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Author Topic: Shocktober Group Marathon 2015  (Read 46354 times)

oldkid

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2015
« Reply #240 on: October 20, 2015, 11:16:56 AM »
Did I post these reviews already?  I suppose not.

Sleepy Hollow
This is the Tim Burton I love.  Not really scary, but a film with horror elements and a powerful macabre goth texture throughout.  The script goes far beyond the bare short story, but it explores in the realm of the supernatural and Johnny Depp’s Icabod Crane isn’t the coward of the Disney film.  It begins as if it were going to be a Scooby Doo detective story, but there are no masks, and no pat answers.
It isn’t deep, but it is a pleasant romp through a graveyard or two.
4/5  Moments of scariness.

As Above, So Below
Less of a horror film than an archeology adventure with horror elements.  Kinda like Indiana Jones with a female protagonist.   The setting is the catacombs under Paris, where everyone is using DiVinci Code logic to figure out why their fellow spelunkers are dying.  There is a lot going for this film, but in the end it’s pretty shallow.  I’d love to see it made with more money, a better script or… something.  There is a kernel of potential greatness there, but it didn’t reach it.
3.5/5  Moments of scariness

Suicide Club
Kind of a confused mess, giving us a mystery and telling us nothing about what caused it.  The acting was poor, and the set up was odd, at best.  As a stand alone film, it’s weak at best.  But as the first volume of a story that concludes with Noiko’s Dinner Table, it’s great.  My recommendation: Watch this film with Noiko’s Dinner Table warmed up already.
3/5  Gory, but not scary.
"It's not art unless it has the potential to be a disaster." Bansky

Beavermoose

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2015
« Reply #241 on: October 20, 2015, 12:55:42 PM »
Animals & Creatures-a-thon

Cat People (1942) Jacques Tourneur
The film creates a new mythology different enough from werewolves and other horror movie creatures to be it's own thing. It also spends a lot of time inferring the danger rather than showing it, the invisible threat of sexuality. In the 40s sex must have still been a very taboo subject even just to talk about in movies, so Cat People must have been quite ahead of its time.

Cat People (1982) Paul Schrader
The remake although interesting in it's own right, does not have the same subtext as the original. Sexuality is no longer a hidden threat rather it is now an unavoidable part of the modern culture. Erotic thrillers became more and more common in the late 80s when the threat of AIDS emerged but Schrader's remake precedes the outbreak. Where the film does works is in its aesthetics and feel, the colors and feel are still in the new Hollywood vein and give the film a chilling sexy tone.

The Fly (1958) Kurt Neumann
Far from Cronenberg's 1986 body horror masterpiece, the original film is still really entertaining and frightening to watch. The character moments between the husband and wife make this film much more than just a standard sci-fi creature feature. There's a humorous tongue in cheek tone to the films as well and some great 50s campiness to it. That ending... Scary!

Pet Semetary (1989) Mary Lambert
Probably one of the least interesting King adaptations out there. It's a movie that doesn't seem to know exactly what it's trying to be. There's ghosts and scary kids and evil zombie animals but none of it really works on a thematic or tonal level. I did like the use of wide lenses to make rooms look really big and distorted in certain shots but that's just a tiny part of the movie that doesn't redeem the rest.

1SO

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2015
« Reply #242 on: October 20, 2015, 01:05:09 PM »
172 reviews so far. I can barely keep up. (I will reply to the last pile of reviews when I have more time.)
172 includes 52 from me, but PA is close behind with 45.

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2015
« Reply #243 on: October 20, 2015, 02:17:22 PM »
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992) 8/10
David Lynch has never made a Horror film, but he infuses his dramas with such nightmarish imagery - and he does it with greater success than most of the great Horror directors - that his films often appear on Horror lists. You can remove the Horror from Fire Walk With Me and still have an effective drama of a girl on a downward spiral. It does take a while to get going though.

The Omega Man (1971) 7/10
The Last Man on Earth (1964) 7/10
I find Omega Man pretty laughable. The free love hippie creatures are worse than Will Smith's adversaries. The Vincent Price version is my favorite, though no adaptation has captured what made the book so special. Years ago, I read a version of I Am Legend that was going to Star Arnold Schwarzenegger and be directed by Paul Verhoeven. Schwarzenegger was misciast - Bruce Willis would've been right - but the script was incredibly faithful to the novel, capturing that in the world, the human is the Boogeyman that everyone fears.

The Toxic Avenger (1984) 3/10
Yeah. I found stuff to like in High School. It was kind of made for me then, like forbidden fruit. Wouldn't want to watch it today.

Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988) 6/10
This movie has no budget, but it's very creative and deserving of its cult status.

The City of the Dead was a snooze.
Lair of the White Worm was everything I hate about Ken Russell. I wish he cared more about performances and less about being weird. That's why I haven't seen Gothic.

3 people this month have watched and enjoyed Spider Baby. I wonder how long Junior can hold out?

I hate Maniac. It's one of those films that gained a reputation of being more Ed Wood than Ed Wood. An ultimate Best Worst movie. In truth, it's just awful, and incompetent in an uninteresting way. And boring.

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2015
« Reply #244 on: October 20, 2015, 02:21:17 PM »
Jared, I have not seen Ringu 0. Not really interested in it. (Now watch as I review it next year.)


Bondo... you make one excellent point about Eva's decision betraying the filmmaker's loyalty and position in this battle of the sexes. However, I sometimes think you walk into a movie with your opinions sewn up tight and if the film challenges you then you turn on it. This is one of those times. I say the characters are being chauvinistic because it's portrayed to a comical degree. You say it is the filmmaker, and call him out on it. I wish you had more fun.

And you can change your avatar to Monica Bang anytime.

Beavermoose

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2015
« Reply #245 on: October 20, 2015, 02:47:50 PM »
Rob Zombie-a-thon
House of 1000 Corpses (2003) Rob Zombie
This movie is sort of like if you take The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and bring it to the next level, and then you bring to about 100 levels past that into a realm of toxic gore punk redneck madness. Zombie takes every single trick in the visual film making book shoves them in a blender and throws them up against the screen. Slow motion, negative film effect, frenetic editing, first person, split diopter, freeze frame, among other visuals, overwhelm the viewer and distract from anything that might have been somewhat frightening or interesting.

The Devil's Rejects (2005) Rob Zombie
It seems that Zombie learnt his lesson with the first movie and toned down the frenetic visuals tenfold. The film manages to focus more on the characters and create really tense moments by setting them on the loose in the west. The film almost plays like a Tarantino movie with it's exaggerated acting and chaotic characters that love to hear themselves talk. It ends up being a whole lot of white trash redneck fun without the headache visuals that made his first movie so unbearable. I really like Sid Haig's crazy clown character in both movies. He just made me smile every time he was on screen, just as a clown should.

The Lords of Salem (2012) Rob Zombie
This one loses the chaos of the previous films in favor of creepy satanic creatures and haunted hallways. And although I appreciate the effort that Zombie puts into trying something a little more subtle and artsy but I was missing the madness that made The Devil's Rejects so much fun. This one plays out more like a psychological horror. Although the influences are there, Zombie's witches and satanists fall quite short of Polanski's or Argento's similar vilains. Mostly the film was quite boring. The moments of silliness and sexuality, like the protagonist hallucinating giving oral sex to a priest, usually staples of Zombie's films, felt incredibly out of place.
« Last Edit: October 29, 2015, 09:57:11 AM by Beavermoose »

1SO

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2015
« Reply #246 on: October 20, 2015, 09:50:08 PM »
Sleepy Hollow
I own Sleepy Hollow, though I now see it as a mix of the Tim Burton I love and the silly filmmaker he's become.

I also own Suicide Club, probably the worst film I wanted to own. It falls apart completely, but there's something interesting in the idea. I feel better about my purchase now that I've seen Noriko's Dinner Table.

As Above, So Below is on my Watchlist, so that's one more you have over me.


Beavermoose
Must've been interesting to watch the implicit Cat People so close to the explicit one. I don't even know if they share any scene besides the swimming pool.

Haven't seen The Fly since I was a kid. Should probably rewatch it, but it seems so campy now.

Aside from Fred Gwynne's performance, I did not like Pet Semetary, and back when I saw it my peers were really excited by it. Couldn't figure why I was so out of step with everyone, but your words were exactly as I remember the film.

3 by Rob Zombie. I regret watching more than one. I just think he's terrible... but I'll probably get bored one day and watch Lords of Salem.

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2015
« Reply #247 on: October 20, 2015, 10:03:58 PM »
Mrs. 1SO Not-So-Scary Selection


Paranoiac (1963)
As a general rule, my wife doesn't think you can be scary in Black & White. The only time I've proven her wrong was Psycho. When I saw the above image, I thought this Hammer film directed by Freddie Francis and starring Oliver Reed would get her for sure. Paranoiac is something of a Gothic mystery involving family secrets which include homicide and insanity. The kind of stuff that comes to light when there's a large inheritance up for grabs.

Unfortunately, this film doesn't get the chills amped up enough. The only thing that goes full throttle is Oliver Reed's performance, and without support his style of overacting stands out more than it should. As for the creepy mask, it's used briefly, like it was wedged into the plot when they realized they were making the film in a post-Psycho world.
MY RATING: * * 1/2
MRS. 1SO: * * 1/2


- moments of scariness

Beavermoose

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2015
« Reply #248 on: October 20, 2015, 10:30:47 PM »
Must've been interesting to watch the implicit Cat People so close to the explicit one. I don't even know if they share any scene besides the swimming pool.
Well there's the zoo in both films. But yeah, the 80s one explains more and has the 'flashbacks' and the brother character added. I sort of really liked the sexiness of the remake. The male gaze is very present. Kinski is so beautiful, but off limits and dangerous. You can't help but sympathize with John Heard.
3 by Rob Zombie. I regret watching more than one. I just think he's terrible... but I'll probably get bored one day and watch Lords of Salem.

I don't know if he's terrible. I don't think he's a very good writer, and much of his inspirations are very obvious, I won't say rip offs, but I think he's quite good at creating certain moods for his movies and all of them are very different which means he is still growing as a filmmaker.

PeacefulAnarchy

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2015
« Reply #249 on: October 21, 2015, 12:21:18 AM »
Lair of the White Worm was everything I hate about Ken Russell. I wish he cared more about performances and less about being weird. That's why I haven't seen Gothic.
Gothic cares more about the performances, but I don't think that makes it better. Though maybe that's because the characters being weird is what makes that film weird more than visuals. I don't think the performances in White Worm are that bad, though.



Wolf Creek (2005) 2/10
CINECAST! this. Almost immediately after starting the film I had this sense of regret about my decision to watch it, when the introduction made them completely unlikable and I got the sense this was going to be a film where they are going to be placed in a situation of inevitable death. But then there were some great shots of the outback and the roadtrip, while not particularly interesting, wasn't bad and I made the mistake of not bailing. Slowly it began to be clear what this film was going to be, a serial killer/torture film, but I had gotten halfway through and figured I may as well see it through. The second half has two things I absolutely hate: 1) a reliance on hysteria to create fear, hoping the nervousness and desperation of the characters rubs off on the audience, and 2) graphic violence. I'm thankful the graphic violence is used only briefly in a few scenes, but it's still something I have no interest in.  The hysteria is ever present once it starts, though, and it made the second half an unnerving chore to watch. I suppose that might be a plus for some, but I had hoped to avoid things like this this month. If I'm being fair, I appreciate that the film tries to have the characters make understandable decisions, but it just makes the nonsensical ones seem all the more absurd. It's probably not as bad of a film in an objective sense as my score indicates, but it's not at all the kind of thing I want to watch.