Author Topic: Shocktober Group Marathon 2017  (Read 42413 times)

smirnoff

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2017
« Reply #180 on: October 23, 2017, 01:30:35 AM »
I'm going to make a note of that one. You've sold me on it. Plus the subject matter makes me believe I can handle the scares. :)

pixote

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2017
« Reply #181 on: October 23, 2017, 02:23:30 AM »




Also, getting into the reasoning of Ed (called Ezra), there's some absurdist humor and campy comedy. This is my big problem with Deranged, because I don't think this worked at all. It's confined to 20 minutes in the middle, but the film is un-recommendable during this portion. In the last 30 minutes, it makes a remarkable recovery, with some of the best moments of Horror found in my Marathon to date.
Rating: * * * - Okay, but the last half-hour is Very Good.

Deranged  (Jeff Gillen & Alan Ormsby, 1974)

The most interesting difference between this Ed Gein-inspired horror movie and Texas Chain Saw Massacre is that Deranged takes Gein's point of view. As a result, the terror on display is not so much "What's going to happen?" but instead the inevitability of what will happen. The film is effectively creepy in that regard, thanks largely to the lead performance of Roberts Blossom. He completely nails the easy-going, down-to-earth simplicity that makes his character's insanity all the more frightening. The rest of the cast is hit-and-miss, with some very amateur moments. There's some good early makeup work here by Tom Savini as well. The corpses have just the right balance of the real and the unreal to be effective.

As 1SO mentions, Deranged is not straight horror; it has moments and comedy and camp. For me, those moments didn't undercut the horror at all. It's really not so much a scary film as a sad film, and somehow the off-kilter bits of humor only seemed to underscore that. My big problem with the movie wasn't one of tone so much as of pacing. The film has three key sequences that are very well done, but the stretches in between them really, really drag, as if in tribute to the laconic nature of the killer. That's what ultimately keeps me from recommending the film even though I'm glad to have watched it.

Grade: C+







There are strange hints of a better movie somewhere in there, but the best parts of Motel Hell feel like accidents.
RATING: * 1/2

If this was played as a comedy it might work, but despite everything that happens pointing that way it's all played bizarrely straight. It's not silly enough to be campy fun but nowhere near competent or coherent enough to take seriously. There are a couple of memorable ideas and scenes, but the film holds back from embracing and exploiting their potential.

Motel Hell  (Kevin Connor, 1980)

Here's a film I really should have watched with an audience. The people who like it seem to celebrate it as a black comedy, but until the final minutes I rarely even noticed it trying to be funny let alone actually succeeding. I was nonetheless on board with the film through the first forty-five minutes or so, largely due to the perfect casting of Rory Calhoun as the classic American farmer in denim overalls, with warm eyes and a smile to match, who's heart is in the right place as he murders people and sells their smoked meat. (Okay, see, it sounds funny when I write it out like that.) Calhoun is well paired with evil little sister Nancy Parsons, whose hairdo will probably be what gives me nightmares. There's a promotional still of the two of them posing like the couple in Grant Wood's American Gothic, and it's pretty perfect — and perhaps better than anything in the actual movie.

My main criticism of the movie is that after those first forty-five minutes, it has nothing new to offer. The script and the direction just treads water (no pun intended) for close to an hour without inspiration — minus a scene of anesthesia by way of hypnosis — and that hour felt to me like two-and-a-half or three. Sure, stuff happens, but most of it comes across as just intentionally dumb, as if dumb and funny were the same thing. The finale brings together various story elements in a way that seems full of potential, but it somewhat fizzles out due to poor direction. There's one image that makes it all worth it, though.

Grade: D+

pixote
« Last Edit: October 23, 2017, 02:34:44 AM by pixote »
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1SO

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2017
« Reply #182 on: October 23, 2017, 03:53:10 PM »


The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror XXVIII (2017)

Last year's Treehouse of Horror may be the worst ToH episode ever, so bad and off subject I didn't even bother to write about it. This year makes up for it with one of the most clever ToH episodes of recent Simpsons years. It's still light on laughs, like most Simpsons from this century, but there's twice the thought and visual ambition to appreciate. That starts with the framing device, a stop motion sequence called "The Sweets Hereafter" which is a parody of Sausage Party featuring the characters in the form of candy. (Next to Peppermint Patty is Peppermint Selma and Grandpa is a box of Senior Mints.)

"The Exor-Sis" gets the sequences off to an average start with a long overdue Exorcist parody. That said, it's good to see Maggie be the focus of an episode, and the writers stay away the most iconic visual gag from the horror classic, letting it spill over into the 2nd segment "Coralisa." Coralisa benefits from Neil Gaiman as the voice of the cat, not so much because of his acting but I think having the creator be part of the action elevated the writing to try and be worthy of his participation.

The final segment is probably the most ghoulish the show has ever conceived. It's an original work entitled "MMM... Homer", though there are hints that the writers might have at least been aware of Raw. In the segment, Homer accidentally takes a bite of his finger and realizes his lifestyle has made him the most succulent meat on the planet. The rest of the episode deftly walks the line between being funny and downright repulsive. I watch a lot of horror, but watching Homer give in to his own addiction of feeding on himself is more than slightly disturbing.
Rating: * * * - Good

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DarkeningHumour

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2017
« Reply #183 on: October 24, 2017, 05:37:28 AM »
I haven't watched a Simpsons episode in ages. I'll try to find that one.
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Sam the Cinema Snob

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2017
« Reply #184 on: October 24, 2017, 03:54:44 PM »
Mother! (2017)



Mother! weaves so many threads and asks so many questions that grappling with the whole picture in less than 1000 words is daunting. In many ways, the film is about the entire history of humanity condensed into one house and two hours of run-time. Evoking both the life-cycles of The Fountain and the Judeo Christian traditions of Noah, writer/director Darren Aronofsky uses Mother! to meld of his Eastern and Western ideas into one film.

It begins with Him (Javier Bardem) wandering the charred remains of his childhood home. As he begins to take in the house, it is restored before his eyes, transformed back into something beautiful. And in this restored house is a woman (Jennifer Lawrence), his wife. He is a poet suffering from writer’s block, she occupies her time remodeling the house, the house he grew up in but she had to rebuild after a catastrophic fire.

Already the nature of the man, the woman, and the house is unclear. The audience views the film through woman who also does not comprehend what she is experiencing. The first incident begins with the inexplicable appearance of a Man (Ed Harris) on their doorstep. The couple lives isolated in the country and is not expecting any visitors. And once He invites the man into their home, everything begins to shift.

She perceives the house something alive and growing, as if beneath it all there is a pulsing heart running throughout the house. She nurtures and cares for it, but this man threatens the house, threatens the world she is trying to build, a world that only becomes more and more out of her control as the film progresses.



Casting aside the hefty ideas of the film, part of what makes Mother! a compelling film is watching it unfold moment to moment. The film is such a tense and uncertain piece. She is often left in a sense of disorientation as questions arise and the answers only bring more questions. Scene by scene, her sense of place and purpose become more and more threatened and challenged.

On a sensory level, the film is tensely paced with these long, uncomfortable shots and sequences that build to these brief, fever-pitch moments where it feels like everything might finally break. The lack of a movie score adds to the building sense of dread throughout the film. The silence is horrifying but the noise of disruption even more so.

As the ideas and moments begin to unfold, Mother! emerges as an apocalyptic vision of the world, a dreamscape of imagery and ideas that express humanity and creation as this fallen, twisted thing. Aronofsky simultaneously conjures the biblical arcs of humanity’s decline in Genesis while placing it within an Eastern Mysticism framework.

Mother! struggles with ideas such as what it means to be a creative force. Both She and Him are creators in some ways. She creates a world for them with the house she so painstakingly recreates while he looks to her as the muse for his poetry. And yet, these things become twisted and turned every which way as the film progresses. It is a fallen, broken attempt to create.



As the title implies, She eventually is with child and gives birth. In the birth of a child, there is the basic, biological function of humanity: procreation. In this is the ultimate idea of creativity fulfilled, one of procreation, of the union of man and woman being fulfilled with simultaneously a continuation of the self with the birth of an entirely new being.

Eventually, the film begins to look back upon itself, contemplating the act of art as its own creation and how that process wears away at the couple in its own way. In a tangible sense, the couple is giving away part of themselves to create, a part that may be too great to give and still maintain a harmonious marriage.

As lofty as these ideas sound, the core of the film is a sympathetic placement of the audience alongside the female character as center to the experience. She is not simply left as a muse for the artist, but this psychologically complex being who is troubled by the acts of Him, which often are incomprehensible to her.

In many moments, the film could be called surreal for a number of seemingly absurd moments. It is not so much surreal as it is hyper-real, a realness that circumvents the superficiality of what is considered realism in the arts. This allows Mother! to convey the essence of it all. Humanity, God, the nature of the world, and the nature of creativity. In many ways, it is the pinnacle of the idea Darren Aronofsky has been circling around his whole career.



Does that make it a work of sincerity or a self-serving form of flattery? Is Aronofsky trying too hard to play god or is the whole point of  human existence not unlike playing god? Is the film a tonal mess and does it earn its ending? Why do we even strive to continue creating art if not to somehow delve into these truths, to continue to push at a veil of truth that cannot be expressed through rationelle, reason, science and the intellect? Is this a deep emotional truth or manipulative filmmaking?

How you answer these questions certainly will shape whether or not you think Mother! is a good film. The answers will also reveal a lot about what you think of life, the arts, and the universe. In this sense, Mother! is a dark mirror, one put up to reflect back the rough edges and cracked skin that make up us, who we are, and what we think. For me, it all comes back to those opening moments: we long for paradise in the ashes of a burnt-out home we call earth.

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Bondo

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2017
« Reply #185 on: October 24, 2017, 10:37:29 PM »
The Bar (2017)

I don't understand 1SO's hesitance to call this a horror film. It seems very akin to The Mist to me. That film involves a mysterious/deadly situation outside leaving a group of people isolated together, increasingly set against each other, just like this. And no one hesitates to call that horror.

There are definitely a few moments that act as calling cards of Alex de la Inglesia's talent as a director, even if the finished product isn't quite a work of art. There are moments that call to mind Spain's own experience with ISIS/Al Queda terrorism. There is a potentially overly aggressive governmental presence that echos the scars of Franco's ultimately quite recent fascism and the recent resurgence of state violence to put down Catalan independence movements. Basically, even without economic troubles there is a lot of anxiety in Spanish culture that makes it ripe for a paranoid thriller of this nature. But de la Inglesia is less focused on the context and just wants to play with the shifting conflicts of these people. That makes it play as more of a B-movie than a film of ambition. There's still enough talent to make it enjoyable, just not great.

1SO

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2017
« Reply #186 on: October 24, 2017, 11:19:38 PM »
The Bar (2017)

I don't understand 1SO's hesitance to call this a horror film. It seems very akin to The Mist to me. That film involves a mysterious/deadly situation outside leaving a group of people isolated together, increasingly set against each other, just like this. And no one hesitates to call that horror.
The Mist has fantastical beasts. The Bar has paranoia but it isn't based on monsters. The main horror here is that hole in the floor, a sequence that has me thinking this filmmaker could make the definitive Saw.

That said, I'm glad you gave the film a look. I don't remember you having an opinion on Alex de la Iglesia.

1SO

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2017
« Reply #187 on: October 25, 2017, 12:05:22 AM »

Boo! A Madea Haloween (2012)

This is Tyler Perry's 19th feature film, which is amazing considering how badly directed it is. All these years later, he still frames most scenes like he's capturing a play for posterity. This kind of simplistic shooting could be because he filmed the movie in 16 days. It could be because he often plays three characters in a scene so he doesn't want to get tangled up in complicated effects shots. It could be that he'd prefer to let his actors riff like a Judd Apatow film, especially when the scenes involve his main core ensemble (who I think are known collectively as The Browns.) Perry's non-direction means the film lives or dies by the writing and the performances, which are both all over the map.

That isn't to say the film isn't occasionally funny. When Madea's friends walk in on her to find she's so scared that all the lights are on, she tries to explain that she was reading the Bible. When asked where's the Bible, Madea replies, "It's on the table in my heart." The film passes the six laugh test, but that doesn't factor in all of the negative laughs, moments when Perry draws out a joke that wasn't funny in the first place or drops a line head-scratchingly not funny. For such a conservative and religious film, it's also pretty filthy.

So why are so many of Tyler Perry's films popular. I have to confess for as bad as the film gets at times, there's a sweetness to it. A sense that Perry is trying to do good and if his film looks cheap and has bad actors it's because he doesn't want to waste millions on too many takes and over-qualified actors. People show up to watch Madea and her friends and they get a lot of that, this time within the context of the popular holiday. It would be nice for Perry to actually make one good Madea movie, but that would mean handing control over to other people, something that worked for Rodney Dangerfield in Back to School and Eddie Murphy in The Nutty Professor. I just don't see Tyler Perry interested in going that route, not when people turn up - and don't turn up their nose - to have a good time.
Rating: * *

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Bondo

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2017
« Reply #188 on: October 25, 2017, 07:03:29 AM »
I was fairly positive on The Last Circus, quite negative on Witching & Bitching. The Bar is closer to The Last Circus. Less innovative but more consistent.

DarkeningHumour

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2017
« Reply #189 on: October 25, 2017, 10:58:03 AM »
Here comes my review, it only took me two weeks.

It
Andrés Muschietti (2017)

Summer, small town America. High school is over and a group of kids band together to defeat the ultimate evil: bullying. Along the way they also take the time to kill a clown. 

Therein lies the contradiction of It. What need to rely on the supernatural when the real world elements of the movie are its scariest? I don't know what happened to Stephen King in high school but clearly he came out traumatised. While the psychopath teenagers in Carrie were content in humiliating their victims, in It they upgrade into assault and murder.

And because King knows people don't really grow out of being little shits, the adults are all monsters too. They come in all shapes and sizes: the parents who prioritise their own grieving over what their 13 year old is going through, the overprotective single mother who is best friends with the TV set, pedo dad, the dickish rabbi, and let's not forget everyone's favourite cop who believes in the good old fashioned parenting method known as shooting next to your son to teach him a lesson.

With this who's who of appalling American stereotypes and general assholery it is a wonder all of the kids didn't become delinquents and became nerdy likeable losers instead. They all get an arc to deal through their own issues, even though some are better treated than others, and one can easily see how this could have been a short mini-series - or, say, a thousand page book. The actors are remarkably talented for their age. I wait to see what the girl and the hyperverbal pissant do next. Some scenes of the gang hanging out are things of grace and are among the best in the movie.

Pennywise, by contrast, is much less scary than a dad looking at his daughter with lustful eyes. His best scene is the first, but there are few cheaper ways to open a movie, be it a horror one, by killing of a kid for shock value. There is no shock, we see it coming from the first scene. It's just irritating. In a weird way, Pennywise is almost the most underdeveloped character in the movie, which is a shame because that makes the main storyline less interesting - and scary. We're never explained the rules of his powers or why his original form is a clown. We are never explained why he kills, or when, so after the first few appearances he just seems like he is out to scare the kids and that's all. Meh.

The movie is fun and a rare example of a high school movie where I don't root against the main characters. I don't think it is what it was trying to be though. It's not it, if you will.

7/10

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