I remember really enjoying The Blob (1988) not least because if Shawnee Smith.
I must watch it. I remember it being a revelation at the time.
Watched Hellboy: The Crooked Man which is based on the comic of the same name. Came out of nowhere for me. This a is low budget film but I enjoyed it. Oddly this is a horror movie. I think the other hellboy movies are superhero movies. This one isn't for kids.
Here Hellboy and company comes across a band of witches under the thrall of The Crooked Man, a rich dude sent from hell to collect souls. He also had minor roles in other movies. The fresh prince of Bel-Air butler shows up to help fight the crooked man. Some dude named Tom also help. And Hellboys lady partner comes along for the ride.. This is a different lady from the movies. She doesn't have any powers and Abe didn't come along either.
Anyway fans of hellboy comic will probably like it. I actually liked the other movies but the one in this one is completely different so if you like those you might not like this one. The biggest problem is no one reacts to how hellboy looks. It is like everyone sees giant hell demons every day.
I wouldn't say the other Hellboy movies are superhero movies, especially the last one.
I watched Possessor again. It’s more of a thriller with a few instances of extreme violence. It does get all the way to horror by the end. Directed by Brandon Cronenberg who is someone to watch going forward.
The violent scenes were a lot more graphic than I remember. The version I saw this time seemed to be an ‘Uncut’ edition so either the first version I watched was edited or I had my hands over my eyes when the violence got a bit much. Both explanations are equally possible.
Watched Dr. Giggles last night for the first time since I saw it in middle school around the time it came out. For some reason I remembered it quite fondly as a funny bad horror movie. Nope. It's just terrible.
Watched As Above, So Below today. I quite liked it. Good mix of treasure hunt movie and horror movie. I was surprised to see that the general consensus about it was so negative. A lot of the criticism seemed to be about the found footage gimmick. While I've never been particularly fond of the gimmick, I've always just been able to ignore it.
The weekend's picks were:
Eaten Alive - Tobe Hooper's followup to Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It's not close to being as good. It's still kind of hillbilly horror, this time about a motel owner that has a tendency to chuck his guests into the swamp for his pet crocodile to eat, but stylistically it's a 180, with everything being shot on a set and artificial to the extreme. Kind of notable for being one Robert Englund's earliest performances, and him opening the movie with the line "My name is Buck, and I'm rarin' to f*ck." I guess, but other wise it didn't do much for me.
And then Retribution - A Japanese cop is investigating a murder of a woman in a red dress, where every clue points towards him, but he has absolutely no recollection of it happening. Soon, other murders start happening with a similar MO, where people just go off on people close to them. An apparition of a woman in a red dress starts stalking the cop.
It's fine, but Kiyoshi Kurasawa has done the shocking detached violence better before, in Cure, and the ghost stuff better in Pulse.
I also felt like there was some social context I was missing to it being set on reclaimed land on the Tokyo waterfront that would've given the final revelations some more thematic depth. Possibly not the best thing to watch it while fever-addled either.
And today was a sick day, courtesy of aforementioned fever, so I alternated between watching Make Some Noise and horror movies most of the day.
Idle Hands - Dewon Sawa is the laziest stoner there is, so as punishment a demonic entity possesses his right hand Evil Dead 2 style, and goes on a killing spree. In addition to Dewon Sawa, there's Jessica Alba as the girl next door he's crushing on, Seth Green as one of his stoner friends who's too lazy to walk through the pearly gates when he gets killed, so he comes back as an undead to watch more TV. The Offspring is a Ramones cover band at the school Halloween dance.
Breezy fun, and extremely nineties.
Death Line - a.k.a Raw Meat. The mutated offspring of survivors of a 19th century tunnel collapse in the London underground have made it back to the surface, and are picking off people. When it's poor people, the police pay it no mind, but when it's a member of the Defense ministry out for some strange, it's a different tune.
It's pretty slight and low budget, but it get some good atmosphere out of the underground, and Donald Pleasence is always fun to watch.
Creep - more London Underground horror. Franka Potente get locked into the underground when she falls asleep waiting for the last train. And wouldn't you know it, there's a horrible mutated freak stalking her and killing people off. Solid enough slasher, although there's one scene that felt needlessly mean.
I loved Seth Green back then. I might have seen Idle Hands in the theater. Or maybe just on HBO a few months later. But I definitely watched it a couple times.
Watched Dr. Giggles last night for the first time since I saw it in middle school around the time it came out. For some reason I remembered it quite fondly as a funny bad horror movie. Nope. It's just terrible.
Yeah the first time I saw it was on The Last Drive-in and even then it was a bit hard to watch.
The weekend's picks were:
Eaten Alive - Tobe Hooper's followup to Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It's not close to being as good.
I tried watching this one but think I lasted about 30 minutes before turning it off. It was just so bad.
It's unfortunate he had so few good movies. Basically, Texas Chainsaw 1 & 2 and kinda Lifeforce, since it was bonkers. Sounds like Spielberg basically did just about all of Poltergeist so can't even give him credit for that one.
Watched Short Night of Glass Dolls. If the title didn't give it away, it's a giallo.
An American journalist in Prague wakes up on a mortuary slab, not quite dead. As the autopsy draws nearer and nearer, he's trying to piece together how he wound up there, and desperately hoping that the people baffled by his temperature not dropping will notice that he isn't as dead as they think he is.
Solid movie! The middle sags a bit, but it builds to a pretty damn great ending.
Watched Deadstream, a found footage horror comedy about an asshole streamer that's making a comeback six months after one of his stunts went really wrong. Said comeback is staying overnight at a haunted house that turns out to be haunted for real.
Some of the apparitions/zombies look pretty rubbery, but it works with the tone, it's satisfying to the protagonist suffer while he simultaneously manages to not be totally insufferable, and the reveal about why the house is haunted is pretty funny. A pretty good time!
I remember liking it as well. I am not a big horror-comedy guy, and the main character is a complete waste of space, so I think that helped in watching him suffer.
Watched Trick R Treat which is the most Halloween movie that ever Halloweened. Its an anthology where most of the stories crossover or have parts of other stories. Like you see the main character of one story being attacked in the background of a different story.
We get rogue from the xmen, a BSG pilot, the kid from bad santa, and that one guy that always plays a creepy dude doing some extra work being creepy. All do good on the acting. The stories a creative and fun. Some good kills. All around good time.
This is Trick R Treat not Trick or Treat which is a completely different movie. I haven't seen that one yet.
Halfway-ish through Spooktober and here's what's been on my plate so far:
Agatha All Along [Disney+] (Through the currently available episodes)
Paranormal Activity [Max]
Paranormal Activity 2 [Max]
Paranormal Activity 3 [Max]
Paranormal Activity 4 [Max]
Poltergeist (1982) [Max]
Shaun of the Dead [Peacock]
Uzumaki [Max] (Through the currently available episodes)
Unsolved Mysteries, Volume 5 [Netflix]
The Haunting of Hill House [Netflix] (Through Episode 6 and its near constant uninterrupted takes)
I enjoyed the Paranormal Activities. Very effective movies.
I enjoyed the Paranormal Activities. Very effective movies.
Same. I rewatched the first one earlier this year or late last year and it hadn’t aged as well as I was hoping, but it’s still a marvel for delivering on its budget and time constraints.
And Haunting of Hill House is my favorite Flanagan project.
Higgledy wrote:I enjoyed the Paranormal Activities. Very effective movies.
Same. I rewatched the first one earlier this year or late last year and it hadn’t aged as well as I was hoping, but it’s still a marvel for delivering on its budget and time constraints.
I liked the first three, but the fourth one had me scratching my head at some of the plot points, so I decided to move on to something almost completely different.
Watched Alien Romulus and really liked it. Thought it was the third best movie in the franchise. The movie made a odd choice to copy something from another movie that people hated. However, I liked it in this movie. I thought it was more horrific here and far less stupid but I doubt most people would agree with and probably think it ruined the movie. Different strokes.
Andy and Rain are the standout actors in this with the actor playing Andy being the better of the two. He does more heavy lifting with his performance. The other characters are okay but nobody is going remember any of these people ten years from now unlike how every character is memorable in Alien and Aliens.
Did you know there is a alive vs predator vs terminator comic. And I believe there is one with Robocop but I'm not sure if he replaces predator or terminator. Also a bunch of alien and alien vs predator comics. One of the comics has the alien as good guy with guns. None of this has anything to do with this movie.
We are all aware of the alien looking like a penis. Now we have vagina or two so the ladies can get in on the fun. If you wanted some in your face symbolism you will get it here.
The effects were pretty good. They did mostly practical with cgi where needed. That is a guy in suit. Those are rubber face huggers. Well some are rubber. Cgi blood but it had to be. And what they did with the blood was great.
The worse thing about this movie is that there were no romulans. I wish we could have had a borg or vulcan also. The aliens were all bad guys so the movie is kind of racist. Some of my best friends are aliens.
Also watched Alien Romulus. Good fun, but the constant references got pretty annoying. I guess I would put this in the 3rd place for my ranking of the franchise.
Looking forward to seeing it but not sure how I’ll react. Fede Álvarez Is a solid horror director.
Watched Long Weekend. The tagline's "Their crimes were against nature...and nature found them guilty." And that about sums it up. A couple consisting of two of the most infuriatingly, thoughtlessly awful people you ever seen go to a remote beach in the outback for the titular long weekend and prove that they have no business being in nature - littering, mindlessly firing guns. Hell, they almost manage to start a brush fire and run over a kangaroo just on the way there.
In return, animals on beach are unnaturally aggressive, and is it their escalating mania, or is it impossible to get off the beach?
Really beautiful and eerie movie. Thumbs way up.
Looking forward to seeing it but not sure how I’ll react. Fede Álvarez Is a solid horror director.
Same. I fell off the Alien bandwagon a while back, but I'm excited about this one.
Watched Alien Romulus and really liked it.
Sweet. I have been planning a watch party with a few friends. I'm jumping between the $25 rent & $30 buy (digital only). I understand why they make the price so close but I don't watch many movies twice anymore. The kicker being that I have rewatched some of the earlier Alien movies recently.
Watched the first two episodes of Teacup. This is a series based on Robert McCammon's book Stinger, which I have not read.
So far its ok. Setup is a family and some neighbors are trapped in an area where there's no power. A stranger in a gas mask has drawn a line around the property and warned everyone to not cross that line. It's pretty soon realized that something pretty horrible happens to anything that crosses that line.
There's also some type of lifeform trapped in there with everyone. It looks like it can pass itself between people inhabiting them. So, I imagine it will get a bit of The Thing vibe where you can't trust anyone not to be the alien.
Big problem with this is episodes are like 30 minutes and there are a lot of commercials. That kinda takes you out of the whole thing. But it does seem well done so far so am sticking with it.
I rewatched The Ring (US version) last night because a 4K disc was just released. I've seen it plenty of times before, but I wanted to see what it looked like in 4K (it looks gorgeous and sounds appropriately creepy); I generally avoid American remakes, but this is just so damn good.
There are moments in movies where I find myself just completely transfixed and in the movie's zone. The scene where Naomi Watts first finds/watches the tape--man, so unsettling and uncomfortable. I was in that zone...not all movies that are 22 years old can do that.
Watched Who Saw Her Die? George Lazenby is a sculptor working in Venice, separated from his wife when his daughter comes to visit and, well, the title happens.
Lazenby is actually quite good as the grief-stricken father running around Venice trying to track down the super-creepy killer, the city looks atmospheric and menacing, and Ennio Morricone provides a fantastic score which all unsettling children's choirs. Excellent giallo.
I rewatched The Ring (US version) last night because a 4K disc was just released. I've seen it plenty of times before, but I wanted to see what it looked like in 4K (it looks gorgeous and sounds appropriately creepy); I generally avoid American remakes, but this is just so damn good.
There are moments in movies where I find myself just completely transfixed and in the movie's zone. The scene where Naomi Watts first finds/watches the tape--man, so unsettling and uncomfortable. I was in that zone...not all movies that are 22 years old can do that.
What happened to Gore Verbinski? Is he in director's jail? He hasn't directed in ages.
Watched The Substance which wasn't what I expected. There is some extreme body horror in this one but that isn't the point of the film. The movie is making a statement. What happens when you stop loving yourself. What would you do to be beautiful. It was pretty great.
What happened to Gore Verbinski? Is he in director's jail? He hasn't directed in ages.
Seems like he has a new movie in post-production, but his last two movies were The Lone Ranger and A Cure For Wellness, both of which were bombs, so I think he's done some time, yeah.
Looking forward to The Substance. Although some body horror can be too much for me. Might be a fun one to watch from between my fingers with my mate Karen. Although I don’t think she’s seen anything that extreme.
Speaking of which: Horror movie night was The Omen II. Wasn’t sure if I was going to be into this one at the start. There was one early death that I remember as jaw dropping that seemed contrived, over telegraphed and suffering from ‘obvious mannequin’ syndrome, which made it a bit silly. I was into the film by the end though and Karen and I were rooting for them to finally perforate Damien.
We also had fun noting or anticipating when the ominous ladies singing Latin would come in.
I loved watching A Cure for Wellness. Too bad audiences (and critics) didn't all that much.
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