The All Purpose Horror Film Thread

Until Dan's genius brings the horror fans out of their holes and back into this forum, I thought maybe we should have one thread for general horror film arguing. It might work - let's give it a go.

In celebration of CC's new start I watched these films over the weekend (small spoilers if you haven't seen them):

The Crazies - Really bloody great, actually. It looks like 70's tv, but the editing and sound design are still very effective. The acting varies from cheesy to amatuerish but the characterisation is strong and unexpectedly nuanced. The gore is low but the body count is high and there's a granny with a knitting needle. It's leaner, meaner and more intelligent than Dawn or Day of the Dead and genuinely deserves 'lost classic' status.

Switchblade Romance (Haute Tension) - Good fun! Slick and massively effective at putting you on the side of the heroine and 'being there' with her, making decisions about 'what would you do' all the way. Until the twist, which is not so much stupid as utterly arbitrary. The writer decides the film needs a twist for the last 10 minutes and so shoves one in. It follows on from nothing in the preceding 90 minutes and it could just as easily have been any other of the standard 'headfuck' twists. Still, the circular saw death was meaty, so who's complaining?

Wolf Creek - Ultimately a pile of dingo crap. Now maybe the characters are realistic (lord knows a lot of students are self-obsessed giggling morons) but they are unlikable nonetheless, which means the otherwise brave choice of the slow build up (in which nothing actually gruesome happens for about 40 minutes) is a huge mis-step for me. Rather than the creeping dread that should have occured, i just had a bored feling of 'get on with it'. The film also suffers from the characters making some stupid decisions (wasting time watching home movies? dumping the truck? oh come on!) that wound me up no end. Maybe that meant i was 'there' in the movie, making 'what would i do' choices myself, but still, it fucked me off. Good effort for ambition but the film still blows.

Anyone seen these recently? Disagree? Come on then.

Yes, finally we get LOTD in England and it's only a '15'. I guess we're just getting America's skanky old prints. Pisser.

Anyway: what's so good about 'Martin'? I've not seen it, and the story always sounded amazngly dull. I've never liked films where they cocktease about whether the supernatural is happening or not.

'is he a vampire? Or is he just CRAZZZZZYYYYYYYYY!?!?!?! OOOOOOO!!'

It always felt like the film-makers thought a straight drama would never get the audiences in but a straight horror would be too cheesy and low for their film-making prowess and so we are left with this horrid compromise between the two. Or maybe 'Vampire's Kiss' burnt a much younger me who saw it expecting giant bats and stuff.

Convince me about 'Martin'.

Thank you Bob and Fett (...), I am sold.

And this brings up another point: the 'realistic' kill is far more effective and horrifying than the set-piece slayings of the slasher films but, of course, if they are done right, they are absolutely no fun to watch at all - leading to a result of wanting to watch the worse film.

Certainly i passed over 'Henry' and 'Man Bites Dog' for years while I plowed through the Elm Street movies.

Spoilers for Wolf Creek!

The slow build up is very brave, i'll admit. It's aiming for realism, to create a very relatable 'real' world so the brutality feels more real later on. That's certainly a real prize to aim for in a horror film so i can't blame the director for trying. However, one slip up, one bit where the charactes suddenly act just to get the film to the next set piece and it all collapses down into nothing - whereas an Elm Street may only have the over the top kills, but no amount of stupidity or tonal wierdness is going to take away from those set pieces.

Wolf Creek slips up too many times - most notably (I SAID SPOILERS!!!!!) when the girl is in the room with the killer on the floor and she doesn't finish him off. Obviously, if she did, the film would be over, so the killer has to come back - and so everything after that was just annoying to me. Also the killer does seem to magically be in exactly the right place to get the girls as the film wears on. (SPOILERS END!!!!!)

So some intense sequences, yes, but mostly it was just intensely annoying.

Well Switchblade was just going for intensity and succeeded, whereas wolf creek was going for that 'realism' thing and, to me, failed.

And the realism can't excuse the baddie magically knowing which car the girl was going to try and steal.

I'm not really convinced that the film succeeds in selling 'this is what this character would do' rather than 'this is what the film heroine should do'.

The film obviously rubbed me up the wrong way. I think it just didn't sell me on the characters or the 'this really happened' angle in that first 40 minutes. This is probably for a whole bunch of reasons as much to do with me as with the film (and i have to zoom off right now, rather than get into the detail. maybe when i'm bored at work tomorrow...). It is probably a testament to the film that it illicits such differing opinions rather than a consensus of 'it was all right, i suppose'. Maybe we should wait for the director's next film to see what the boy can do.

"That's not a croc. This is a croc!"

Is that DOTD or DOTD?

Gelflingboy is a treasure.

I would like to nominate this as the new standard sequel naming formula.