|
Post by the knife on Oct 9, 2023 9:11:54 GMT
25. Gallows Hill aka The Damned (Victor Garcia, 2013) 3/10 Sorry, this was painfully boring and forgettable. A waste of time. I really have nothing more to say here. 26. The Meg (Jon Turtletaub, 2018) 6/10 Nothing really special and I only watched this bc I do want to see its sequel from this year. I had fun watching tho, which I didnt even expect beforehand. The cast is pretty good and I do tend to love maritime movies in general. 27. House on the Edge of the Park (Ruggero Deodato, 1980) 7/10 A mean-spirited, nihilistic, angry and violent film but that ending was worth it. I love the shots of New York City, too, a dark urban landscape drenched in melancholic shades of blue. David Hess makes such a great creep. You really just can't help but hate him when he's on screen. He's filthy, cruel, and evil. Top tier villain.
|
|
|
Post by theravenking on Oct 9, 2023 15:31:32 GMT
Death Train (1978; Igor Auzins)Each year I try to throw in some lesser-known films for the horror challenge, yet I feel that with this Australian TV movie I'm already scraping the barrell of obscurity. The plot synopsis certainly reads like an intriguing ghost story or even impossible mystery: Unfortunately the movie tries to play the plot for laughs. To quote a critic: "the script is given such tongue-in-cheek treatment, it's little more than a farce." In fact there is very little horror or even spooky content here. Hugh Keays-Byrne probably best known as the villains in Mad Max and Mad Max: Fury Road, plays an insurance investigator who has to determine the cause of death for the victim, only then can the insurance money be paid out. This is a small town crime comedy, and it was not until the end, that I realised, that what I was dealing with here, was a comical Aussie version of Polanski's Chinatown, - the protagonist even finds the victim's missing glasses in an unexpected place, just like in the neo noir classic. It's a likeable and occasionally amusing little flick, but also rather low-key and not very exciting. 5/10
|
|
|
Post by theravenking on Oct 9, 2023 20:50:51 GMT
Blind Terror aka. See No Evil (1971; Richard Fleischer)Richard Fleischer does Hitchcock in this narratively slight but terrifying thriller. The director effectively uses the old trick of letting the audience know more than the protagonist to generate tension, even though in the first half hour very little actually happens. We only know there's a psycho wearing cowboy boots, but we don't know what he's up to. And then from one moment to the next all hell breaks lose, and Farrow's character gets put through the ringer. You don't have to be a fan of the actress to feel for her. She's so fragile and vulnerable here and the bad guy so mercilessly evil that it makes one shudder. Director Fleischer gleefully, almost sadistically celebrates his heroine's distress and has her flee, run, stumble, fall and scream her lungs out. Yet he also seems to enjoy toying with her and his audience, following up a sequence of absolute terror with a romantic horse ride through a forest, making you wonder, has her hero already come to save her or is he perhaps behind all this? Bolstered by Gerry Fisher's superb cinematography and Elmer Bernstein's fine score the movie makes the most out of its modest plot. Yes, it's all incredibly contrived and with little depth or background to the killer's motives arguably nothing more than an empty exercise in suspense, but nonetheless a classy one. 6.5/10
|
|
merv
Nick Nack
Posts: 170
|
Post by merv on Oct 9, 2023 22:34:56 GMT
Watched a Florence Pugh flick that was decent. Malevolent.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 10, 2023 2:19:18 GMT
Bye Felicia!
|
|
|
Post by NoseofNicko on Oct 10, 2023 5:55:48 GMT
1. Deadstream (2022)
2. Starry Eyes (2014)
3. My Best Friend's Exorcism (2022) = FTV
4. Swamp Thing (1982)
5. The Reef: Stalked (2022) = FTV
6. Infinity Pool (2023)
7. Cobweb (2023)
8. Elevator Game (2023) = FTV
9. Appendage (2023) = FTV
10. The Nun II (2023) = FTV
11. Prey (2022)
12. Totally Killer (2023) = FTV
13. Pet Sematary: Bloodlines (2023) = FTV
14. Pet Sematary (1989)
15. You're Killing Me (2023) = FTV
16. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)
17. Final Destination 5 (2011)
18. Smile (2022)
19. The Boogeyman (2023)
20. Morgan (2016)
21. Talk to Me (2022)
22. Come Play (2020)
23. Color Out of Space (2019)
24. Saw X (2023) = FTV
25. Bones and All (2022) = FTV
26. Terrifier 2 (2022)
27. The Exorcist: Believer (2023) = FTV
28. The Furies (2019) = FTV
29. The Puppetman (2023) = FTV
30. Five Nights at Freddy's (2023) = FTV
31. Skinamarink (2022) = FTV
32. The Banana Splits Movie (2019) = FTV
33. Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor (2023) = FTV
34. A Haunting in Venice (2023) = FTV
Total FTVs: 18 Total movies: 34
|
|
|
Post by Meseia on Oct 10, 2023 5:59:26 GMT
Blind Terror aka. See No Evil (1971; Richard Fleischer)This movie scared me like nothing else when I was a kid. It was the only horror movie I never finished. But in fairness, I was like 9 and our house had been broken into while I was at home. I've still never finished it.
|
|
|
Post by Meseia on Oct 10, 2023 6:12:26 GMT
3) Evil Dead Rise (2023) - I kept my expectations low after the 2013 remake, which was competently made but soulless. Rise lets you know from the very beginning that they get Evil Dead. That said, I didn't feel like the intended audience and despite the gallons of gore and competent lead actresses, I sometimes got bored because I couldn't identify with a single character and I really disliked the androgenous teens. Even watching them suffer felt hollow because they weren't good actors. Still, it's a good horror movie within the limitations set by modern audiences.
|
|
|
Post by the knife on Oct 10, 2023 17:29:10 GMT
28. The Barn Part II (Justin M. Seaman, 2022) 5/10 These movies are really dumb fun. A lot of cool cameos, ramped up effects, even more monsters and again a great 80s score. 29. Swamp Thing (Wes Craven, 1982) 6/10 rewatch Queen Adrienne Barbeau teams up with the Swamp Thing and a kid to defeat some bad guys. There's a mask reveal, monster suits, explosions, and a sword fight. Goofy as hell, but it's got heart! I don't even know why I decided to rewatch this, but I did and had even more fun than the first time around. Uprated from a 5. 30. Baron Blood (Mario Bava, 1972) 6/10 Effective gothic horror shot in an Austrian castle, Burg Kreuzenstein, is elevated by Mario Bavaβs exquisite lighting and typically attentive art direction. The cast is not too bad either, with Massimo Girotti as a professor with an interest in the occult, and Nicoletta Elmi (who played the creepy kid in Deep Red) as his occult-aware daughter. Elke Sommer is the scream queen. Luciano Pigozzi, looking a lot like Peter Lorre, plays the castleβs sinister caretaker. But it is Joseph Cotten, in the midst of his Horror phase, who steals the show.
|
|
|
Post by the knife on Oct 10, 2023 17:42:19 GMT
31. Eyes of Fire (Avery Crounse, 1983) 10/10 One of those films that feels like an acid-induced nightmarish trip and the positive aspects of this sometimes clumsily produced folk tale horror are so damn effective, I couldn't help but fall in love with it. And yet, it was hard to get into it at first. The character-based drama and plot dynamics are murky to the point of confusion. I think I was paying close attention throughout, and it took me ages to figure out who was who in this little milieu. I spent about three quarters of the film thinking Guy Boyd's character was named Will Smythe, only to finally realise that was the weird preacher dude played by Dennis Lipscomb. We seem to get thrown into the narrative when a whole raft of important character development has already happened - OK, so this woman has shacked up with a preacher and is fucking him in some kind of menage a troi arrangement, is she? No hang on, who's the autistic girl? Is that her daughter? Or not??? So where is the husband? How can a preacher act this way in this time period? OK, he can't because there's a lynch mob, but why were they so brazen about it all...? It's all incredibly confusing. Thankfully, it doesn't really matter. Much like Eggers' The Witch, this film provides a sublime example of just what folk horror can become in terms of imagination and craft. The American wilderness is effectively imbued with a sense of primal unknowableness - the domain of supernatural forces beyond our ken. What begins as a somewhat subtle depiction quickly devolves into pure chaos done right. The colours, the costumes and makeup, the synth score, the overall articulation of what haunts the characters is all just magnificent. I love the story at its core, a reprimand to the white people arrogant enough to invade Indigenous spaces. Perfectly bleak, weird, creepy and enchanting. My kinda oddball folky fantasy fever dream. I got lost in the woods of it, sucked into the bog, part of a tree, naked and muddy.
|
|
|
Post by the knife on Oct 10, 2023 20:36:54 GMT
32. Curtains (Richard Ciupka, 1983) 7/10 A surprising gem of a lesser known Canadian slasher, with a great premise, that gives us plenty of slow burn, snowy isolation atmosphere, that early 80s charm, and an interesting cast of characters. The chilly, isolated setting is great, and there are some really nicely staged shots. Apparently production on Curtains was plagued by rewrites and took years to finish, which you can tell by the bland mystery shooting itself in the foot with that choppy final act, but disregarding the lack of compelling turns, I think this has a rich atmosphere going with the asylum opener and abundance of overly dramatic interactions thereafter. The killerβs mask slaps and underlines the message of how quickly beauty fades in the limelight society. That ice skating scene was awesome!
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 11, 2023 1:46:56 GMT
So far:
The Pit and the Pendulum Masque of the Red Death Chamber of Horrors Evil Dead 2 (rewatch) Batman: The Doom that Came to Gotham Frankenstein Created Woman
|
|
|
Post by theravenking on Oct 11, 2023 12:53:36 GMT
31. Eyes of Fire (Avery Crounse, 1983) 10/10 One of those films that feels like an acid-induced nightmarish trip and the positive aspects of this sometimes clumsily produced folk tale horror are so damn effective, I couldn't help but fall in love with it. And yet, it was hard to get into it at first. The character-based drama and plot dynamics are murky to the point of confusion. I think I was paying close attention throughout, and it took me ages to figure out who was who in this little milieu. I spent about three quarters of the film thinking Guy Boyd's character was named Will Smythe, only to finally realise that was the weird preacher dude played by Dennis Lipscomb. We seem to get thrown into the narrative when a whole raft of important character development has already happened - OK, so this woman has shacked up with a preacher and is fucking him in some kind of menage a troi arrangement, is she? No hang on, who's the autistic girl? Is that her daughter? Or not??? So where is the husband? How can a preacher act this way in this time period? OK, he can't because there's a lynch mob, but why were they so brazen about it all...? It's all incredibly confusing. Thankfully, it doesn't really matter. Much like Eggers' The Witch, this film provides a sublime example of just what folk horror can become in terms of imagination and craft. The American wilderness is effectively imbued with a sense of primal unknowableness - the domain of supernatural forces beyond our ken. What begins as a somewhat subtle depiction quickly devolves into pure chaos done right. The colours, the costumes and makeup, the synth score, the overall articulation of what haunts the characters is all just magnificent. I love the story at its core, a reprimand to the white people arrogant enough to invade Indigenous spaces. Perfectly bleak, weird, creepy and enchanting. My kinda oddball folky fantasy fever dream. I got lost in the woods of it, sucked into the bog, part of a tree, naked and muddy. I was actually thinking of watching this too. I might leave it to the end of the challenge.
|
|
|
Post by theravenking on Oct 11, 2023 12:55:16 GMT
32. Curtains (Richard Ciupka, 1983) 7/10 A surprising gem of a lesser known Canadian slasher, with a great premise, that gives us plenty of slow burn, snowy isolation atmosphere, that early 80s charm, and an interesting cast of characters. The chilly, isolated setting is great, and there are some really nicely staged shots. Apparently production on Curtains was plagued by rewrites and took years to finish, which you can tell by the bland mystery shooting itself in the foot with that choppy final act, but disregarding the lack of compelling turns, I think this has a rich atmosphere going with the asylum opener and abundance of overly dramatic interactions thereafter. The killerβs mask slaps and underlines the message of how quickly beauty fades in the limelight society. That ice skating scene was awesome! I love this movie. The killer's mask is sooo creepy. And as you just said: the ice skating scene is ace.
|
|
|
Post by theravenking on Oct 11, 2023 13:08:12 GMT
The Forbidden Photos Of A Lady Above Suspicion (1970; Luciano Ercoli) Ravishing redhead Dagmar Lassander is blackmailed by a creepy knife-wielding bloke who threatens to expose that her husband is a killer. Lovely Dagmar is so much in love with her hubby, that she's willing to do everything it takes to protect him. Sounds sleazy, huh? Sadly most of the erotic stuff takes place off-screen making this a suprisingly tame early giallo with the plot going in circles for most of its running time. The blackmailer (Simon AndreuI keeps asking for more and the lady is willing to give it to him, making theirs a rather one-sided relationship. The late twist is a bit lame too. However it looks and sounds fantastic with stylish cinematography and set design and Ennio Morricone delivering the goods again for the funky soundtrack. 6/10
|
|