General Horror Films & TV Discussion Thread

[HarleyQuinn]

Coming 7/9 From Scream Factory

Having never played the games, I remember liking the movie okay anyway but I think a majority of that was the actual atmosphere of it all.

 

[Big Papa Paegan]

It's underrated for sure. Take away all the gamer butthurt about how it mishmashes multiple entries and swaps things around? You're left with a solid horror flick that has some great style and some intense visuals.

 

[Gary]

It's underrated for sure. Take away all the gamer butthurt about how it mishmashes multiple entries and swaps things around? You're left with a solid horror flick that has some great style and some intense visuals.

It's probably the closest we've gotten to a good video game movie so far. Unlike say, the "Resident Evil" movies (which can be fun, but I don't think anyone here will say they are actually good movies) it actually tries to be scary and opts for atmosphere instead of being over the top. It doesn't always work (the third act could use some improvements-especially the bad CG with the barbed wire) but by video game movie standards, it might as well be awards worthy. The fact that they didn't overuse Pyramid Head was also a smart move IMO. Too much of him would be overkill. Two quick scenes (the first of which is actually disturbing) is all he needs.

 

[Super Leather]

I went on a shopping spree over the weekend and added some of the classics to the DVD stacks. These are all Legacy Collection editions.

- Creature from the Black Lagoon
Also includes Revenge of the Creature and The Creature Walks Among Us.

- Dracula
Also includes the Spanish version of Dracula, Dracula's Daughter, Son of Dracula, and the 1945 House of Dracula.

- Frankenstein
Also includes Bride of Frankenstein, Son of Frankenstein, Ghost of Frankenstein, and House of Frankenstein.

- The Mummy
Also includes The Mummy's Hand, The Mummy's Tomb, The Mummy's Ghost, and The Mummy's Curse.

I've never seen the sequels except for Bride of Frankenstein, so that will be fun. Didn't grab the sets for The Invisible Man or The Wolf Man, but will do so eventually.

 

[HarleyQuinn]

Woof... skip the Pet Sematary remake. Spoilers ahead but save yourself the ticket and read 'em. Just an awful mess of a movie 4/10 I wasn't a big fan of the original but that shits all over this remake, for the most part with a couple exceptions.

What worked: The concept of killing off a 9 year old Ellie (aged up from 5 years old in the book) I think makes for a much stronger movie especially in her resurrection and relationship to the characters compared to Gage. I also kind of liked the ending to the movie, dumb and confusing as it was. Some decent body horror for a Rachel related nightmare towards the end of the movie. John Lithgow tries as do most of the actors but they are all given absolutely nothing to work with, which is a shame because with a much better script this could've been a legitimate improvement on the original as a whole.

What didn't work: The pacing was god awful with the screenplay trying to stay close to the book (to its minimal credit) but literally giving scenes 2-3 lines of dialogue tops and then swiftly moving on. Like the screenwriter read the first 50 pages of the book and then moved on without reading the rest of the book. Other scenes that were pretty important to deep character development in the book (e.g. Ellie's talk with Judd in the Pet Semetary turning into a fear of losing Church and the ensuing argument between Rachel/Louis about how to teach Ellie about the concept of death) went by in a disappointing surface level touch again with the barest amount of dialogue required. It was blatantly obvious that the screenwriter just wanted to get to the death & resurrection of Ellie because everything else was super abrupt and quick. Iconic scenes such as Pascow's death, the talk between Judd/Louis about the Micmack burial grounds, the initial burial of Church, even the digging up of Ellie's grave are all treated in the same manner as blink and you'll miss it moments. Even Zelda's scenes lose a lot of the impact of the original, which is a shame because it's clear the physical makeup effects crew put in a lot of hard work there.

The friendship between Judd and Louis is a central part of the book and the original movie. That literally gets glossed over to the point where I think they had maybe... 15-20 lines of dialogue together it felt like. The decision to have Ellie discover the Pet Sematary and Judd come upon her kind of ruined the mystique of the place. Judd leading Louis to bury Church in the burial ground was baffingly short and lacked urgency or any sense of tension. There was literally no reason given except Judd just basically says, "Follow me, Louis," and Louis is all, "Okay, Judd!" and buries Church in the Micmack burial ground thinking it's just a normal pet burial.

Ellie comes back and is evil/killing people within two scenes of reuniting with Louis. The trailer blew the impact of Ellie's killing of Judd especially since the scene tried to do an audience subversion of the bed take from the original movie. Rachel's learning of Ellie's being resurrected is shown in the trailer and that's literally the extent of it before Ellie tries to murder her... because evil I guess. Same went for trying to subvert Gage being saved by Louis and Ellie being killed when everybody knew Ellie was the one killed off in this version, again taking away any suspense and tension.

Other minor annoyances: The trucks appear as loud/fast vehicles but there's little to no actual reference about them tearing down the road or for anybody to be careful crossing. It just assumes the viewer knows the story, which is a cardinal sin of a bad adaptation. If you need outside material to explain backstory or plot, your movie's script blows. Church also gets killed but the impact/effect was shitty and the original movie actually made you feel sympathy about the event. Here it just happens and literally that night, Church gets resurrected so whatever.

 

[BruiserBrody]

https://twitter.com/BrimleyLine/status/1124625933451894785

 

[Gary]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYUI97qAa_k

 

[Haws Bah Gawd]

You have my interest.

 

[RedJed]

Saw this last week, quite an indy gem here worth a peep....I think it's on demand now besides a theatrical release.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jae48OiyIyY

 

[Gary]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1Vnghdsjmd0

Really digging this one. Getting real “The Wicker Man” (the original) vibes from it.

 

[Brocklock]

I don't know if this is horror, but it's from the director of The Babadook and looks really awesome

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuP8g_GQIgI

 

[Gary]

Arrow has two horror/horror adjacent titles coming in August. They are

SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS

Brand new 2K restoration of the theatrical version from the original camera negative

High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation

Original uncompressed mono audio

Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

Brand new audio commentary with Richard Harland Smith

Archival audio commentary with co-writer/director Alfred Sole and editor Edward Salier

First Communion: Alfred Sole Remembers Alice, Sweet Alice – director Alfred Sole looks back on his 1976 classic

In the Name of the Father – brand new interview with actor Niles McMaster

Sweet Memories: Dante Tomaselli on Alice, Sweet Alice – filmmaker Dante Tomaselli, cousin of Alfred Sole, discusses his longtime connection to the film

Lost Childhood: The Locations of Alice, Sweet Alice – a tour of the original Alice Sweet Alice shooting locations hosted by author Michael Gingold

Alternate Holy Terror Television Cut

Deleted scene

Alternate Opening Titles

Trailer and TV Spot

Original screenplay

Image gallery

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS:

• Brand new restoration from a 4K scan of the original camera negative, supervised and approved by writer-director William Friedkin
• High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation
• Newly remastered 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio supervised by William Friedkin
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Archival audio commentary by William Friedkin
• The History of Cruising – archival featurette looking at the film’s origins and production
• Exorcising Cruising – archival featurette looking at the controversy surrounding the film and its enduring legacy
• Original Theatrical Trailer

 

[HarleyQuinn]

A new trailer dropped for 47 Meters Down: Uncaged... looks like it could be decent sequel killer shark fare.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rvNBhKUnj8

 

[HarleyQuinn]

Just saw the movie Ma with Octavia Spencer, Diana Silvers, Juliette Lewis, Corey Folgelmanis, and Luke Evans. It was solid enough probably a 5.5 to 6/10 in my book. This is definitely more 'thriller' than actual horror in the vein of stuff like The Hand That Rocks the Cradle or Pacific Heights but not nearly as good.

The basis behind Spencer's character fell a little flat like the movie had a premise but didn't quite know how to effectively finish the character off due to trying to portray her in a sympathetic light. The movie built up everything well until the climactic end when the over-psychotic breakdown is supposed to occur and here it just... didn't. If anything, it seems like the script or director tamed Spencer heavily in the final act which was disappointing.

Acting was fine and it was nice seeing Juliette Lewis on screen again. The trailer pretty much gives you the entire movie.

 

[Haws Bah Gawd]

Watched Deathhouse this past weekend. It's nice to see so many horror icons brought together for a film, but what a piece of shit this thing was. Bad acting, bad editing, bad cinematography, bad directing, etc. There are a couple fun kills but overall this movie is awful and not worth anyone's time.

 

[RedJed]

Ma: Surprised more didn't see this one, as I thought it was a pretty good twisted mainstream horror fare that wasn't the typical horror schlock formula. There was more here to chew on so to speak, and I never thought I would see Spencer in a crazy role like this but damn she really did well with it. The ending was a bit ho-hum, and there was alot of themes they could just jumped into different directions with, but by and large I was entertained with this.

The Dead Don't Die: Saw this during an early screening last week, and enjoyed it. The ending is very abrupt to say the least, but otherwise I thought this was pretty quirkly and Murray-esque for sure. LOTS of dry meta humor to the n'th degree which some will love and the next person probably will hate since they took it pretty far on that level. Pretty solid cast here for what I'd consider a hillbilly Shaun of the Dead in some ways.

 

[Gary]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZJKBBiJl3M

whatever

 

[Brocklock]

"fart noise"

 

[vivisectvi]

Still casting his shitty "actress" wife. Never change, Rob.

 

[Fall of Epic]

Zombie never produced that one "great" film. He showed promise early in his directing career but his movies are in complete LOL territory these days.

 

[Brocklock]

Still casting his shitty "actress" wife. Never change, Rob.

It's supposed to be a sequel or prequel or reboot to House Of 1000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects so it actually makes sense for her to be in this one. But, her performance will be as annoying as her performances in the other 2

 

[Youth N Asia]

I feel like if he’d let someone go over his dialogue and tone it down 70% we could be taking about him differently. He’s a competent enough director but loves his shit too much.

 

[Fall of Epic]

Zombie is one of the few horror directors where you see his influences clear as day in his works (and I mean that in a good way) but the problem is, he takes what he enjoyed most about those films and does a 180 on them. Stuff like House of 1000 Corpses and Devil's Rejects are almost good flicks but he becomes too overindulgent with what he likes.

 

[Gary]

I feel like if he’d let someone go over his dialogue and tone it down 70% we could be taking about him differently. He’s a competent enough director but loves his shit too much.

Zombie is one of the few horror directors where you see his influences clear as day in his works (and I mean that in a good way) but the problem is, he takes what he enjoyed most about those films and does a 180 on them. Stuff like House of 1000 Corpses and Devil's Rejects are almost good flicks but he becomes too overindulgent with what he likes.

I've mentioned it before, but he's a guy who clearly has a vision, but needs somebody to at least work as a guiding hand. "Lords of Salem" is a flawed movie to say the least (the Black Metal guy, the Bigfoot demon, someone saying "cunty witches, etc.) but it also feels like a movie where he's trying to grow as a director, and proves that he can write characters that aren't white trash stereotypes who say "fuck" in every sentence.

31" was a big step back in that it doubles down on his worst instincts (and has some really bad direction and editing) and adds extra annoyances. When your movie has a character called "Sex Head" who is just "hey, Rob Zombie saw the trailer for 'Suicide Squad' and wanted to create his own version of Harley Quinn" and a huge German guy in a tutu wielding a chainsaw and screaming I'M GOING TO FUCK YOU CUNTS while the camera shakes around, someone needs to tell you to cut it out. It's also proof that "Mandy" had a much better use of Richard Brake than this movie does. His next movie looks like more of the same.

 

[Brocklock]

I was gonna say the first hour or so of Lords Of Salem actually showed some real growth as a director before he gave in to his excesses in the third act. He had a really good mood and atmosphere in those first two acts and did it without all the swearing and hellbilly deluxe. I still think overall it's my favorite movie by him.

 

[Gary]

I was gonna say the first hour or so of Lords Of Salem actually showed some real growth as a director before he gave in to his excesses in the third act. He had a really good mood and atmosphere in those first two acts and did it without all the swearing and hellbilly deluxe. I still think overall it's my favorite movie by him.

It's also his best looking movie (it looks gorgeous at times). If anything, I feel like "31" and this are him pushing back because some of his fans were mad that he dared to make an Art House genre film.

 

[Fall of Epic]

I've said it numerous times but I didn't hate his Halloween remake and would probably watch it over most of the original sequels but it also has its problems (Michael's origin, the obvious music cues, Danny Trejo's death scene, Michael's sister, etc.)

 

[Gary]

In non Rob Zombie related stuff, I found "I Trapped the Devil" and "The Hole in the Ground" to be disappointing. The former occasionally drags with it's attempt at a slow burn, has a rather weak lead performance IMO and has an ending that felt like a big shrug. The latter is better acted, but...well, I think this review explains it better than I could. It isn't a bad movie, but I couldn't help but think that "The Babadook" did it better.

 

[RedJed]

Hard to judge much by that trailer, but if it's going to be anything like 31, count me out of this one. That one was so abrasive and amateur feeling, like they took a week to film and come up with the story on the fly. At least it felt like that.

That said, I've been kinda looking forward to a proper Corpes trilogy of sorts since these were the first characters he developed on screen, and I would think they hold more importance to him than most of the other films he's done. Since its been so long since Devil's Rejects, I would hope Zombie has been working on this story for years and has fleshed it out a bit, and ran ideas past other producers, etc. I'm not holding onto hope, but I'd like to think he will be more passionate and focused with this one hopefully.

FWIW I thought Devil's Rejects was not too bad, but nowhere near a classic or anything by any means.

 

[Big Papa Paegan]

I think The Devil's Rejects absolutely is a classic and ushered in the grindhouse revival. Even though it has his now tired tropes (over abundant profanity for the sake of it, 70s rock soundtrack, white trash psychopaths), it was so refreshing in 2005 to see such a grimy piece of filth in major theaters after we'd been drowned in shyte J-horror remakes and self-aware slashers.

Plus, I mean, it has one of the best movie soundtracks ever assembled, and a perfect use of both "Midnight Rider" and "Free Bird."