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Author Topic: Shocktober Group Marathon 2018  (Read 31139 times)

Junior

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2018
« Reply #160 on: October 31, 2018, 06:05:40 AM »
I've wanted to watch both of those for a while now. It won't happen this Shocktober, but your positive reviews have ensured that it'll happen before next year.
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FLYmeatwad

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2018
« Reply #161 on: October 31, 2018, 07:22:34 PM »
Probably going to keep my Shudder subscription going for at least another month or two, they have a big selection. Does anyone have recommendations?

Junior

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2018
« Reply #162 on: October 31, 2018, 08:55:43 PM »
I've had good luck with Society, The Stuff, Revenge, Terrified, Summer of 84, Dead Ringers, Spring, Hell House LLC, Angst, Borgman, Timecrimes, Triangle, Black Christmas, and Ghostwatch (maybe the best of these).
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1SO

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2018
« Reply #163 on: October 31, 2018, 09:49:28 PM »
Probably going to keep my Shudder subscription going for at least another month or two, they have a big selection. Does anyone have recommendations?
Yes. Anything on this list.


I've had good luck with Society, The Stuff, Revenge, Terrified, Summer of 84, Dead Ringers, Spring, Hell House LLC, Angst, Borgman, Timecrimes, Triangle, Black Christmas, and Ghostwatch (maybe the best of these).
The Stuff is modest but successful.
Never heard of Hell House LLC.
I thought you saw Angst. Very special one from the darkest corner of the genre.
Which Black Christmas? I just saw the remake and it was lousy.
Ghostwatch is one of the best.

1SO

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2018
« Reply #164 on: October 31, 2018, 10:20:12 PM »

Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954)

I got interested in this with the many podcasts discussing it along with The Shape of Water. I now realize I have never seen this movie (though I've seen Revenge of the Creature, which played on television in 3D.) It's almost the stereotype of creature feature horror, where the monster's movements are not logical but more for the entertainment of the audience. (So many times he almost touches a person or waves his webbed hands towards the camera.) I like the breathing with the expanding/collapsing gills and doing that much skilled diving work while in a rubber suit and without an oxygen tank is really impressive. Which makes the non-moving eyes look even more fake. There's also a blurred morality to the film. At times, I think we're meant to feel sorry for the creature, but he's committing a lot of murder.

Mrs. 1SO thought it was a perfect start to the final day of Shocktober. "I'm a Disney girl, but when it comes to classic monsters, Universal is the king."
Rating: ★ ★ ★ - Good
Mrs. 1SO: ★ ★ ★ - Very Good

- Slightly Scary



The Conjuring (2013)

It's been a brave month for Mrs. 1SO. I've been able to show her Happy Death Day, Rosemary's Baby, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane, Halloween, Psycho II and the month came to a crescendo with this, which she found to be easily the scariest of the bunch. Fright-wise, it started with the old woman on top of the wardrobe, but the exorcism finale was absolutely terrifying (without crossing the line into going too far.) True story or not, the commitment to a feeling of realism and believability of Lorraine and Ed Warren's caring marriage made it much more scary for her than the funhouse spookiness of the other films this month.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ½
Mrs. 1SO: ★ ★ ★ - Good

- Really Scary
« Last Edit: October 31, 2018, 10:30:28 PM by 1SO »

smirnoff

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2018
« Reply #165 on: November 01, 2018, 12:37:30 AM »
I applaud Mrs. 1SO for braving The Conjuring. You won't catch me watching it.

oldkid

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2018
« Reply #166 on: November 01, 2018, 12:44:11 AM »
The Exorcist

William Friedken is one of the directors that had a streak of three almost perfect movies: The French Connection, The Exorcist and Sorcerer.  All three are famous for genre-specific aspects-- a car chase, tense thriller scenes and grotesque horror.  And yet the time is given to character development in all three, which makes each of these films richer than the usual buddy copy, horror or thriller.  Most directors assume we want to get to the action.  Friedkin assumes that the action is better when you have a solid character foundation.  I think Friedkin is right.

The actual exorcist of the film perhaps takes twenty minutes, but afterwards, it feels like a much longer part of the movie, there are so many specifics.  Max von Sydow is only present in the introduction and in the climatic scenes, but he feels like he has lived in many more scenes, his presence is so heavy in this film.  The connection between the Iraq introduction and the scenes in Georgetown are only hinted at, never spelled out.  For a horror movie in which vomit and "f***" takes such a central place, it is remarkably subtle with a lot of subtext that is introduced and then never takes center stage again.  We are expected to put the pieces together.

This time, I watched it with my daughter who loves to see humor in her horror and she found a lot of humor.  At one point, when Regan bit the crotch of the psychologist, my daughter quipped, "That's the end of your reproduction."  I lost my breath laughing. 

Still enjoyable, still stunning.  The editing is so very good, almost genius level.  This is top tier horror and few films can compare.

4.5/5

Very scary, especially for anyone with children.  Yeah, I'm talking to you, Sandy.
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Junior

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2018
« Reply #167 on: November 01, 2018, 11:01:26 AM »
Probably going to keep my Shudder subscription going for at least another month or two, they have a big selection. Does anyone have recommendations?
Yes. Anything on this list.


I've had good luck with Society, The Stuff, Revenge, Terrified, Summer of 84, Dead Ringers, Spring, Hell House LLC, Angst, Borgman, Timecrimes, Triangle, Black Christmas, and Ghostwatch (maybe the best of these).
The Stuff is modest but successful.
Never heard of Hell House LLC.
I thought you saw Angst. Very special one from the darkest corner of the genre.
Which Black Christmas? I just saw the remake and it was lousy.
Ghostwatch is one of the best.

Hell House LLC is a super low budget movie about a group of friends opening a haunted house attraction that turns out to be actually haunted. The sequel is very dumb and bad, but the first one has some good scares.

Angst is the start of the section of the list that includes things I saw before Shudder. It was great to find it on there, I want to watch it again some time soon.

Definitely the original Black Christmas. The remake asks the question, "What would happen if every shot in a movie was a close-up/insert?" and answers it by being very bad and disorienting.

CINECAST! yeah Ghostwatch!
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pixote

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2018
« Reply #168 on: November 01, 2018, 12:55:24 PM »


Preminger is adept at using misdirection to maximize the impact of those kinds of turns, both minor and major. (He should have made a horror film).

Make a note to check out Bunny Lake is Missing next Shocktober. I was mixed but I think it has what you're looking for from Preminger. The entire premise is about taking the inevitable and making it suspenseful and surprising.

Bunny Lake Is Missing  (Otto Preminger, 1965)

Bunny Lake Is Missing is a preposterous story, ostentatiously told. Preminger reminds me, once again, of a con man trying to pass off forgeries as his own work — not for money so much as for the acclaim and validation that he desperately seems to crave. I'm not sure when I became so prejudiced against him (or if my prejudice is at all justified), but I nonetheless resist his showmanship, which usually seems less in the service of the story than of his own self-aggrandizement. The long takes in Bunny Lake, superficially similar to those found in a Welles' film, seem like forced attempts to garner the same sort of praise. Similarly, the attempts at a certain sort of maturity (like the mention of "abortion") seem like calculated attempts to be controversial, imitative of what someone like Richard Brooks does with greater purpose. And Preminger really, really wants to be Hitchcock, even borrowing the "no entry after the movie starts" publicity gambit from Psycho and appearing in one of the trailers in similar fashion. (The trailer featuring The Zombies is way more fascinating, however, and perhaps even more essential viewing than the film itself.)

Borrowing from the best isn't necessarily a bad thing, though. Hawks was great at it, for example, but he was a much better synthesizer of his borrowed ideas than Preminger, who is unable here to make Bunny Lake Is Missing a fully cohesive cinematic experience. That being said, there's still enough artistry in the film from moment to moment to make it worthwhile viewing. Saul Bass's opening credit sequence starts things off on an especially strong note. The first act that follows is a bit muddled, as both script and direction struggle to make the story's preposterous setup at all tenable. Until Laurence Olivier shows up (as the inspector on the case), the story is populated with characters who bare too little resemblance to actual human beings. I appreciated the grotesquery of it all, but the story could've used a stronger grounding in reality before branching off in that direction. The madness later on with the doll surgeon and the lab animals and the children's game are all much more successful. Atmosphere is a strong point of the film. It would make an interesting double feature with The Loved One, made the same year, or perhaps any number of subsequent films it perhaps inspired: Blowup, Rosemary's Baby, The Wicker Man.

Anyone watching 2001 for the first time should have to first watch Bunny Lake Is Missing as a prerequisite.

Grade: B-

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1SO

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2018
« Reply #169 on: November 01, 2018, 02:52:22 PM »
There is great wisdom in that post. I’m going to watch the trailers after work and then respond.

 

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