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Author Topic: Shocktober Group Marathon 2019  (Read 27244 times)

Beavermoose

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2019
« Reply #150 on: October 28, 2019, 06:23:35 PM »
How the Amityville franchise produced so many movies I have no idea. All other long running horror franchises at least had some kind of theme or gimmick going for them but this series is just boring. If Hellraiser is the cinnamon challenge of horror film series, Amityville must be the tide pod challenge.
Amityville II: The Possession
It's like they saw the success of the exorcist and decided they needed a possession story. The ending of the movie is almost exactly the same as the Exorcist.
There's some creepy incest stuff that makes no sense based on how the characters act but I was sort of aboard for because of how ridiculous it is but overall this movie is trash.

Amityville 3-D: The Demon
I didn't care about any of the characters, they're all pretty unlikable, even when a young Meg Ryan shows up, things fly at the screen. These haunted house movies have no good haunted house scenes.

Amityville 4: The Evil Escapes   
This one is a TV movie in which the source of the evil is a lamp. It's trying to be Poltergeist but without a budget it just seems like a bad episode of Goosebumps without the campiness.


At least the Hellraiser franchise gives us incredibly fun gory practical effects that make series like Nightmare on Elm Street so fun.


Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988)
This film is mostly highlighted by it's effects and art direction which are great if you're into those kinds of touches. The plot is thin and full of clichés, an evil doctor and insane asylum and characters with incomprehensible motivations and a vague effort to connect it to the original movie make this movie very messy. The last 30 minutes are a good kind of messy as a demonic cenobite doctor floats through a hospital skewering patients with his gory cyberpunk blade tentacles.

Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (1992)
Pinhead gets accidentally summoned by a nightclub owner and blood and gore ensue. I sort of liked this. The acting is awful but the plot is much less contrived than the second movie. It's a very 90s movie with warehouse night clubs and dated costumes and gave a nice sense of camp and nostalgia. Again the best part are the visual effect set pieces, Pin head walks through the club and people get killed in dozens of fun ways, including a DJ getting chopped by his mix CDs (CDs!!!). It gets even better when some of the people killed come back as cenobites and pinhead is now joined by... Discface? The film ends, like most of these movies with the deus ex machina cube that, I guess, just sends all the cenobites back to hell? I'm not tired of this franchise yet but will have to see how the next ones go.
« Last Edit: October 28, 2019, 06:27:20 PM by Beavermoose »

1SO

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2019
« Reply #151 on: October 28, 2019, 07:06:59 PM »
Congratulations. You've made it through the easy Hellraiser movies. Fun fact: When I saw Hellraiser II in the theater(!) on Friday night(!!) I gave it half a star. (My ratings are as old as I am.) That's partly because of the steep drop in quality from the first film and largely because it was one of the worst horror scripts ever. After a few more sequels, I thought I was unfair with that rating. The film does look good in places and some of the effects are okay. If I give the 2nd film a half-star, it leaves no room for how far down the series tumbles.

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2019
« Reply #152 on: October 28, 2019, 07:39:27 PM »

The House with a Clock in Its Walls (2018)

This is close to being a horror gem for kids, but a few key decisions put me slightly negative. The mystery is strong, Cate Blanchett is perfect as usual and when Kyle MacLachlan's undead villain shows up, the makeup and sound effects are just great. Many scenes show what the studio was going for hiring Eli Roth for their Goosebumps knockoff. He's not a good director, but he lets Black and Blanchett work their magic and pushes the creepiness right up to the line, letting the producers keep it family-friendly(ish). I don't think anyone would've objected to removing the topiary lion that poops mulch. (This happens three times and it's always gross, even as mulch.) There's a key scene where the point is to let the kid be weird, and the scene flops because it's... well it's not the right kind of weird. More like embarrassingly weird. The finale involves a special effect that changes Jack Black's body. It looks bad, the visual destroys the tone and it goes on way too long. (Think Dwayne Johnson in The Scorpion King.) In terms of time, the film is only bad for a few minutes, but they do a lot of damage to my goodwill in that time.
Rating: ★ ★ ½

- Slightly Scary

smirnoff

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2019
« Reply #153 on: October 28, 2019, 09:26:05 PM »


They look like Borg who are into S&M.

Dave the Necrobumper

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2019
« Reply #154 on: October 28, 2019, 10:38:14 PM »
Jaws (1975 Steven Spielberg)

Tight, some good suspense in the last 30 minutes, and in the beach scene before the second kill. Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, and Murray Hamilton put in great performances. It is nice to have finally seen the film and while it is very good, I am having trouble gushing over it. The iconic bigger boat line did not come where and how I expected it.

Now I have put this film here in Shocktober as I have always thought it was a horror film, but I think it was a mistake as the film is more a thriller than a horror film. So like with Zombieland: Double Tap being a comedy not a horror, I am going to have to say Jaws is not a horror film, which IMDB agrees with.

Still it is very much worth the viewing time.

Rating: 80 / 100

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2019
« Reply #155 on: October 29, 2019, 12:01:43 AM »

Ghostland (2018)
"The details are so intense, I guess the question is, Why write this book?"

"To keep from going insane."


I know I go crazy for Horror films, especially for Shocktober, so I want to start by emphasizing THIS will probably be the most significant, longest-lasting film of the bunch. Courtesy of Pascal Laugier (Martyrs), Ghostland is a home invasion story that blossoms into a look at surviving terrible physical and psychological trauma. I can't get into plot specifics because the twists are huge, and along with Laugier's relentless pacing I was constantly off balance. It's a Horror film (capital 'H') built on constant tension and brutality that never becomes numbing because of the deeper themes at play.


It wasn't until I was doing my post-viewing reading that I even thought about the bad guys being terribly negative types. (One is mentally handicapped, another is possibly transgender.) They're not given a backstory - I don't even think they have dialogue - just a scary presence and a large van used to sell candy. Candy and doll imagery is part of the design, but the big meta-discussion to be had is why are people drawn to these types of stories? Through two sisters, Laugier attempts to explore trauma while also serving up a good horror movie. It's impossible to do both because the psychological side ends up over-simplified, but I like the ideas here even more than the ones in Martyrs.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ - Good

- Really Scary

Beavermoose

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2019
« Reply #156 on: October 29, 2019, 03:45:36 AM »

philip918

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2019
« Reply #157 on: October 30, 2019, 12:26:30 PM »
Crawl (2019)
This fell kind of flat for me. The execution of the set pieces was well done. I thought the story needed an infusion of other characters into the scenario to give Scodelario and Pepper's characters other personalities to deal with. The CGI gators look okay, but lack the presence and personality of creatures like the raptors in Jurassic Park. The thematic element felt trite and really forced.

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2019
« Reply #158 on: October 31, 2019, 09:36:47 AM »
Misery (1990)
★ ★ ★ – Very Good
One of the big titles for Mrs. 1SO. Remembering how simple the execution is, I forgot how effective ALL the scenes are at doing exactly what they set out to do. James Caan is miscast as an author, but he’s a strong actor just for holding his own against Kathy Bates. Mrs. 1SO wasn’t expecting such a funny film for Shocktober, riding it like a roller coaster with alternating laughs and dread.


Footsteps in the Fog (1955)
★ ★ ★ – Okay
Gothic chiller about a murderous husband (Stewart Granger) and the clever maid (Jean Simmons) who knows, using it to gain advantage. It’s two cobras in one basket, each thinking they’re the smarter one. Stronger emphasis on character but the haunted mansion atmosphere reminded me of Crimson Peak.


Backcountry (2014)
★ ★ ★ – Okay
Almost as minimalist a camping drama as The Loneliest Planet, and then a vicious bear takes things up a notch. Actually, all the notches. Not much more to it than that, but horror repeatedly reminds me why I never want to go camping.


The Descent: Part 2 (2009)
★ ½
I’m all for a Descent series, but in a time of Cinematic Universes it’s noticeable how little care was put into this. The plot clutches at whatever characters and situations were available to them. The story constantly tries to connect to the first film, but it's clear nearly everyone wanted nothing to do with this. The director was the editor of the previous film, and the editing is one of the worst things about Descent 1.


Halloweentown (1998)
★ ★
You know… for kids. Disney channel movie about a town where all the creatures live the rest of the year and the evil demon who wants to take over the town and unleash vengeance on the human world. Despite the description, it never reminded me of Nightmare Before Christmas. Too much like every other sub-average Disney TV film. The make-up design is both extensive and cheap-looking. Still, it’s better than Hocus Pocus.

FLYmeatwad

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Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2019
« Reply #159 on: October 31, 2019, 07:50:02 PM »
Murder Party

Look, I'll do what I can here, but I'm sick, which prevented me from dipping in to Carrie De Palma last night, but since I saw this on Netflix and realized it took place on Halloween night, I planned to watch it on the 31st. And I did. It's interesting, a pretty straightforward, quick film, but, even with how bloody his future films can get, this does feel a bit outside of what Saulnier ends up doing. Maybe just because it's more contained, but so is Green Room. Think that one just hits a better tone, whereas how light this one gets, while fun, sort of doesn't allow the heavier aspects or reveals to hit. Maybe it's just the brevity. Who knows. Really strange part in here where it, for no real reason, gets in to a convo about a racial slur that is even stranger with literally all the people involved in the convo being white, but perhaps it resonates more in Trump's America than it did when this film first came out. Who can say? Not me. I think Green Room is Saulnier's best by a pretty wide margin thus far. Oh yeah, enjoyed the performances here too. It wasn't really scary. But whatever, it was fun.

On the Goosebumps scale I would give this Goosebumps: The Movie because I can't think of the right book atm.