Author Topic: Shocktober Group Marathon 2018  (Read 31095 times)

oldkid

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2018
« Reply #70 on: October 10, 2018, 01:06:34 AM »
My Soul To Take

When a movie boldly announces on it's cover WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY WES CRAVEN you know they are probably hoping that you haven't read the reviews for it.  I hadn't, so I watched it and it wasn't too bad.  Not as bad as I thought it would be.

Okay, the production values were kinda horrible.  The editing was kinda awful and the sound quality was terrible too.  But the script was clever enough for a cheap production and the acting wasn't bad.  I really liked the pacing, fast enough to make your head spin.  So the ending was predictable.  The point is, how you get there and I think that we have the typical 10 Little Indians approach with some nice twists.  I had fun with it and that's enough.

3.5/5

"It's not art unless it has the potential to be a disaster." Bansky

Dave the Necrobumper

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2018
« Reply #71 on: October 10, 2018, 07:48:40 PM »
So I do not double post I will just link to my review of Scream over in Sam's Top 100 club

 The Shocktober rating is between:

- Scary    - Slightly Scary


FLYmeatwad

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2018
« Reply #72 on: October 10, 2018, 09:17:01 PM »
The Monster Squad

Not too much to say about this one, it's fun and pretty much what I expected it to be, though it's crazy to think that this would be rated PG-13 when you get a really raw homophobic slur pretty much right out of the gate. But it was a different time, or something. This feels like a plucky young group of kids going on an adventure, and I assume will act as a nice primer for Goosebumps 2 this weekend. I might get more out of it if I had more exposure to the films that house the monsters, but they've become so much a part of cinematic history that you'll still find points to latch on to with even a rudimentary understanding.

Didn't realize going in that Shane Black partially penned the script, though it makes sense. Also, with a quick look over Wikipedia, apparently I'm pretty unfamiliar with a lot of his filmography. Haven't loved anything and skipped The Predator entirely, but still surprised me to see his name pop up at the beginning.

It's not really meant to be scary, but on a scary scale this would get a...

Beavermoose

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2018
« Reply #73 on: October 10, 2018, 11:57:33 PM »
Hereditary
I like the way it's shot with the dioramas creating this uncomfortable distortion of the space and the wide shots almost turning the the characters into a diorama as if their world is being controlled by a greater unknown force. I don't know why these cultists seem to be making a return in horror movies and I'm not sure if I'm completely on board. The third act is a bit underwhelming. I've decided that the metaphor of the movie is that older generations don't care about future generations and are selfishly giving us a destroyed shell of a planet to inherit... I.e. global warming. But maybe I'm reading too much into it.

A Quiet Place
I accidentally forgot to put on the subtitles for the ASL which actually got me more invested in the movie as I was trying to decode what they were saying. If did really like this movie even simply in the fact that it acknowledges ASL as an important language and method of communication. I'm not sure if the entire family drama worked for me or if I liked the alien creatures. I was also really annoyed by that nail in the staircase, screw that nail. It felt like a cheap way to create tension. I think the movie is a really great concept that could have been executed better.

1SO

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2018
« Reply #74 on: October 11, 2018, 12:08:06 AM »
ISO, only the Pennywise scenes? What about the scene with the painted lady?  The bathroom of blood? Excellent work there, and quite shivery.
The bathroom of blood is well done, my favorite that doesn't involve a clown or balloons.



Jaws

I guess this qualifies. It does, because it has so many elements of horror
When we start questioning the validity of Jaws' horror credentials it's time to pack up and go home. I guess it's possible to exclude and/or include pretty much any film. The Horror of The Love Guru over The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which is more a satire on the family unit with horror elements.

FLYmeatwad

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2018
« Reply #75 on: October 11, 2018, 10:12:44 PM »
Jaws is definitely a horror film, it just doesn't feel like one to me. I'm hoping to get to The Birds, but wonder if it'll feel similar because birds are just real things. I never really got the 'horror' vibe from what I know of other killer fish movies, not even the Goosebumps books that focus on them, or Anaconda, which I have seen and didn't feel like what I think of when I think horror, though that one is more scary because I don't like snakes. But they're just wild animals, I know they can hurt people. So it comes down to the film making, and Jaws is definitely filmed like a horror, despite so much of it taking place during the daytime, so I wouldn't debate that it belongs in the genre at all. It just didn't resonate with me on much more than a theoretical or technical level.

1SO

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2018
« Reply #76 on: October 11, 2018, 10:39:43 PM »
MURDER AND MYSTERY TRIPLE FEATURE


A Study in Terror (1965)
"A second murder. Now, that is interesting."
"Why?"
"Because it is the second murder."


Jack the Ripper begins his murder spree. The opening scenes remind me of Hammer horror, with all the period detail and cleavaged women whose dresses end up caked in dirt, water or blood. The ripper scenes are tough for 1960s, especially the victim Mary Kelly, which has an actual police photo on the Ripper's Wikipedia page. The film suggests the gruesome killing well and lingers uncomfortably long on the doomed woman. The script seems to stick as close to the facts as they could possibly get away with, and then for speculating who is Jack the Ripper they do something interesting.

Watson: Someone should have sent for us before this, Holmes.
Holmes: Someone has. The woman who sent me that instrument case.
Watson: Oh, but then why doesn't she come out into the open?
Holmes: Being a woman, she uses a women's art. She intrigues us to White Chapel.

The true crime murder spree comes up against England's greatest detective. This isn't the only time someone has matched Holmes against Jack the Ripper, but it's the best version I've found. While John Neville (Adv. of Baron Munchausen) won't crack my Top 3 Holmes - Cumberbatch, Rathbone, Cushing - he plays the part well, and the script almost constantly has him logically deducing a number of leads from one small clue, which is the great fun of Holmes. The mystery has few suspects, but they're high level of obviousness makes it tough to figure who the real killer is. Besides, as Holmes says, that's the easy part. It's bringing them to justice that's the real puzzle.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ - Good

- Slightly Scary. Occasionally vicious.

The poster suggests this film's marketing was attempting to appeal to fans of the Batman TV series.




Chase a Crooked Shadow (1958)

A gaslight thriller built on the mysterious return of a long lost relative who the lead (Anne Baxter) insists is not who they say they are. We know from the opening scene there's a con at play, but it's fun watching what they're after and how they plan to get away with it. While this is certainly a tight (87min) and smart thriller, it suffers for building to a twist I'm familiar with from another film that I love. It's a great twist, I just saw it coming right from the start. Also, because of All About Eve, there's a fake "I'm just acting" quality to Anne Baxter that makes it tough for me to have sympathy for her.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ - Okay

- Safe for Sandy



The Ninth Guest (1934)
Very similar to Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians, coming out 5 years before her book but not as well-plotted. Eight people are gathered for a dinner party "in their honor" where they are to be executed one every hour. (The Ninth Guest is Death.) Despite the familiar elements, this is a fun murder mystery.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ - Okay

- Safe for Sandy

1SO

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2018
« Reply #77 on: October 11, 2018, 10:51:24 PM »
Jaws is definitely a horror film, it just doesn't feel like one to me. I'm hoping to get to The Birds, but wonder if it'll feel similar because birds are just real things. I never really got the 'horror' vibe from what I know of other killer fish movies, not even the Goosebumps books that focus on them, or Anaconda, which I have seen and didn't feel like what I think of when I think horror, though that one is more scary because I don't like snakes. But they're just wild animals, I know they can hurt people.
Interesting. I listen to a Podcast with two people who Love horror films, but don't care for ghost stories because ghosts aren't real. To them horror is other living people.

I think the genre has cast a wide net to make anything and everything scary: animals, houses, little wooden dolls, the wind. Like you say, it comes down to the filmmaking. Are bird naturally scary? No. But if they were suddenly all rise up against us we'd be heavily outnumbered. The most far out example of this idea is Phase IV, which suggests ants have been working away at the ground to set up our own destruction and by the time we learn of this, it's already too late to stop them.

Dave the Necrobumper

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2018
« Reply #78 on: October 12, 2018, 05:39:57 AM »
Last Christmas I got a box set of the 5 The Fly movies on BluRay, so it is time for a little marathon, in chronological order.

The Fly (1958 Kurt Neumann)

So the credits roll and there are 2 surprises for me. The first is Vincent Price, ah what a pleasant surprise. The second was the screenwriter James Clavell, who I only thought of as a novelist. Looking up his bio on IMDB, thou, shows a very interesting line of screen credits (including The Great Escape and To Sir with Love). Going through the credits on IMDB I found another surprise, David Hedison who looked vaguely familiar, now I know why, he played Felix in Licence to Kill, although he also appeared in just about every US 80s TV show I watched as well.

Kurt Neumann was a very busy director who died the year The Fly was released. Including the 2 movies released the year after he died, Neumann directed 61 features in 28 years. What a collection: 3 of the Weissmuller Tarzan movies, one movie titled The Dude Goes West (maybe a pre Big Lebowski role for Jeff Bridges :)) and another titled Machete that also came out in 1958.

The start of this film was unusual, it appears to start at the end of the story (a la D.O.A), but then sticks around for an unexpectedly long time before we go back to the beginning. The start has Helene Delambre (Patricia Owens) running from the body of her dead and very squished husband (David Hedison). She confesses to killing him, but will not say why. Finally after some convincing from her brother-in-law (Vincent Price) she tells the story from the beginning. What we get is a family story of a sane scientist whose experiment goes horribly wrong.

The effects are ok and very well used. They did not over extend what they could do and the fly head was very good. Someone loved neon lights. It was interesting to see something intended to be a computer (although never referenced in the movie) in a pre-60s movie, I can not think of another example, but others here may.

The performances are acceptable, Owens plays the hysteria up a little, but I suspect that was an expectation of the time. There is also a lovely bit where she surprises the men with her knowledge of how to operate the factory's heavy machinery.

Definitely in the better quality section of the 50s sci fi/horror movies.

This is not a scary movie.

Ratiing: 74 / 100

P.S. The BluRay transfer clean up was excellent.
P.P.S. Watched the Vincent Price bio that was an extra. Some interesting stuff, although it was a bit of a fluff piece in that focused on only the positive stuff. Looked like it was an old A&E one from the 80's or 90's.

Up next with be 1959's The Return of the Fly, hoping to start this tonight.

Dave the Necrobumper

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2018
« Reply #79 on: October 12, 2018, 05:42:50 AM »
While John Neville (Adv. of Baron Munchausen) won't crack my Top 3 Holmes - Cumberbatch, Rathbone, Cushing - he plays the part well

So what is your ranking of those who have played Holmes?

 

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