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Author Topic: Shocktober Group Marathon 2011  (Read 58775 times)

Bondo

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2011
« Reply #270 on: October 28, 2011, 10:55:32 AM »
Tucker and Dale vs Evil (2010)
Want to hear something so unbelievable that it just has to be true? Tucker and Dale vs Evil is close to as good as Shaun of the Dead and is better than Zombieland within the horror comedy genre.

Bondo, have you been at the Gaffer's home brew?

I don't know what this means and I will not respond. :D

oneaprilday

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2011
« Reply #271 on: October 28, 2011, 12:59:18 PM »
Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)

Rather surprised (and sorry) you didn't like it more, sam.  I'm having a difficult time understanding exactly what didn't work for you about it - did you want more actual mystery and specific plot points, as in a police/detective procedural kind of thing? 

I think the film is sort of about subverting those expectations, frustrating those desires for  specific plot points, for closure, and for answers - it's about those things (or it does those things)  at the same time that it's about the ways that the feminine/feminine desire (paralleling the natural world) cannot be contained by artificial social structures, eg. the school, constricting clothing.   The thing that resists those comprehensible outward social structures is itself incomprehensible, difficult to pin down, difficult (impossible) to control - in the same way that the girls cannot be found, pinned neatly back in place.  (duder's interpretation here, makes a good deal of sense to me.)

The film itself - as it is more about things suggested and about mood than about plot or typical character arcs (the girl we focus on - fall in love with - is the one who eludes us) - mirrors the content beautifully, eliding our grasp, leaving us with a kind of frustrated desire. 

It's interesting, anyway, that where you felt boredom in the languid outdoor scenes, my own feeling was one of tension - which, I suppose, is why the lack of resolve in story left me holding that tension, left me haunted.  Still, you said the film had a deep unease about it - which makes me think it did, on some level, work for you, in spite of your more explicitly expressed disappointment. :)

oneaprilday

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2011
« Reply #272 on: October 28, 2011, 01:03:28 PM »
Tucker and Dale vs Evil (2010)

5/5
I wouldn't give it a 5/5 nor put it next to Shaun, but I liked it a lot, too, Bondo.  Great concept grounded in great characters (Tucker and Dale, that is).  I particularly loved Tyler Labine as Dale. 

Sam the Cinema Snob

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2011
« Reply #273 on: October 28, 2011, 04:53:48 PM »
Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)

It's interesting, anyway, that where you felt boredom in the languid outdoor scenes, my own feeling was one of tension - which, I suppose, is why the lack of resolve in story left me holding that tension, left me haunted.  Still, you said the film had a deep unease about it - which makes me think it did, on some level, work for you, in spite of your more explicitly expressed disappointment. :)
I wonder if part of it was that I pretty much knew where the whole film was going from the beginning and it never surprised or subverted my expectations.

1SO

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Shocktober Group Marathon 2011 - Vampire Circus by 1SO
« Reply #274 on: October 28, 2011, 07:00:02 PM »


Vampire Circus (1972)
"Let me show you something... interesting."

The Corman films are campy, they are cheap, they have questionable acting and cardboard sets and, let's say unusual directing (I think Corman is great, I appreciate his willingness to do pretty much anything with his films, they always surprise me).  That is a fundamental part of their charm, today as it was 50 years ago. 

Sdedalus, I'd love for you to compare Corman to Hammer Horror because Vampire Circus answers my problems with Masque of the Red Death. Where I complained the other film was cheap and dated, that aspect is most of the fun here. There's a complete willingness to try anything so long as it's aimed at showing audiences a good time. The plot is dodgy all over, the effects are cheap and it doesn't make a lick of sense in places. But, like Hausu, the reckless abandon makes for a pretty fun film.

This is my first Hammer film, and one of the later ones, so I don't know if this fits as a typical example of the sub-genre. It reminded me of Andy Warhol's Blood For Dracula, had that film been reasonably well made. There's a complete disregard for genre conventions, but it constantly hurtles with the drive of a Robert Rodriguez flick. Gore and nudity are plentiful but stop short of gratuitous, and it gets away with a lot by having a whiff of British class.

If I could amend what I said about calling the effects cheap, they are not impressive, but you understand what they're going for and they get the job done. It's not a scary film, but the atmosphere is rich and there are a couple of clever executions. A guilty pleasure for sure, but now I know next Shocktober I need to put in a lot more Hammer Horror. (This one didn't have Christopher Lee or Peter Cushing, who I hear dominate this sub-genre).
RATING: * * *
« Last Edit: October 28, 2011, 10:46:22 PM by 1SO »

oneaprilday

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2011
« Reply #275 on: October 28, 2011, 07:29:30 PM »
Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)

It's interesting, anyway, that where you felt boredom in the languid outdoor scenes, my own feeling was one of tension - which, I suppose, is why the lack of resolve in story left me holding that tension, left me haunted.  Still, you said the film had a deep unease about it - which makes me think it did, on some level, work for you, in spite of your more explicitly expressed disappointment.
I wonder if part of it was that I pretty much knew where the whole film was going from the beginning and it never surprised or subverted my expectations.
Yes, I suppose that could have changed your experience with it, but I suspect the film will still play well for me when I watch it
again.  The film builds desire or mood enough, for my anyway, to make me want a particular ending even though I know I won't get it. 

(And when we re-watch any good film, don't we still get immersed in the emotion/mood it builds even when we know what will be happening? Sometimes I think I give into an emotional development of a film even more with a film I love and know well.)

Anyway, hope you don't write the film off altogether, that you re-watch it someday.

sdedalus

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2011
« Reply #276 on: October 28, 2011, 07:50:05 PM »
Vampire Circus (1972)

Sdedalus, I'd love for you to compare Corman to Hammer Horror because Vampire Circus answers my problems with Masque of the Red Death. Where I complained the other film was cheap and dated, that aspect is most of the fun here. There's a complete willingness to try anything so long as it's aimed at showing audiences a good time. The plot is dodgy all over, the effects are cheap and it doesn't make a lick of sense in places. But, like Hausu, the reckless abandon makes for a pretty fun film.

I've only seen one Hammer film, the first Lee/Cushing Dracula movie, and I don't think I'd describe it the way you're doing for this one.  The Corman Poe film are more similar.  I don't know if that's because we're seeing the same films differently, or if there's an internal difference with the Hammers.
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Sam the Cinema Snob

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2011
« Reply #277 on: October 28, 2011, 11:16:04 PM »
Antichrist (2009)

Moments of Lars von Trier’s Antichrist are elegant, flowing and beautiful. Other moments are sadistic, brutal and cruel. And while there is artistic merit to be found in Antichrist, I can’t help but wonder how different Antichrist truly is from the much maligned torture porn genre. What makes Lars von Trier an artist and Eli Roth a hack? In honesty, I find von Trier’s film much more graphic, disturbing and grotesque than Roth’s Hostel, even though Hostel is the film with the more frequent acts of violence.

Is in the context? Antichrist places its violence amid the anguish of a married couple dealing with the loss of their child. While the wife (Charlotte Gainsbourg) experiences extreme cases of grief, the husband (Willem Dafoe) attempts to use his professional skill as a psychologist to help her. Does placing the violence amidst their exploration of sex, life, death and grief somehow give the graphic moments of violence enough thematic weight to justify the explicit detail?

Or perhaps it’s the audience the film is targeting. Antichrist is a piece that opens with operatic music swelling and throughout the film aligns itself with the more upper class art-house movement of film. Does the pedigree of the film and its alignment with artistically inclined film creatively validate the detail it goes to in depicting the violence and sex?

The question still lingers: why show the detail of both the sex and violence? Is the detail necessary or is it the idea, the concept, the notion that the film is striving to depict? It’s this tension where the film begins to completely collapse as the reasons to show these gruesome acts become less and less convincing.

Unlike the torture porn genre, the acts themselves are not necessarily what the film is trying to deal with. While films like Saw and Hostel are directly addressing and demonstrating issues of violence, Antichrist is about something more abstract, more universal, more spiritual. The death, anguish and torment are tied to the physical world, but their caught up in grander notions of the nature of the cosmos.

Therefore, the physical acts themselves are not what the film is about, but the symbolic nature such acts hold, what the destruction is attacking and challenging on a grander scale. Instead of Lars von Trier focusing the audience on his ideas, he distracts and interrupts their thoughts with brutal, graphic and sadistically lingering depictions of violence that detract from his broader thematic strokes.

It’s a shame because outside his extreme depictions of sex and violence, the film is thoughtful and provoking. The eerie atmosphere and strong writing perfectly coalesce into the rich ideas von Trier weaves throughout the film, but they get lost in the sensational and explicit imagery that has little value beyond the pornographic.

In some ways, I admire Hostel more than Antichrist. At least that film justifies its depictions of violence by directly dealing with them (even though the depictions themselves are laughably bad). Antichrist uses violence and sex as means to shock and distract the audience from the overall picture. That being said, Antichrist is overall the better film, but I’d sooner watch Hostel again than suffer through Antichrist one more time.

1SO

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2011
« Reply #278 on: October 28, 2011, 11:55:59 PM »
What makes Lars von Trier an artist and Eli Roth a hack? In honesty, I find von Trier’s film much more graphic, disturbing and grotesque than Roth’s Hostel, even though Hostel is the film with the more frequent acts of violence.

I love this question. I respect von Trier, but Roth is not talentless or merely out to shock. Then again your follow up sentence brings up the argument of sex and violence for entertainment purposes versus presenting something truly horrific.

Sam the Cinema Snob

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2011
« Reply #279 on: October 29, 2011, 12:05:56 AM »
What makes Lars von Trier an artist and Eli Roth a hack? In honesty, I find von Trier’s film much more graphic, disturbing and grotesque than Roth’s Hostel, even though Hostel is the film with the more frequent acts of violence.

I love this question. I respect von Trier, but Roth is not talentless or merely out to shock. Then again your follow up sentence brings up the argument of sex and violence for entertainment purposes versus presenting something truly horrific.
That is something I probably could have explored more as far as whether or not the violence was entertaining or not, but I couldn't figure out how to make the distinction.