Author Topic: Shocktober Group Marathon 2019  (Read 27264 times)

1SO

  • FAB
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 36129
  • Marathon Man
Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2019
« Reply #160 on: November 01, 2019, 01:25:06 AM »
Another month where I was able to focus on giving Mrs. 1SO a good time at the expense of my own Shocktober Nights.

The Mad Genius (1931)
ME: ★ ★
MRS. 1SO: ★ ★ ½
We started with something I selected. I wanted to watch The Mad Doctor (1941) starring Basil Rathbone to bookend my Discovery of Kind Lady early in the month, but I couldn't find a watchable copy. Instead I went with The Mad Genius starring John Barrymore as a puppeteer who turns a boy into a dancer and thinks he owns the boy body and soul. I often have to remind myself that I like Barrymore, because his flavor of ham can get on my nerves. The direction by Michael Curtiz basically just lets Barrymore talk and talk at a very slow speed. The wife liked the character and so had more patience with the film, but she also felt it doesn't do enough to earn the Horror label.


Orphan (2009)
ME: ★ ★ ★ - Good
MRS. 1SO: ★ ★
My original plan was to end the month with What Lies Beneath. Putting it earlier was a smart move, though it would've gone great the day before or after Misery. I was slightly more impressed by the many good scenes this time around, and the performance by Isabelle Fuhrman as Esther is one of the more underrated in Horror, but I also noticed some pedestrian scare scenes that give away Jaume Collet-Serra's lack of experience at the time. (This film may have the record for the most non-scares, shots where we're primed to expect a jolt and then nothing happens.)

I've written before about Mrs. 1SO's deductive powers and she had Esther pegged right up front. With no twist in her future, she was hoping for an interesting master plan, and was disappointed that it didn't go deeper than "evil." She thought some of it was fun, but never scary.

Spoiler Note: I had been doing the math wrong. I thought Fuhrman was in her early 20s when she made Orphan and that they made her up to look 12. That makes her make-up even more impressive, especially at the end when this pre-teen suddenly looks a pretty convincing thirty-three.


Black Museum (2009)
ME: ★ ★ ★ - Very Good
MRS. 1SO: ★ ★ ★ - Very Good
I've learned my wife's favorite type of Horror are big toothy creatures and stories that choose ideas over scares. For the first time in our marriage, I never showed her anything that went too far, though Crawl went right up to the line. Following the disappointing Orphan, I ended her month much like how I began it. We started with the Black Mirror episode "Nosedive" and we end with "Black Museum." For me, the extra kick was seeing Letitia Wright now that I'd seen Black Panther. This actually worked well to throw off Mrs. 1SO's radar because she kept wondering what the Museum owner was going to do to Wright, not suspecting it was the other way around.

1SO

  • FAB
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 36129
  • Marathon Man
Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2019
« Reply #161 on: November 01, 2019, 01:46:45 AM »
While I'm admittedly tired of Horror at the moment, I had a very good month.

The Best:
1. What Lies Beneath
2. Breakdown
3. Ouija: Origin of Evil
4. Kind Lady
5. Fear
6. Martyrs
7. Director's Cut
8. Ghostland
9. Crawl
10. The Day the Earth Caught Fire


The Worst:
1. The Babysitter
2. Exorcist II: The Heretic
3. A Cry in the Night
4. The Descent: Part 2
5. Exorcist: The Beginning
6. Twisted Nerve
7. Terror on a Train

Dave the Necrobumper

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 12730
  • If I keep digging maybe I will get out of this hol
Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2019
« Reply #162 on: November 01, 2019, 04:17:00 AM »
Rankings of the my reviewed Shocktober films:

Very Good
Jaws
Evil Dead 2
The Unknown
Warszawa

Bad, but fun anyway
Mardi Gras Massacre
Death Bed: The Bed That Eats
« Last Edit: November 01, 2019, 02:17:50 PM by 1SO »

oldkid

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 19044
  • Hi there! Feed me worlds!
Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2019
« Reply #163 on: November 01, 2019, 07:39:05 PM »
I owe you folks some reviews.

Annabelle: Creation
I wasn’t expecting much out of this.  I mean, it’s a prequel in a series which is a prequel,.  That can’t be good.  Right off the bat you’ve got an cliche intro.,  I just can’t see how it would be good.

But honestly, I have a really good time.  Then couple with the dead daughter and other secrets open up their home to a set of orphan girls that have no where else to go.  That could go a lot of ways, but I really like some of the turns it takes, including only a single grizzly death and a change of protagonist two thirds of the way in.  This film is prepping us for scares but mostly gives us dread of what will happen.  And they broke a few rules— including an attack outside in daylight.  Every time I think it’s going to become same-old, it gives me a twist. 

And for it being fun, it wasn’t that scary.  A few jump scares and  a bloody death but the rest is in my head.  Well done thrills here.

4/5

Annabelle Comes Home (2019)
The trailer put me off of this one.  Babysitter goes into the basement that has been projected from movie  one that NO ONE should go in and then the babysitter opens the case that NO ONE should open and  IT HAS A SIGN THAT SAYS SO!!!  Will I have to suffer through stupid people throughout this movie?

Turns out, the story of  the trailer is simply misleading.  There’s a babysitter, but she’s not the one who goes in the basement.  And it turns out there is a decent reason for the girl who does go in the basement to go in there,.  I am shocked to admit this, but there isn’t a stupid person in this entire movie (well, almost)!  And even the people who act inappropriately, or who break the rules,  they get redemption scenes.

It is a fun, kinda scary romp.  I had a slightly better time with this one than Creation, but my daughter liked them a bit more the other way around.  We both agree, though, that the first Annabelle movie was crap.

4/5

Frankenstein (1931)
Watching this with my daughter so she can catch up with a classic.  And be prepared for Young Frankenstein.

There is just so much that is corny, you want to laugh at the whole thing.  Gravediggers whose clothes are clean after their work is done.  A father who thinks his son is in a windmill when he’s in a castle.  No one really gets wet although it is constantly storming.   And the intro preparing us for the HORROR....  You can’t help but laugh throughout half the film.

But the other half is truly dread-ful, horrible.  And perhaps the silliness disarms me so I was unprepared for the horror, although I’d seen it before.  The murders are effective, and I forgot about the rape.  The final scene is quite effective as well.  There is so much that is good that the mixed tone doesn’t bother me.  Perhaps when I watch Bride I’ll like it better when I realize that the silliness is baked into the tone from the beginning.

But what destroys this fine film for me is my memory of Young Frankenstein, which I must have watched ten times as a child and teen.  The two films are so close that it is difficult to see one without comparing.   I can’t wait to show it to my daughter.

3.5/5
"It's not art unless it has the potential to be a disaster." Bansky

1SO

  • FAB
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 36129
  • Marathon Man
Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2019
« Reply #164 on: November 01, 2019, 09:50:11 PM »
I had a similar reaction to Frankenstein, which is why I was so surprised and delighted by Bride of Frankenstein, which is probably my favorite Universal Monster Movie. (That or The Wolfman.)

Do you have a ranking of films from The Conjuring universe? Usually it's Conj 1&2 followed by a big gap, but I think you may have them bunched closer together.

1SO

  • FAB
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 36129
  • Marathon Man
Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2019
« Reply #165 on: November 02, 2019, 12:11:03 AM »
Late Phases (2014)
★ ★ ★ - Okay
One last title sitting in my pile. A werewolf film I didn't plan to write about but the lead performance is incredibly good. His name is Nick Damici and I've only seen him as the lead in Stake Land, where he is also excellent. It's a performance like that DJ in Pontypool, easily getting you past the many rough spots in the script.

Damici plays a war vet, blinded in combat. He's moved into a retirement community where one night his neighbor is killed by a werewolf. Damici survives, but his guide dog does not. (One of the film's many uncompromising actions.) He knows in a month the killer will attack again, so he prepares for what he sees as his final battle. There's a Charles Bronson quality to Damici's clipped speech, and a manner that assures you he'll be able to put up quite a fight.

oldkid

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 19044
  • Hi there! Feed me worlds!
Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2019
« Reply #166 on: November 02, 2019, 01:03:21 AM »
1. The Conjuring 1 4.5/5
2. The Conjuring 2 4.5
3. Annabelle Comes Home 4/5
4. Annabelle: Creation  4/5
5.  The Curse of La Llorona 3.5/5
6. Annabelle 2.5/5

The Nun has the worst ratings of all the films, so I’ll probably avoid that one, unless I get an urge to complete the series.

The non-Conjuring films don’t have the tight plot or scares of the original two, but the Annabelle sequels have enough charms that I will enjoy watching them again sometime.
"It's not art unless it has the potential to be a disaster." Bansky

Sandy

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 12075
  • "The life we build, we never stop creating.”
    • Sandy's Cinematic Musings
Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2019
« Reply #167 on: November 03, 2019, 09:39:57 PM »
Onibaba



"I tell you if there's anything worse than dealing with a staunch woman... S-T-A-U-N-C-H. There's nothing worse, I'm telling you. They don't weaken, no matter what."  -- Edith B. Beale Jr. in Grey Gardens

Mother daughter (in-law) dynamics amongst an ocean of Suzuki grass. Metaphors abound in those swaying reeds, from incessant hunger, indelible fear, interminable war, irrational jealousy, to irrepressible lust. It's all "beyond [their] control" as the elements sweep over them, driving them on to their ultimate fate. It's a cautionary tale about manipulating others with cautionary tales. huh.



- Slightly Scary Sexy

and

- Safe for Sandy

1SO

  • FAB
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 36129
  • Marathon Man
Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2019
« Reply #168 on: November 03, 2019, 10:47:19 PM »
It's a cautionary tale about manipulating others with cautionary tales.
I never noticed how common this is for movies to do, but I just watched Jojo Rabbit, which does this. It made me think of films as diverse as Dogtooth, Tangled and Emir Kusturica's Underground.

Sandy

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 12075
  • "The life we build, we never stop creating.”
    • Sandy's Cinematic Musings
Re: Shocktober Group Marathon 2019
« Reply #169 on: November 04, 2019, 03:34:24 PM »
I never noticed how common this is for movies to do, but I just watched Jojo Rabbit, which does this. It made me think of films as diverse as Dogtooth, Tangled and Emir Kusturica's Underground.

I'm trying to get to Jojo this week, so will look for it! I see it in Tangled and The Village, but haven't seen Dogtooth or Underground yet. Interesting theme.

 

love