS this week. Neat little Irish monster movie comedy. Features Russell Tovey from UK Being Human. Good CGI critters. Don't confuse the title to TREMORS, these things look like the octo-thingie in PROMETHEUS, but nastier. They don't like human heads, they spit them out at the next victim.

As far as recent French horror, one of my favorites was Les Revants, which is about zombies who return from the dead but try to re-assimilate into society. Not really scary, it's more social-issue horror, but immensely interesting for the academic horror fan.

In 10 minutes: THE TWONKY!

 

(On TCM)

I also like that one a lot. English title is THEY CAME BACK, for anyone interested.

Also on the more cerebral side compared to the likes of HIGH TENSION, I think IN MY SKIN is underappreciated. Keen psychological portraiture/social commentary with bodily mutilation as viscerally disturbing as INSIDE or even Cronenberg.

I caught Joe Dante's "The Hole," which was a disappointment. The elements were all there, but the spark was missing.

Oh, god, this was HORRIFYING. Really unforgettable, fucked-up movie.

 

Marina De Van went on to do that movie where Sophie Marceau morphs into Monica Bellucci. I haven't seen it, but isn't the title "Every Man In The World High fives Simultaneously"?

I've been meaning to watch that. It's been in my Netflix instant queue forever.

Yeah, THE COLLECTION sucks, primarily because it's so short and quickly paced it's impossible for it to build any atmosphere, suspense, or serviceable characterizations. It feels like the second half of a movie. Hell, it feels like it's just the last act of one. Just a frantic rush through a series of events. Also there's only one sequence and maybe a few fleeting moments that approach the style of its predecessor, let alone a giallo.

Revisited The Roost earlier. Only thought it was ok the first time I saw it last summer, but now seeing it again, and this time with a home theater set up, well, what a difference time, and a home theater setup makes. The music pulses through the speakers, and is unsettling. The film is still too slow in some parts, but I was more receptive to it this time, and it does feel like a movie from around 1986 or so that airs after midnight. The grainy film stock, and the minimal use of stage lights helps the film.

Les Revenants is haunting and clever. I really liked it.

 

I just finished The Pact on NF instant. It's equal parts surprisingly creepy and outright unintentionally funny, made even more so by the presence of a grizzled Casper Van Dien. If you can overlook that it's basically a 90 minute riff on a famous Treehouse of Horror episode (with one of the weirdest and most awkward "clairvoyant lady tries to clear a house" scenes ever), it's worth a look. There's some effective nightmare imagery here.

I saw that The Pact is on NF and will probably watch it soon.  Thanks for the warning.
 

 

 

I just watched this and it had a lot of elements I liked all tied together, not completely always successfully, the storytelling was a little bit all over the place.  But overall I thought it was a good, scrappy little ghost story movie.  I thought the lead girl was good (reminded me a lot of Gillian Anderson), and the clairvoyant lady was awesome!  Some of the stuff with her seemed a little weird for its own sake, but it was still fun.  When did Casper Van Dien become the poor man's Michael Biehn?  Anyway, I recommend it.  It's not going to set the world on fire, and a lot of revelations are telegraphed pretty far in advance, but I jumped a couple of times, and I totally applaud the filmmakers for making the most of what they had to work with.  You don't need a huge budget to make a scary movie. 

Oh god, when her boyfriend/pimp/whatever WHOMPS the lead girl, I nearly lost it.

 

that is one POOR motherfucker

 

I thought it was maybe her dad?  And the weird hangout, and her makeup.  And the "Don't touch her!"  Hilarious.

 

So, Trevor...

 

Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)

 

Seconded. I liked the pacing of the first film. Not that a sequel can't change the pacing and tone (ie, ALIENS), but it did not work for me here. I will say this though, THE COLLECTION actually made me like THE COLLECTOR a lot more. Made me appreciate its stylistic choices.

There was a post on here some time ago in which a Chewer talked about upcoming horror movies which had piqued their interest (with, I think, trailers for some of them). I can't seem to find it but I rememeber one of the movies involved a guy who was visited by a debt collector and was (I think) forced to do something terrible in order to pay off their debts. I have a strong feeling that it may have been British, unless my memory of the trailer is deceiving me (which, unfortunately, it does frequently do). Does this movie sound in any way familiar to anyone? What the hell was it called?

As a matter of fact I think THE COLLECTION is a perfect example of how/when not to do the ALIENS thing (which can totally work, though never quite as well as it did in ALIENS)

And I agree about the pace and style of the first. It's not a masterpiece, but the SAW aesthetics are dialled way down so that the film actually looks cool and has atmosphere, the more deliberate pace lets you get to know the lead more - he's not a particularly deep or complex character but at least he's well done enough that you understand his motives and care a bit. The pace also allows the film to build more suspense. It's more like one long cat and mouse game, where the sequel is like a shitty carnival spookhouse you're being rushed through because it's about to close.

Stake Land is up on Netflix Instant.  Really dug it.  They won me over with the world building alone; I'd love to spend more time in this universe, though not necessarily with these characters.  I thought the third act got a bit silly in a Jaws: The Revenge / 28 Weeks Later kind of way, but not enough to hurt my overall opinion.  Very very solid.    

 

Yeah, the world building in this is second to none in the tier of lower budget material. The only mistep I felt was the 'big boss' battle at the end, seemed far too Video Game for my tastes, and clashed rather badly with the tone of the film.

Yeah, that's what I understood, too.

Finally caught THE PROWLER. I have to say, that apart from a couple of neat special effects I really didn't enjoy it. There are a myriad of issues, but the worst offender is the pacing. The film could probably be edited down to 30 minutes without losing anything.

 

Me too. I know it was plugged heavily online by the Twitter account that usually plugs the Paranormal Activity films (I know, I know) but it ended up being a real limited release by Paramount so of course it didn't come near Orlando at all. I know it's out on DVD so I will have to give that a rental eventually.

 

 

I got that back in August and yeah just giving it a spin in my portable Blu-Ray player the picture looks tremendous.

 

 

That poor bastard. Intruders looked interesting from the trailers but I never saw it; I later heard on a podcast that the movie was not only easy to predict, but there were plenty of goofy moments that sounded like they did not work at all. That's a shame as I was hoping for better from that.

 

 

Ha, the Mexican Santa Claus film from the late 50's that was shown on an episode of MST3K. I saw the original version once and yeah it was quite the strange mindtrip of a film that was meant for kids.
 

In a little bit on an HD pay cable channel will be A Lonely Place To Die, a movie I remember being talked about here before and strong praise was given to it. It sounds like something I could enjoy, for sure.

 

That seems fair. I mean, I just finished watching it and I am not even quite sure how to rate it overall. I definitely enjoyed the first half with the scenery, the thrilling mountain climbing footage, the scariness of the whole situation, and all that. But when more characters are introduced in the second half and you have things become real confused at times (at least for me) and you have the village stuff and why there's a Wicker Man festival going on in the middle of a middle of nowhere Scottish village, cripes if I know...

 

It's a shame, as if the second half wouldn't have been so muddled, or if the village stuff wouldn't have had so many preposterous things, or if there would have been a few less characters around to muck up things, or even if the second half would have been more similar to the first half, then I might have rated it comparable to another recent British thriller/horror film, The Descent. Yep. I didn't hate the movie by any means; I just really wish some things would have been done better or different, then I'd rave about it like the majority of those who have commented on it in this thread. A shame, as even in that second half there were things I definitely enjoyed.

I just saw the Mondo Macabro release of "Seven Women For Satan." Oh, God, this is a must. Sleazy and creepy as hell. The first scene is a four minute sequence of a dude on a horse chasing and whipping a naked woman as she runs away through the forest and then dies. It then cuts to him at his desk, staring off into space. "Oh, sorry, I was distracted for a moment." It just gets sillier and bloodier from there. Well worth it.

Anyone else notice The Pact's unhealthy obsession with Dr. Pepper? I thought it was funny that the soft drink kept on showing up. I guess it's the only soda that exists in that world, there is even a vending machine that if you looked closely had Dr. Pepper and Diet Dr. Pepper as all the choices.

I liked the movie by the way. it moves fast for such a simple story and definitely doesn't overstay it's welcome. Thanks for pointing it out.