Horror Movies

[Niner Outlaw]

I can't believe Robert Englund auditioned for Star Wars. That still cracks me up.

 

[returnofjakedog]

I can't believe Robert Englund auditioned for Star Wars. That still cracks me up.

Huh? What role was he going for?

 

[Niner Outlaw]

Huh? What role was he going for?

IIRC, he auditioned for an early version of Han. Even though he auditioned, he was never seriously considered for the role.

 

[returnofjakedog]

IIRC, he auditioned for an early version of Han. Even though he auditioned, he was never seriously considered for the role.

Well, I can see why they didn't cast him...............but I would like to see an alternate universe where Robert Englund plays Han Solo, and Harrison Ford is Freddy Krueger!

 

[FaCe-LeE-uS]

IIRC, he auditioned for an early version of Han. Even though he auditioned, he was never seriously considered for the role.

Well, I can see why they didn't cast him...............but I would like to see an alternate universe where Robert Englund plays Han Solo, and Harrison Ford is Freddy Krueger!

I think he could have pulled off an aged Obi Wan Kenobi… But that would have been a far-cry from how Alec Guinness portrayed the character

 

[Niner Outlaw]

I think he could have pulled off an aged Obi Wan Kenobi… But that would have been a far-cry from how Alec Guinness portrayed the character

IIRC, Englund said that the early version of Han made him Luke's uncle or something like that and that he was completely wrong for the role Han evolved into.

Englund has said more than once that he was the one who encouraged Hamill to audition for Luke or helped him get the role or something--though Hamill has said that that's not true.

 

[Blackshirts BLVD]

How Bloody Disgusting ranks the Conjuring movies...


8. Annabelle
7. The Curse of La Llorona
6. The Conjuring 3 The Devil Made Me Do It
5. The Nun
4. Annabelle Comes Home
3. Annabelle Creation
2. The Conjuring 2
1. The Conjuring

I think the bottom 4 could be rearranged in pretty much any order.

 

[returnofjakedog]

So just watched Population 436, a 2006 flick about a census employee sent to an extremely isolated North Dakota town because it always reports 436 persons for the last 100+ years. It turns out something a bit more sinister is goin' on.


The good:
*The main actor, Jeremy Sisto, is generally always decent, and I was very surprised to see Fred Durst do a pretty good job, and is kinda a sympathetic character!
This was surprising since I kinda hate Fred Durst's projects. His directorial efforts have ranged from average to batshit stupid (The Fanatic, but I "blame" Travolta's now infamous "performance," moreso!)......
.......and the guitarist, drummer, and bassist for Limp Bizkit are all excellent but Durst's lyrics are just fucking horrible.

Anyways.......
*General competent execution. Quality shots, sound, fxs, etc.
*Story concept was interesting.

The bad:
*The lead actress/love interest is pretty, but limited in her abilities (I'm being nice).
*The story just kinda meanders. Things happen. The flow is just a bit off.
*Everything is too vague, and the sense of dread is never really developed.

I was kinda disappointed as the director has credits from The X-Files, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, etc under her belt so I was hopeful for more.

Nothing wrong with it if you need to kill 90 minutes, but not much to recommend it either. It just kinda sits there and happens.

Middle of the road, direct to video fare. I'll go 4.5 - 5 range.

 

[Nasty_Magician]

How Bloody Disgusting ranks the Conjuring movies...


8. Annabelle
7. The Curse of La Llorona
6. The Conjuring 3 The Devil Made Me Do It
5. The Nun
4. Annabelle Comes Home
3. Annabelle Creation
2. The Conjuring 2
1. The Conjuring

I think the bottom 4 could be rearranged in pretty much any order.

It's by no means a masterpiece but am I the only one that liked The Nun?

 

[Blackshirts BLVD]

It's by no means a masterpiece but am I the only one that liked The Nun?

Honestly, I think at the time I saw it, I thought it was the worst one lol.

But Idk anymore, I hate to say it, but I had such high hopes for TC3 that I was impressively and ridiculously let down lol. I may have to give the Nun another chance.

 

[Blackshirts BLVD]

So just watched Population 436, a 2006 flick about a census employee sent to an extremely isolated North Dakota town because it always reports 436 persons for the last 100+ years. It turns out something a bit more sinister is goin' on.


The good:
*The main actor, Jeremy Sisto, is generally always decent, and I was very surprised to see Fred Durst do a pretty good job, and is kinda a sympathetic character!
This was surprising since I kinda hate Fred Durst's projects. His directorial efforts have ranged from average to batshit stupid (The Fanatic, but I "blame" Travolta's now infamous "performance," moreso!)......
.......and the guitarist, drummer, and bassist for Limp Bizkit are all excellent but Durst's lyrics are just fucking horrible.

Anyways.......
*General competent execution. Quality shots, sound, fxs, etc.
*Story concept was interesting.

The bad:
*The lead actress/love interest is pretty, but limited in her abilities (I'm being nice).
*The story just kinda meanders. Things happen. The flow is just a bit off.
*Everything is too vague, and the sense of dread is never really developed.

I was kinda disappointed as the director has credits from The X-Files, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, etc under her belt so I was hopeful for more.

Nothing wrong with it if you need to kill 90 minutes, but not much to recommend it either. It just kinda sits there and happens.

Middle of the road, direct to video fare. I'll go 4.5 - 5 range.

Being straight-up honest, I never knew Fred Durst was a director. I have not seen any of his movies. I grew up with his music and remember him acting in House as a bartender, but that was it really.

 

[wazzu31]

Well, I can see why they didn't cast him...............but I would like to see an alternate universe where Robert Englund plays Han Solo, and Harrison Ford is Freddy Krueger!

And if the rumors are true that Ford wasn’t the guy Spielberg wanted as Indiana Jones at first then Ford’s career and Nightmare would have died. Englund is the perfect and probably only actor that could’ve played Freddy.

 

[returnofjakedog]

Being straight-up honest, I never knew Fred Durst was a director. I have not seen any of his movies. I grew up with his music and remember him acting in House as a bartender, but that was it really.

Durst only has the 3 full length directorial features: The Education of Charlie Banks with Jesse Eisenberg is pretty good if you want a college youth drama, The Longshots, which is just kinda "meh", and the aforementioned The Fanatic, which is just all kinds of ridiculous bad. But I actually thought his acting was pretty good in Population 436, and I went in expecting the worst.

Maybe Fred Durst should stick to acting?

I never saw House, and he only has 5 acting credits to his name if you don't include music videos where he just wears a backwards red baseball cap and agressively bro-raps at the audience.

I feel bad for Wes Borland.

 

[returnofjakedog]

And if the rumors are true that Ford wasn’t the guy Spielberg wanted as Indiana Jones at first then Ford’s career and Nightmare would have died. Englund is the perfect and probably only actor that could’ve played Freddy.

I never said a Harrison Ford version of Freddy Kruger would succeed. I just said I would like to see it! Lol!

 

[wazzu31]

I never said a Harrison Ford version of Freddy Kruger would succeed. I just said I would like to see it! Lol!

I hear ya, I’ve never seen him have anywhere near the personality out of Ford to pull that off.

 

[returnofjakedog]

Rewatched the Larry Cohen cult classic The Stuff (1985), a pretty good horror-comedy that answers the question of "What if your dessert is actually a sentient alien lifeforce that wants to possess you and take over the world?".


So this is a kinda strange one. Some guys find what looks like marshmellow fluff seeping up out of the ground. For some reason they taste it, find it to be really good, then decide to sell it to the public! It is a huge hit and everyone starts eating it. Then some kid, and also Michael Moriarty discover this Stuff seems to be changing people so they enlist the likes of Paul Sorvino, Danny Aiello, and Garrett Morris to try to stop The Stuff from being eaten by the public.

Yes, it does sound really stupid. However it is actually a pretty fun satirical look at consumerism.

The good:
*An interesting story concept that is well executed (considering the time period and budget limitations).
*Most of the main actors are pretty good with a couple of exceptions.
*Some good, fun special fxs! (Note that some fxs are quite bad but the highlights are great!)
A few awesome classic fxs, including Garrett Morris' head "explosion".
*The direction and execution are solid.

The bad:
Some good overlaps here as I noted-
*Along with the good actors we get a couple of bad ones. The kid and the main female are both mediocre.
*Same with the fxs. It is a mix of all time classics, and some laughable failures but much of that has to do with budget and time period.
*Suffers from the some cheesiness, but what do you expect from a killer marshmellow movie.

Larry Cohen was mainly a writer (all of the Maniac Cop and Its Alive series, Phone Booth, Q, Cellular) but he does have some directorial gems like (again) It's Alive, The Stuff, and one I haven't seen but is highly rated called God Told Me To about serial killers in NYC who hear voices telling them to kill. Larry sadly passed in 2019.

A solid flick of the amorphous alien genre like The Blob, but also an alien invasion and possession genre horror.

I give it a 7.5 outta 10. A kinda forgotten cult classic.

 

[FaCe-LeE-uS]

 

[Blackshirts BLVD]

 

[Blackshirts BLVD]

 

[Blackshirts BLVD]

So I tried to watch the movie again and I ended up falling asleep, all I want to do is rant about it lol.

Spoiler: Conjuring 3 spoiler-ish rant

Not sure how to go about this...

1. The characters suck, you end up not caring about anyone and sadly, I feel the same about the leads.
2. Steals the priest's arrival scene from The Exorcist. Could be paying homage, but the movie was so bad it seems disrespectful now lol.
3. Everything looks like a staged set ESPECIALLY the outdoor scenes. Nothing looks real.
4. CGI rats? Go fuck yourself.
5. It's not a possession, but it's sort of a possession. It's a totem linked to the kid, found under the house, but apparently, it is like a vampire and can enter other people if they are invited. So aside from causing the leads to seek out the priest, I see no real reason for the totem.
6. I didn't feel like really anything was explained. A witch is using magic to conjure demons, take control of others, etc... it feels like a cop out compared to the real supernatural vibe you get from the others. Never mind that I don't really recall a reason for her at all. Just a satan worshipper IIRC. I don't remember, it's just not good lol.
7. Writing/dialogue is bad. Like I mentioned, there are a fair amount of joke attempts, but it doesn't work with this film in my opinion. Seems out of place and character.
8. It attempts to give us some back story on the Warrens and how they met, but it feels completely pointless and wasted.
9. It uses 'creepy' cliches like someone that was laying down is not sitting up and starts staring and singing a weird song. Lame.
10. Poor use of jump scares and too many attempts.
11. Direction is just bad in my opinion. And I don't feel like Chaves really knew or understood the characters or what people liked about the first two films.
12. It isn't really a supernatural film annnnd it isn't really a detective film in my opinion (I read some people were comparing it to that). It is a movie that has not real direction on what it is trying to do. I imagine that anything that is liked in this movie is sold by Wilson and Farmiga, though as I mentioned, I felt the direction hurt their acting too.
13. Some scenes that are trying to scare, feel disconnected. In the beginning, one of the first scenes, the possessed boy is being put to bed, he hears some noise that perks his attention, then some immediate LOUD banging (ok, I can dig that). He freaks out, runs to the bathroom and hops into the tub closing the shower curtain. From there he hears something faint, looks up and sees the hand looking like shower curtain rings... you may think this is going to lead to a jump scare of a demon appearing. You would be wrong. The hand is never noticed or seen again. Instead, the knobs start turned by themselves and turn on the water, but... it's blood. The boy starts screaming and the adults come running. This is how I picture this scene being developed....

person 1: we need something scary when the kid is in the bathroom, what do you think?
person 2: well, what if he looks up and sees nothing but shower curtain rings, but then it moves and the rings were demon fingers.
person 1: ok, I like where your head is at. Then things start moving on their own.
person 2: yeah, that's a given, it has to happen. How about the knobs to the shower?
person 1: oh yeah, good stuff and you know what comes out...
both in unison: blood!!!

It just all felt jumbled and never came together and I felt that way through a lot of the scenes. Oh and watch the contortion scene in the beginning (shortly after the scene I described) and tell me the bone cracking sound is not over used... my flipping goodness. I could go on and on lol.

There are some things that look good though. The scene where Arne is freaking out and falls down, seeing the red light in the window.... I thought the red light thing was stupid, but when it goes out, the dude is running at him on all fours (which is when Arne stabs him), I thought that 5 second part looked cool lol. There are some others, but honestly not many. Like I said, I tried watching it a second time with my 9 year old, I fell asleep and she told me it was boring and not scary at all... but she liked it lol.

Fuck that movie.

Anyway, I also watched...

Tragedy Girls


imdb synopsis: A twist on the slasher genre, following two death-obsessed teenage girls who use their online show about real-life tragedies to send their small mid-western town into a frenzy, and cement their legacy as modern horror legends.

Basically, a pair of friends have a true-crime blog called 'Tragedy Girls'. They devise a plan to catch a local serial killer so that he can teach them how to do it so that they can control their product a little better, taking out anyone that seems to take the spotlight off of them lol. It is a fun film. It is paced well, the acting is fine (Alexandra Shipp is gorgeous with an incredible smile, it's ok... she's 29 lol), the production is good. It's just got a good, fun vibe to the whole thing without having a ton of comedy. There isn't much to blood, gore, or effects, but what little it shows, looks good... and it is really only one scene lol.

I have said enough in this post after ranting about the movie above, but the Tragedy Girls is a decent good watch. 6.5/7 - 10.

If you haven't seen TC3 yet, I mentioned The Exorcist and here you can see what I mean.