Horror movies and TV series

pyxistyx wrote:

orly? I don't actually read any of the actual SCP i tend to just absorb the ancillary stuff that offshoots from it (your short form video games and whatnot), so i kind of just assumed this was one of those. it's certainly presented like that in some cases i've seen.

The Backrooms started as urban myth creepypasta, similar to slenderman or the forest stairs.

Watched Mad God which is a stop motion hellverse movie. There is no story. It is just one crazy nightmare scene after another.

The movie follows a dude for a bit. Then something happens to him. I'm not really sure what happens to him but it isn't good. Then we follow another dude and something happens to him. Again not sure what happens but it isn't good. The movie breaks from following these dudes at time to show us the world. The world is crazy. At one point their are giants being electrocuted which causes them to S themselves. The S is collected and dropped into the mouth of giant head thing. which is connected to biomechanical stuff. This is one of the saner scenes.

I was sleepy when I started watching this but quickly woke up and stared at this movie with wide eyes. WTF WTF did I just watch. The demons of hell will watch this movie for design tips.

Its a work of art. Watch if you like weird S without a story.

Also it is on shudder.

That's the Phil Tippet movie that took him 30 years or so to make, right? I am very curious about it!

Mario_Alba wrote:

That's the Phil Tippet movie that took him 30 years or so to make, right? I am very curious about it!

yep.

You know on thinking about backrooms, I almost wish there wasn't an actual 'monster' in it. The concept is creepy and unsettling enough as-is without that being there.

I just found out that Shudder has a second season of Cursed, where they examine "cursed" movie sets. While I greatly enjoyed the first season, I should warn you that the episode about the Twilight Zone movie shows the take where the three people are killed by the helicopter. You can't really see anything, but I still wish they hadn't kept it in.

Grenn wrote:

I just found out that Shudder has a second season of Cursed, where they examine "cursed" movie sets. While I greatly enjoyed the first season, I should warn you that the episode about the Twilight Zone movie shows the take where the three people are killed by the helicopter. You can't really see anything, but I still wish they hadn't kept it in.

I really enjoyed the first season of Cursed Films. The second seemed like they were stretching the premise a bit or the material they have isn't enough to warrant it. But that might just be because of how good I found the first season to be. I will piggyback on your warning and say that the Cannibal Holocaust episode is a tough one to watch/hear about. They show enough from the movie itself to make it very, very uncomfortable.

I'm trying to figure out why lots of fans of Return of the Living Dead are so upset about changes to the soundtrack.

Just finished watching Potters Ground. Not usually a 'western' fan in general but this felt a lot like Deadlands: The Movie.

The last, like, minute is very silly and I actual lol'd but in general it was pretty neat.

HECK. Highly recommend Incantation on Netflix. That is one hecking unnerving found footage movie.

My friend and I finished the Final Destination series. Along with some truly agonising (for the person involved and anyone watching the film) deaths, Final Destination 5 is actually a clever capper to the series plot wise.

I also watched X. It’s about a 1970s film crew and cast heading to a farm in order to shoot a porno. It captures that era, or that era as seen through the lens of 1970’s slashers and porno movies, exquisitely. The movie won’t win any awards for originality but it’s a perfect evocation of horror movies/slashers from that time.

Higgledy wrote:

I also watched X. It’s about a 1970s film crew and cast heading to a farm in order to shoot a porno. It captures that era, or that era as seen through the lens of 1970’s slashers and porno movies, exquisitely. The movie won’t win any awards for originality but it’s a perfect evocation of horror movies/slashers from that time.

I wanted to like this more than I did. Unlike some people, it probably hurt it that it was an A24 movie for me. I went in expecting something just a bit...more. And that's not the movie's fault. That is the fault of my expectation and knowing what A24 usually produces. I want to give it another shot, because it was otherwise very well shot and paced.

Yeah. I enjoyed it but it did feel a touch too straightforward forward (in an f’d up kind of a way) in the end.

Watched Crimes of the Future and didn't understand the ending. I thought it was going somewhere but then just ends. In this world most people can't feel pain and some people started growing random organs. A fear that people will in time not be human. Without pain cutting into people has replaced sex. So this is a mild body horror film with weird biomechanical stuff. The question is should people embrace evolution or should they try to remain as they are.

The question is not answered. I'm not sure what the point of the film was.

Baron Of Hell wrote:

Watched Crimes of the Future and didn't understand the ending. I thought it was going somewhere but then just ends. In this world most people can't feel pain and some people started growing random organs. A fear that people will in time not be human. Without pain cutting into people has replaced sex. So this is a mild body horror film with weird biomechanical stuff. The question is should people embrace evolution or should they try to remain as they are.

The question is not answered. I'm not sure what the point of the film was.

So I have been watching explaining videos on this. I think I might understand the movie more than many of reviewers I watch which is sad. Also many people put "Explained" in their title but don't seem understand what explain means.

Very minor spoiler about something that happens in the first 5 minutes.

Spoiler:

A boy eats a plastic bucket and his mother kills the kid because she thinks that is weird.

Okay so I watched a couple of people that couldn't understand what is in the spoiler. One person complained about for about 30 minutes. So you aren't suppose to understand what is happening at first. This is part of the mystery but it is fully explained like hour or so into the movie. I can see people thinking it is odd but there isn't anything to get, it is a major plot point that is pretty clearly explained. I think that since this movie has so much talking in it some people just completely tuned out and they just missed things that were clearly explained. Again this is pretty sad thing to do in video with "Explained" in the title.

Anyway there is one thing I didn't state before. I was only truly shock but one scene. I was shocked because of the naked kid in it. I'm pretty sure I understand why the kid was naked. The movie was being meta. In the movie the kid was being exploited by New View, the government, and the guy pretending to be Palpatine. So the real life director is also exploiting the kid by showing unnecessary nudity. I don't think to make this meta point it was worth taking advantage of a child. I hope the kid sues everyone in this film when he is older. And this is not a Nirvana situation. The kid in this case isn't a baby. He looks about ten or eleven.

On a different note there was something in the movie that didn't make sense or wasn't explained very well. So there is a lot of body cutting in the movie. The weird thing is that we see people with scars but we also see people that should be covered in scars without any. I can wave it away by just assuming the scars are a choice but if that was case someone should have commented on it. I actually think it was a mistake in the movie that no one picked up on.

Higgledy wrote:

Movie night last night was The Descent 2. We enjoyed the heck out of it but I’m pretty sure it was the company that made it. We spent most of the time being outraged at the sheriff’s idiotic behaviour and urgently telling people to keep quiet in order to avoid drawing the creatures to them. Something several characters took way to long to work out was a factor and then way too easily forgot in times of stress.

It was a fun, gory time.

I was disappointed in The Descent 2. I really liked the original (with the original ending), and 2 felt more generic, like a typical direct to video sequel (I can see why they didn't release it in theaters in the USA). I also watched both by myself though, ha.

Higgledy wrote:

This week we watched Malignant. Like a few people who’ve seen it, I worked out what was going on before the reveal but it’s a nice creepy idea and I liked how the creature moved. If felt very James Wan for better or for worse.

I had no idea what Malignant was about, and I realized at some point I was confusing it with Malevolent, so I was extremely caught off guard, lol.

I really enjoyed it, but I also choose to believe it's intentionally James Wan trolling/making fun of himself. So many parts of the movie are ridiculous, and that last 1/3 so over the top, that I just can't fathom it being anything but tongue-in-cheek.

Even moments like

Spoiler:

how big the house is on the inside

,

Spoiler:

the sister parking her car so that it feels like they're broadcasting she's gonna fall off or the noise that ends up being nothing in the basement,

all that stuff individually could be just an oversight/movie logic, but as they stack up into borderline parody, it just seems intentionally satirical. So when that last 1/3 jumps off, I was pretty delighted.

A bit of trivia I thought was really neat is that Gabriel

Spoiler:

is not CGI, the character is played by a contortionist for all that backwards running.

I just watched Glorious on Shudder. I admit it took me longer than you'd expect to connect "Glorious" to it taking place in a rest stop bathroom with a gloryhole.

It's a decent "bottle episode"-ish movie. JK Simmons is the person in the stall, which I did not expect. The twist is typical, but it's short and if you have Shudder, are a fan of JK Simmons, and/or about 80 minutes to spare, you could do worse.

I also watched After Midnight:

Because it was advertised as being from the same folks as The Endless (I think that's marketing, some of the same people acted in it but it's different directors). It's another bottle episode-ish movie, although lighter on the horror than you might think from the synopsis/trailer. I enjoyed it, but I was impressed because of scenes like the relationship talk towards the end that's a solid 10-15 minute take without cuts more than anything spooky/scary about it.

The Endless is also on Shudder:

But you can also see it on Peacock/Plex/Freevee/Crackle and who knows what else.

General overview of the plot is the two main characters are brothers who escaped a doomsday cult when they were young, but their life in the outside world isn't so great, and they decide to go back to visit.

Was pretty entertaining. I haven't seen the first one, but didn't feel like it was a big deal (I might watch it next).

It's a prequel filmed 13 years after the original. So they brought back a 25 year old actress to reprise a role she first played when she was 12 years old. The gimmick is that the main character has a hormonal condition, so even though she's in her 30s she looks like a child. Which she exploits to rob/murder some very unfortunate families.

They use a few camera tricks to make her look younger/shorter, but no weird CGI or deepfakes. It seems pretty self-aware/tongue-in-cheek, and Julia Stiles was a nice surprise/ I didn't even know she was in it until I started watching it, and she seemed to be having fun with the role.

I watched the first minute and a half of this review. He was being extremely cautious in what he said and I’m sure I’d have been fine to watch it all but I was already convinced by that stage. Looks like a movie to put on the ‘must watch’ list.

Also, I just watched LIFE again on Netflix. I enjoyed it more the second time I think. Brilliant film.

I caught The Empty Man as well as Resurrection. Both (particularly the latter is best going in with as little info as possible. Both are also very different movies. But they are some of the best horror I've seen in a while. Resurrection is on VOD now, but I believe will be on Shudder eventually. The Empty Man is a bit on the long side (2 1/4 hours) but it is superbly paced, so I never felt its length. It is on HBO Max or VOD.

I LOVE the Empty Man. Complete surprise when I watched it too, because it has one of the WORST trailers for a horror movie in terms of representing what the final film is. It makes it look like one of those vanilla "teens picked off one by one by something horrible" template films when it's really, REALLY not (!)

pyxistyx wrote:

I LOVE the Empty Man. Complete surprise when I watched it too, because it has one of the WORST trailers for a horror movie in terms of representing what the final film is. It makes it look like one of those vanilla "teens picked off one by one by something horrible" template films when it's really, REALLY not (!)

You are 100% on-point. I watched the trailer afterwards, and it was pretty damn awful. I told my lady-friend how great it was and can only imagine she watched the trailer afterwards, because she seemed less-than-interested and is probably wondering if she should take movie recommendations from me any longer.

I really would like to rewatch it again, just to pick up more on the atmosphere and smaller things. I only feel like that after I am really into a movie. I haven't watched many movies that depicted

Spoiler:

cosmic horror/Lovecraftian horror in such a specific way

I urge folks to check it out...but maybe don't bother with the trailer. Though, in fairness, I am not sure how you'd make a trailer to a movie like that.

Any recommendations for horror movie review sites? I've got access to a ton of content, but not a ton of time, and it's not always easy to separate the wheat from the chaff.

I don’t know any. I’d definitely be interested to hear of one.

It's not quite what y'all are asking for, but sometimes I like doing the equivalent of a Wikipedia rabbit hole with https://letterboxd.com/.

Lookup a movie you like, find a user review that matches your opinion on it, then... start clicking. Explore their watchlists/other reviews. Check out what lists people have added that movie too. Sort by other people who consider it a favorite, liked it, rated it, or reviewed it.

It's also pretty easy to filter by genre:

https://letterboxd.com/films/genre/horror/

Or by decade/popularity/length/release date.

I've been on another mini horror kick.

Saloum was really interesting, but not actually scary. It's from Senegal, and I always like seeing movies come out of places that I'm not exposed to much.

In Fabric was...definitely something. It's deeply weird, and doesn't really care if you understand what the heck is going on. I like that, but again, not actually very scary.

I was looking for something that was actually for real scary, and totally found it with The Power. It's set in 1974 London, where disputes between the government and labor resulted in an energy shortage that meant areas of the city went into blackout at night. A new trainee nurse starts a job at a hospital, and gets assigned the overnight shift. Hilarity ensues! It's atmospheric as hell, and definitely fit the bill.

I heard a chap on a movie review video say, in passing, he was a fan of the horror movie The Blackcoat’s Daughter. I tried tracking it down once without success. On a second attempt I discovered that the film is called February in the UK. I hate it when they have different titles on movies and I’m not sure the new title is better than the original. In fact it strikes me as being much less compelling.

Anyway, it was the movie night movie last night and, in the end, I thought it was a very interesting movie. It’s a film where you are intrigued but don’t know what the heck is going on. Eventually the treat started to come clear and the various threads started to resolve themselves in horrific ways. In the end it had us on the edge of our seats. The ending, if our interpretation is correct (which I think it is,) was something I hadn’t seen before.

Just finished watching the first episode of the second series of Chucky. I can't imagine this series winning too many new fans, but as an existing fan, it delivered. I'm super keen to see where it goes from here.

I don't know if this fits into the Netflix thread, the Halloween thread or the horror thread, so I'm just putting it here.

I watched the first episode of Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities. It was good, but maybe not quite great. Like, it did a great job of building intrigue and suspense, but it didn't quite hit the payoff that the suspense was building to, if you know what I mean. Not in the way that most og Twilight Zone episodes do, if you get what I mean. Still, keen to see the rest of the series.

For this series, I'm especially anticipating Jennifer Kent's episode. She's teaming up with Essie Davis (who was the lead actress in Kent's The Babadook). Davis was equally amazing in The True History Of The Kelly Gang (which is not actually true, long story, see Wikipedia or even just DM me).

I watched the first two episodes of Cabinet of Curiosities. I agree that they aren’t quite great. The second one is better than the first. There’s a third one up that I haven’t watched yet.

Last week I watched The Purge: Anarchy with my mate (I don’t particularly rate the first one.) When I explained the premise she seemed a little too keen on the idea. As the film got going there was a gang of masked youths hanging out menacingly near a row of shops. After a time they left that location and my friend asked why they were leaving the shops. When the killing started the penny seemed to drop and she told me that she thought The Purge was centred around things like shop lifting. I asked her if she was imagining rampaging through Marks and Spencers grabbing clothes and bottles of perfume. Laughing she said she was.

Edit: Karen and I saw Deadstream tonight via Shudder. We thoroughly enjoyed it. It has a very Evil Dead 2 feel towards the end. I can imagine some being annoyed by the main protagonists but I thought he was delightfully and realistically cowardly. He is live streaming and, unlike similar movies, I found many of the comments that come up on screen to be very funny.

I've had an itch for some horror recently. I'm not sure on what is junk and what's good on the Netflix that I've not seen at the moment... so I'm going to browse back through this thread on the hunt for something to sate my appetite for scares