Horror Movies

[Schmoopy1000]

Sorry.
No more Dewey , no more Scream!

 

[FaCe-LeE-uS]

Sorry.
No more Dewey , no more Scream!

My guess is Gale is next.

 

[R.J. MacReady]

As per @Sharkonabicycle recommendation:

Abominable (2006)-


So the guy that replaced Steve Guttenberg in the Police Academy movies is brought back to the area where his wife died and he was left paralyzed in a climbing accident. Apparently this is part of his psychological recovery treatment (instead of his doctor he is accompanied by an abusive medical attendant for some reason). They settle into his house which, rather importantly to the plot, is not at all handicapped accessible. Then a group of 5 girls show up next door for a party weekend, and a Bigfoot takes out the telephone service and starts offing folks one at a time until things escalate into a battle for survival finale!

I'm a bit torn on this one. Some fun stuff and violence surrounded by some questionable storytelling.

The good:
*A star studded cast! But most of that fun is in bit roles outside of the main plot.
However you can't go wrong with Jeffery Combs, Lance Henriksen (2 of my alltime fav B movie guys!), Dee Wallace Stone, Rex Linn (you've seen him in a ton of stuff), and Paul Gleason (again, a ton of stuff but most notably the teacher in The Breakfast Club, Die Hard, and Trading Places).
Combs hams it up with a big redneck wig, coke bottle glasses, and an oxygen tube, and Lance has a bizarre speech about a man who superglues his hands to the back of a hippo, and then gets drowned in hippo shit as the animal had been fed a laxative!! (Seriously, WtF was that?!?)

*A fun evil bigfoot. The creature is big and evil looking with glowing eyes for some reason. His perpetually pissed off face is both ridiculous and kinda fun, and he (persumably a male?) is hellbent on attacking people in the area for some reason.

*Some of the violence and bloody gore is well done enough, but there isn't enough of it.

*The overall story is decent enough, but the execution is spotty at best. It is essentially Rear Window (if the neighbors had kept calling Jimmy Stewart a pervert for looking through his binoculars) blended with a rampaging giant creature.

The bad:
*A lack of character development for the lead. The give his backstory but don't delve into it deep enough.

*The girls next door are basically afterthoughts. When they are standing around talking I swear to god they didn't have any written dialogue and the director just said "You are arriving here for a party weekend with your friends. Go!", or "You are concerned because your friend missing. Action!" etc.

*A SyFy channel level overall feel. Now this isn't necessarily a bad thing, and it would be upper echelon for a SyFy feature. So it is enjoyable from that perspective if you are prepared going in.
But it seemingly has trouble deciding to whether it should be a serious feature or a comedic one so it bounces a bit back and forth.

*Too many offscreen kills. Show us more carnage!!

All in all, a decently fun yet flawed watch. I'll go 5.5 to 6ish outta 10, and that is with a half point bonus for the supporting cast.

That being said the lead, Matt McCoy (the low rent Steve Guttenberg guy) puts in a too one-note performance for my liking. Basically he just comes off as "mildly concerned" the entire time, whether nothing is happening, or the shit is hitting the fan.
They should have begged Jeffery Combs to take the lead, and seriously upped the gore, but apparently the director is buds with McCoy and wrote the part for him.

I would have a hard time getting scared in any scene that has Lloyd Braun.


.

 

[returnofjakedog]

I would have a hard time getting scared in any scene that has Lloyd Braun.

 

[R.J. MacReady]

lol ...Brilliant

 

[returnofjakedog]

lol ...Brilliant

George found him terrifying!

Truthfully, I'd forgotten he was Lloyd Braun! I knew I remembered him from something other than the Police Academy movies, and was even more shocked to find a Lloyd Braun gif on here!

 

[DJ]

 

[DJ]

 

[DJ]

 

[DJ]

 

[Sharkonabicycle]

View attachment 316591

lmao that's a good one.

I always joke about the Ring girl crawling out of my TV. If that bitch ruins my TV and spills water all over the floor, she's taking it up the ass.

 

[FaCe-LeE-uS]

Still need to give this a watch

 

[returnofjakedog]

Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities (2022)-


At this point we all know about GdT, a director that has given us visually spectacular horror and fantasy since the early 90s with the likes of The Devil's Backbone, Blade 2, Hellboy movies, Pan's Labyrinth, The Shape of Water, Cronos, Mimic, Nightmare Alley, etc. He has also been wildly varied, branching out into sci-fi (Pacific Rim), kid's stuff (writer/producer in the Kung Fu Panda franchise, Puss in Boots, the new Pinocchio), and a shit-ton of more stuff. He really is a standard bearer for the movie industry in general.

Here he acts as a producer (seemingly of the "hands-on" variety) and writer but not as a director of any of the episodes.

Each episode begins with a seeming tribute to Alfred Hitchcock/Rod Serling (think Night Gallery era) as del Toro opens a section of a large, elaborate "cabinet" and presents an item from it that relates to the upcoming story.

8 episodes in total. I'll try to keep it (relatively) short:

1. Lot 36- A man buys the contents of an old storage locker in an auction, and gets way more than bargained for. Freaky Nazi occult stuff going on!
The main character is a real bitter prick who is played excellently by Tim Blake Nelson, the guy who played Buster Scruggs, and the 3rd "brother" from Oh Brother Where Art Thou, as he angries his way through the dark maze of the old storage facility. Eventually he and others awaken a pretty cool looking horror!
The episode looks and feels great. Solid acting all around. A small story misstep regarding an immigrant lady made little sense. The creature is mostly cgi but they do a good job with it.
The director Guillermo Navarro is most known for his cinematography work on del Toro projects. Also, del Toro wrote this, and the Lovecraftian influence can be felt (an ongoing theme we find in the series).

2. Graveyard Rats-
A caretaker of a huge cemetery is having issues paying off his gambling debts because rats keep stealing the corpses before he can plunder them. When he has a big score in his sights, he has to chase the rats down into a labyrinth of tunnels, which eventually leads to a battle with a giant rat king and a greedy half zombie!
Fun stuff! But not overly realistic as the rat behavior and tunneling is a bit weird. Still, a fun creature feature. Again, looks good, solid production all around, good acting, and heavy on the Lovecraft feel.
The director Vincenzo Natali also gave us the likes of The Cube and Splice.

3. The Autopsy-
A doctor is called in to autopsy a bunch of dead miners after an seemingly intentional explosion. This is tied in with corpses, and missing persons in the surrounding woods that is baffling the local sheriff. The doc works alone over night and begins finding strange happenings with the corpses, which eventually puts him in the crosshairs of something "evil".
This one is, dare I say, excellent! No real missteps, except maybe the story jumping timeline can be a little confusing. All aspects are good but the creepy ambience, fxs, and F. Murray Abraham great performance as the doctor are the highlights.
Before I watched it, I saw it was directed by David Prior, and was worried and confused as David A. Prior was a deceased director of shitty b-horror movies, but this guy is a relatively new director who is most noted for movie documentaries and 2020's The Empty Man, which I now need to see!

4. The Outside-
A mousey weirdo lady desperately wants to be prettier, popular, and accepted. She starts communicating with a slick late night pitchman through her tv that sells her skincare products that seemingly hurt her more than help. Eventually she gets what she wants but loses everything good in her life in the process.
Not one of the stronger episodes as it kinda leans into a Tales From the Crypt type feel. Still, the production remains good but is a bit light on the visual flair. Stars Kate Micucci, who does well but the singular focus on her character is a bit much. Directed by Ana Lily Amerpour who gave us A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night

5. Pickerman's Model-
From a Lovecraft story.
A young artist student gets enthralled by the intense work of a dark weirdo artist. His life spirals out of control a bit as the darkness of the art seemingly starts coming to life. Fast forward 15 years or so, and the young artist is now part of the hiarchy when the weirdo artist guy reappears in his life, and this time the dark art threatens to destroy his life and family.
As always, generally everything is well -done but this time the story is a bit unfocused, and the protagonist isn't really likeable (no one is) which hurts it a little.
Crispin Glover, as always, plays the weirdo well but I found his strange accent choice the most distracting since Patrick Stewart in Green Room
Keith Thomas, who did The Vigil and the recent Firestarter remake directed..

6. Dreams in the Witch House-
A young boy watches his twin sister die, and sees her spirit dragged off into a forest realm. He then spends the rest of his life chasing the supernatural trying to rescue her but has no luck until he discovers a drug that temporarily throws him into the same realm. He tries to find a way to bring her back by researching and moving into a decrepit house where a legendary local witch used to live. But things go astray as the witch and her human-faced rat familiar manipulate the situation for their own return to life.
Again, looks great, and solid performances and production values all around. However the story is a little all over the place. It is of note that they changed significant portions from the original Lovecraft short story to the point where they probably should have just made a few more minor tweeks and made it it's own thing.
Catherine Hardwicke (13, Twilight, Lords of Dogtown) directed.

7. The Viewing-
In 1979 a group of geniuses in their fields (author, psychic, musician and physicist) are invited to the mansion of a elderly weirdo rich guy and his 2 companions to see......something. They spend most of the time philosophizing and doing drugs in a decedent room before going to check out the object which has defied all analysis, scientific or otherwise, and end up awakening.......something.
This is an odd one. It provides a weirdly paranoid feel (for me at least) and nothing makes any sense. Peter Weller chews up scenery (as do the the others), looking quite old and being quite swarthy. The physicist girl is a bit too spot on Velma from Scooby Doo for my liking. When they finally get to it, they do have some great, fun bodymelting fxs though!
Directed by Panos Cosmotos, who gave us some other top weirdness in Beyond the Black Rainbow, and the great (imo) Mandy

8. The Mummering-
An ornithologist couple (bird experts) who focus on mass group bird movements, as in starlings behaving like schools of fish, travel to a remote island. They are suffering from the recent loss of an infant child and the refuses to deal with it, so she instead emotionally abuses her supportive husband. She starts hearing and seeing things in the old house they are staying in, and this eventually escalates into full apparation hauntings.
As in all of these, everything looks great, and production values are high. Andrew Lincoln (Rick Grimes from The Walking Dead) plays to berated husband. It is a quite slow build.
I wasn't overly happy with the basically "happy" ending redemption arc, but I rarely am as I usually want dark themes and nasty endings. But it is still decent.
This one was directed by Jennifer Kent, who did the very good The Babadook a few years ago.

All in all, a very good series. Overall, I feel they might have leaned into the Lovecraft a bit more than they should have as that has been done so much now, but that might just be because I've seen way more of it than most folks.

As far as recommendations, every horror fan should watch The Autopsy, which I would go a solid 8.5 outta 10 range. After that Lot 36 is quite good. Other than that it is a bit up and down but maybe Graveyard Rats for a creature feature, or The Mummering for a slow burn haunting story?
I'll go 7 to 7.5 outta 10 overall as a series. Deserves to be checked out.

 

[returnofjakedog]

 

[Sharkonabicycle]

View attachment 316891

That is instantly saved to my computer. I LOVE it. The Thing (1982) is one of my favorite horror movies of all time (literally watched it this last Friday, generally always watch it when it gets cold outside - it's gotta be my fave cold weather horror film), and this has got it perfectly. I might actually put this on a custom t-shirt or poster. I love this thread.

And I know that's the 1982 version because that hand comin' up... oh yah... the dog cages. And the "You gotta be kidding" by Palmer.

 

[returnofjakedog]

That is instantly saved to my computer. I LOVE it. The Thing (1982) is one of my favorite horror movies of all time (literally watched it this last Friday, generally always watch it when it gets cold outside - it's gotta be my fave cold weather horror film), and this has got it perfectly. I might actually put this on a custom t-shirt or poster. I love this thread.

And I know that's the 1982 version because that hand comin' up... oh yah... the dog cages. And the "You gotta be kidding" by Palmer.

......now imagine the entire movie with a Charlie Brown cast!

 

[Sharkonabicycle]

......now imagine the entire movie with a Charlie Brown cast!

lol I would not be opposed to that... complete with Snoopy as the escaped dog, .

 

[returnofjakedog]

Malevolent (2018)-

A small group of young adults in the UK in the '80s work as a team of paranormal investigators but are really running a scam to convince people that they will purge their homes of spirits. They are led by a brother-sister combo whose mother was a semi-famous paranormal psychic who killed herself a few years previous, and the sister is now starting to experience similar "visions" to what the mother had but doesn't say anything because the mother was considered "crazy" by the family.
Of course they get called in to investigate a house where 3 female children had been killed, and things start going sideways as they have to deal with a real haunting and the mystery of what happened.....

All in all, a decent little low budget flick. I went into it having heard of it before but literally knowing nothing about it.

*They do a good job of character development but the large focus on the 2 mains kinda almost make the main haunting story secondary.
*The acting is generally decent enough, with the lead Florence Pugh doing most of the work. I knew I recognized her from something, and I found she was the mentally-broken lead in Midsommer, a fav cult indoctrination flick from a couple of years ago
*The main story is good enough, if not slightly predictable.
-As mentioned, this is slightly more character focused. They could have improved the movie by focusing more on the haunted house, maybe delve deeper into it's backstory, and use more time to build the horror aspects.
*Played and shot very straight forward to try to play on realism. This mostly works, but turning up the dread and related aspects might have made the ride a bit more fun. But that would defeat the purpose of the character driven story.
*The fxs aren't used a ton but they are good enough considering the low budget. Most of them happen towards the end as the brutality ramps up.
-On that note, it does get fairly nasty towards the end as the story unfolds.

A small story with a bit of slow burn but donr well for what it is.
6 to 6.5 outta 10 range from me. Feels almost like a lower budget Conjuring universe movie.

 

[DarthVedder]

Before I watched it, I saw it was directed by David Prior, and was worried and confused as David A. Prior was a deceased director of shitty b-horror movies, but this guy is a relatively new director who is most noted for movie documentaries and 2020's The Empty Man, which I now need to see!

The Empty Man is great. Some of the best cosmic horror I've seen in recent times.

 

[DJ]

LOL.