sog
Elliot Carver
Posts: 487
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Post by sog on Oct 11, 2023 13:14:30 GMT
12. The Burning (Tony Maylam, 1981)
One of the better Friday the 13th retreads that came out in the early 80s. This one takes the interesting choice of, after a fairly intense opening, choosing to be a teen comedy for quite a bit before the killings start again. Itโs a decent little movie and I was entertained throughout. 7/10
13. Night of the Creeps (Fred Dekker, 1986)
Zombie horror comedy that really works about half of the time and falls flat the other. The good aspects though are really good. I can see where some would love this just from a cult standpoint and I wonโt lie and say I wasnโt entertained for its run time, but it just felt like it did not live up to its potential. 6/10
14. One Missed Call 2 (Renpei Tsukamoto, 2005)
The first One Missed Call film was a fun little J-Horror romp. It wasnโt the best that Japanese horror had to offer, but it was a fun watch that had a few creepy scenes. This sequel is worse in every way. Itโs nowhere near as effective as the first film and itโs oddly convoluted. It honestly seems to break its own rules whenever it is convenient and was a major disappointment (also what was the deal with introducing a new ghost that kills in the same way, but also keeping the other one as almost a background plot?). I wasnโt expecting greatness by any means, but itโs sad how that this was the follow up. 3/10
15. One Missed Call 3: Final (Manabu Asรด, 2006)
I can tell by the IMDb rating that many seem to think this is the worst of the series. Honestly I found it better than the second in every way. Itโs faster paced. We lose the random villain that we didnโt get much of an explanation for and the one new addition to the rules (forwarding your message causes anotherโs death) adds a nice bit of extra paranoia to the characters as they become more desperate and more likely to turn on their friends. Itโs not perfect, but I enjoyed this one. 6/10
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Post by the knife on Oct 11, 2023 13:48:40 GMT
33. Cannibal Troll (Scott Chambers, Rebecca Matthews, 2021) 4/10 Proportion Productions production that had better acting, makeup and cinematography than I expected. Itโs very mediocre in all the other aspects. By the bizarre name for the film, I thought it maybe turned out to be a deranged man in a suit, but no. It is indeed the creature from Folklore living in da forests that only appear to eat humans, and rabbits specifically. Still can't get over the fact that these cannibal trolls aren't even cannibals but made such great midwives.
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Post by the knife on Oct 11, 2023 14:29:57 GMT
34. A Blade in the Dark (Lamberto Bava, 1983) 5/10 This is a minimal giallo that takes place in mostly one setting over the course of three days. Itโs incredibly overlong and has very boring characters and bad dialogue. Bavaโs strengths lie in the scenes when the killer strikes and the kills are pretty vicious, for thatโs when the movie seems to have any vigor. I liked them and they reminded me a lot of Argentoโs Tenebre, which is clearly a superior film and inspired this one immensely. This movie has a bad twist ending and I didnโt really love the score. Overall, wouldnโt recommend. 35. Meg 2: The Trench (Ben Wheatley, 2023) 6/10 Jurassic World: Do-MEG-ion go chomp chomp. I think Jason Statham could take on a Meg in real life.. Ha. Not the best movie but also not the worst 2023 movie Iโve seen. Graphics werenโt the best, but I honestley loved how an octopus and dinosaurs were added to this mega shark movie. I think the most stressful part is the dog once again in the water. This movie knows exactly what it is and who itโs for. 36. Haunted Mansion (Justin Simien, 2023) 5/10 Aggressively bland and deliberately underwhelming. The kind of disjointed story that doesnโt need to be over 2 hours. Itโs poorly constructed for the reason that characters are going on and off the mansion constantly; which kills the mood. Emotionally it goes nowhere even if Lakeith Stanfield gives a credible performance. The man can act, he deserves better. Despite being a little displeased with my experience, Haunted Mansion has cool moments where it plays in this uncharted territory of being a PG-13 scary film that could introduce the little ones to the horror genre.
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Post by the knife on Oct 11, 2023 21:48:18 GMT
37. The Night House (David Bruckner, 2020) 8/10 I donโt think I could start properly talking about this without sitting down and stretching my thoughts into a ten page essay. At one point it shook me so hard for a second there I considered discontinuing. Like Iโm gonna have a fucking panic attack if they do that to me again. iโm glad I didnโt because it spiraled into this crazy ass mystery with lots of surprises and looked beautiful the whole fucking time. This is a gorgeous film, with a lot of fun and clever visual effects, that I worried might veer into cheesy territory at some point, but honestly never really did for me. In fact even when it got "bigger" I was very into it, and the way it visualises certain conceptual elements feels clever and meaningful. Rebecca Hall gives a stellar performance, grieving and searching, but strong and wry all the same, leading to a lot of morbidly humorous interactions that feel natural and avoid the sappier trappings a story like this could've fallen into. I'm strongly inclined to think that an individual's experience with grief, clinical depression, and/or death [period] will dictate their experience with this film. Personally, I have encountered 3 of the 3. I've confronted them together and independent of one another, and thankfully, it's been a while since I've dealt with one of them. If you're reading this, I'd go all in on a bet that your positioning is different than mine... and that your experience will follow suit. And that's okay Beyond being extremely anti-spoiler, I'll keep my experience to myself for now, and instead, wrap this up with a famous quote to which this movie gives an entirely new meaning: "Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead."
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Post by Meseia on Oct 12, 2023 1:19:17 GMT
The Hole in the Ground (2019), Single mom in the middle of nowhere being gaslighted by an evil kid. Itโs like someone saw Invasion of the Body Snatchers and made a boring horror movie for young single moms.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Oct 12, 2023 14:53:57 GMT
The Amityville Horror Blacula
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Post by the knife on Oct 12, 2023 17:50:37 GMT
38. We Have a Ghost (Christopher Landon, 2023) 5/10 Go in expecting a Kids film with a good heart, overlong and dull but the ending still got me. 39. Scream 4 (Wes Craven, 2011) 6/10 rewatch Iโd survive Scream because I literally never answer the phone. A lot better than I remembered it to be! Scream 4 has its flaws, but compared to Scream 3 - this is night and day. We're back to the mystery and reveal being interesting, the characters making sense, the tone being consistent, and the opening scene being awesome. Emma Roberts really is the girlboss gatekeep gaslight of horror movies and I love that for her. 40. Scream (Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett, 2022) 6/10 rewatch I still found it largely fun and refreshing. The production quality and kills are great. Melissa Barrera is the weak link in this cast of returning legends and fresh faces, but it was overall well acted and compelling. Jenna Ortega is going to be a star! I also loved seeing some badass middle aged women in Neve Campbell and Courteney Cox. If theyโre passing the torch off to new leads I think they did a good job. Still really weird that they made a scream film where most of the meta commentary is focused on reactions to The Last Jedi and not horror films of the past 11 years lol
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Post by the knife on Oct 12, 2023 18:15:30 GMT
41. Hellraiser (Clive Barker, 1987) 9/10 rewatch I'm not gonna lie, I feel really bad for Steve, he was just having a chill time and then bam, he goes to find his girlfriend who'd ran off from the hospital and suddenly he's forced into all this bizarre shit at the last second, poor guy. Like Possession and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, Hellraiser takes a premise and externalizes its unbridled depths to the brink. All three tackle questions in a terrifying context. How does it feel to dump someone who wonโt accept it? What would unspeakable abuse look like? How far would you go to get back the best lover of your life? Divorce, trauma, and adultery front and center fueled by strong female desire and/or rage. Love when a movie depicts feminine emotion specifically in the extreme conviction and power it deserves. Hellraiser is in a class of its own. Still one of the most frightening and nightmare inducing movies out there. Still kicks a ton of ass. Gross and sexy at the same time. The menace of the AIDS pandemic is sort of hanging around every single frame, but the metaphor doesn't really get in the way of it being scary and bloody and goopy in all the ways that make it a great horror film. Fires up lame predictability in a blaze of original glory, scorches expectations to the suburbia-infested ground. A relentlessly terrifying cosmic nightmare from the dimension of the damned, soaked with surrealism and depravity. Cenobite designs are all great, phallic, pierced, pale, wet. A movie to wrap your mouth around.
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Post by the knife on Oct 13, 2023 0:31:41 GMT
42. There's Something Wrong with the Children (Roxanne Benjamin, 2023) 4/10 Kids be like that. Great score, good acting (especially Zach Gilford of Midnight Mass fame), solid cinematography and a fun concept. Unfortunately it does feel boring at times and it especially feels like it was dragged out by the end of it. Long story short: There's always something wrong with the kids. 43. Ganja & Hess (Bill Gunn, 1973) 9/10 Intoxicating blaxploitation vampire horror, however this film seems so distinct from the brunt of the genre and is really an expressionistic, somber, deeply spiritual drama about addiction, dripping in style and fashion. Just don't expect another Blacula because above all else, Ganja & Hess is an experimental art film that isn't easy to follow, with events presented in snippets rather than a simple retelling. Sometimes it becomes just a cacophony of noise and edits, elaborate soundscapes. Iโve never seen anything that hums in the same way electricity does when itโs about to catch fire. The imagery too is provocative, from a noose hanging from a tree to a dead black man holding a gun to a bloodied body being dragged across a field. "Look back, blood on the ground Look straight, they still shootin' Jump back, still here Now what that tell you 'bout death? Death ain't shit.""Like capitalism It works like unrequited love that way It never rests Just like I need the love I'm not getting from you And all the people in the world Are in-between you and I in that way And in the way of love"Great art contains the universe.
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Post by the knife on Oct 13, 2023 1:43:52 GMT
44. Sssssss (Bernard L. Kowalski, 1973) 6/10 Weird to call your movie Sssssss when youโre going to dub over all the snakes with growling and gurgling sounds. Body horror/mad scientist tale with Strother Martin ( Ssssssslap Ssssssshot), Dirk Benedict ( Battlessssssstar Galactica) and Heather Menzies ( The Sssssssound of Musssssssic). For all its absurdity it is directed in a very straightforward manner. I wish it was less tame, but everyone seems to have a great time and the movie has it minor pleasures. Dirk Benedict was not harmed in the making of this movie. 45. The Vault of Horror (Roy Ward Baker, 1973) 7/10 Another 70s Amicus horror anthology with an all star British cast. A group of privileged white arseholes recount how they've all been arseholes in a basement. It's impossible for me not to like these, even if none of the segments were that good. However, most of them had small moments of greatness, be it a vampire restaurant, Terry Thomas's mansplaining, an Indian rope trick, or graveyard ghouls. My favourite is Tom Baker's voodoo painting story who truly had the worst luck of all time with that one, killing or maiming people through his voodoo paintings in some wonderful ways. He would have done better with a voodoo doll. All in all, quite enjoyable and exactly what you want from these sorts of films.
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merv
Nick Nack
Posts: 170
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Post by merv on Oct 13, 2023 2:41:13 GMT
Watched American Gothic (1988)โฆ.I found it very enjoyable. Itโs mostly a TCM clone but the ending took a few lefts that I very much enjoyed.
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Post by Meseia on Oct 13, 2023 4:32:17 GMT
5) Overlord (2018), WWII zombie movie originally planned to be part of the Cloverfield series. Evil Germans plot to make unkillable warriors and GIs stop them. It's not really a zombie movie but it is. The casting and acting are really good, the uniforms and sets are good too, great sound quality, they researched the 101st Airborne so there are lots of little accurate details, lots of practical effects; there was effort put into the production. It's a shame the writing wasn't better as it all goes exactly as you know it will. I feel like if this had been more occultist or supernatural it might have done better. The timing was off for a serious Nazi zombie movie. Wyatt Russell
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Post by theravenking on Oct 13, 2023 8:58:25 GMT
My Soul To Take (2010; Wes Craven)Is this Wes Craven's worst movie? It has to be. It's even more sad considering that he also wrote this mess. It's a pathetic excuse of a slasher movie which also starts out in the worst possible fashion with a scene so over-the-top and terribly directed in which Raรบl Esparza (normally such a great actor) is introduced as a man possessed by the soul of a serial killer, going completely overboard. It's rare that I want to switch off a movie after 5 minutes, but had I actually done so here, I wouldn't have missed out on much. 2/10
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Post by theravenking on Oct 13, 2023 9:09:39 GMT
Black Death (2010; Christopher Smith) Rewatched this fun little medieval thriller. Christopher Smith's career seems to have been stagnating for the past decade, but he used to be one of the most promising horror directors out there, never repeating himself, always doing intriguing and unusual films. I wish there would be more horror movies set in the Middle Ages. This one hits the right balance between naturalistic grimness (it's set during the Black Plague but doesn't overindulge on the gory stuff) and a sense of mystery. Great cast with a pre-fame Eddie Redmayne and the always reliable Sean Bean, plus Carice Van Houten who's basically doing a practice run for her part in Game Of Thrones. I had forgotten how the second half of the movie played out and was completely engrossed following the various twists and turns of the plot. 7/10
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Post by the knife on Oct 14, 2023 0:29:01 GMT
46. Red Riding Hood (Catherine Hardwicke, 2011) 8/10 Leo DiCaprio co-produced this and I'm a huge fan of Amanda Seyfried as well as Fever Ray who made the soundtrack to this. Must a movie be โtechnically goodโ ?! Is Amanda Seyfried being a gorgeous snow goddess accused of witchcraft and dancing around fires and having sex naked in the snow on top of a cloak with a hot toxic man, all while her family wants to set her up with hot rich sweet Max Irons not good enough for you people? ยฏ\_(ใ)_/ยฏ Anyways, I'm biased, don't look at me. This is forever gonna be my comfort film, idc what anyone says, I will defend it to the grave.
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