Horror Movies

[FaCe-LeE-uS]

I got so fucked up recently....

Welcome to the club

 

[DJ]

Welcome to the club

Be 50 in November.....can't drink like I used to.

LOL.

 

[returnofjakedog]

Watched the first couple of episodes of Bloodride on Netflix today. It is a 2020 Norwegian anthology series of seemingly unrelated tales macabre. (English dubbed)

Pretty decent. Reminds me a lot of the classic Rod Sterling's Night Gallery but a little lesser thus far. Relies on the story-telling aspects more than action and effects, at least in the first two episodes.

I'll go 6 outta 10.

 

[FaCe-LeE-uS]

 

[DJ]

 

[returnofjakedog]

Predator + Disney = big reason for concern.

Of course it couldn't be any worse than 2018's completely stupid The Predator..........could it?? (God I hope not!)

 

[returnofjakedog]

View attachment 272865

That scene did freak me out a bit as a kid.

It freaked me out a bit more later on when I heard that they used real human skeletons!

I always thought this was possibly just a rumor, but nope!

Were Real Skeletons Used in the Making of 'Poltergeist'?

The film's special effects makeup artist revealed one of the secrets behind one of the horror classic's sequences in a deposition.

www.snopes.com

 

[FaCe-LeE-uS]

That scene did freak me out a bit as a kid.

It freaked me out a bit more later on when I heard that they used real human skeletons!

I always thought this was possibly just a rumor, but nope!

Were Real Skeletons Used in the Making of 'Poltergeist'?

The film's special effects makeup artist revealed one of the secrets behind one of the horror classic's sequences in a deposition.

www.snopes.com

Hell yea... Can I put it in my living will that my skeleton will be donated to Hollywood? I wanna be post-mortem famous.

 

[returnofjakedog]

Hell yea... Can I put it in my living will that my skeleton will be donated to Hollywood? I wanna be post-mortem famous.

-Delivery man at Sam Rami's estate:
I don't know for sure sir, but the shipping list just says movie props.
-Sam: Why is it coffin shaped?
-D.M.: It says in the notes section: "To be used in next Evil Dead sequel."

 

[returnofjakedog]

Just watched Better Watch Out on Amazon Prime.
Lots of good twists to the ol' babysitter/home invasion motif.
Some good horror elements.

Some groan moments, but the clever writing made this enjoyable.
Worth a watch.

Just watched it. Pretty good.

The trailer certainly plays up the Christmas angle (as does the movie but to a much lesser extent).

So a longtime babysitter for a now-too-old for a babysitter kid get caught in home invasion situation. Chaos ensues and a bodycount starts up. But things aren't what they seem.

The good:
*Cool concept and a well written script.
*Solid all-around film making. Decent direction, cinematography, even the majority of the acting. There were only a few weak spots.
*The ending was quite good!

The bad:
*Agreed with @Sparhawk that there were some "clunky" moments. Mostly dialog stuff, some character interactions, etc.
*Lack of on screen graphic violence. More of a preference on my part than actually a bad, but I want to see the shotgun blasts, the head bashings, etc. But they did show a little of the aftermath.
*I had the angle figured out pretty much immediately.

A worthy Christmas horror addition. I'll go 7 to 7.5 range on it.

 

[FaCe-LeE-uS]

-Delivery man at Sam Rami's estate:
I don't know for sure sir, but the shipping list just says movie props.
-Sam: Why is it coffin shaped?
-D.M.: It says in the notes section: "To be used in next Evil Dead sequel."

I like where this is going. If there’s a big-boned skeleton with a bottle of whiskey cement-glued to one of its hands in a future horror movie then you’ll know where I went.

 

[Nasty_Magician]

New season of Black Summer on Netflix . Worthwhile zombie watch, pretty mindless, definitely lower budget but do a decent job with it.

 

[DJ]

 

[returnofjakedog]

Girl on the 3rd Floor

Just fucking terrible.

Don't ever let CM Punk do another movie again...

You were not kidding, disaster from start to finish.

Any semblance of a scary moment in this movie was overshadowed by my complete and utter confusion. CM Punk is a brutally bad actor.

I honestly wouldn't bother with this one.

So I watched Girl on the Third Floor (2018) during yesterday's workout.


I remembered the negative responses here, but it also keeps popping up on "best streaming now" lists so I thought I'd give it a go.

Overall I found it not as good as the high praise reviews, but also not as bad as the negative ones.

So CM Punk (or the less interestingly named real life Phil Brooks) buys an old brothel and starts to remodel it on his own, while his pregnant wife continues work in the city and will join him later. But strange stuff starts happening. Eventually things escalate as the house and its "residents" start ramping up the haunted behaviors.

The good:
*Some of the special fxs are top notch. I really did like the use of practical fxs over cgi nonsense. Some pretty good gore stuff.
*Professionally shot, edited, etc.
*Deathmetal soundtrack was kinda cool.
*The storyline was conceptually cool, but there were execution problems.

The bad:
*As mentioned, storyline exection problems. They were more focused on personal relationships, which was intentional, but focusing more on the house and the backstory would have been a wiser choice imo.
*Not really ever scary. (Maybe one or two scenes were a bit creepy).
*The acting. Not really a good stand out performance in the lot. The ghost lady (not the ghost girl), the pastor lady, and even the friend all come off as half-assing, or just not being good actors.
The same can be said for CM Punk, BUT I don't think he was as bad as @Nasty_Magician and @Win TWINS!!! state.
-One big issue is that the majority of the movie is heavily focused on the lead and what was going on around them. CM Punk is in no way capable of carrying that load.
-Don (Punk's character) comes off as an unlikeable asshole because he is supposed to be an unlikeable asshole. They walk the line on this early with "grey area" stuff but focusing on what is proven to be an unlikeable character makes it hard to invest in him or the story. Personally I didn't have a problem with him being tortured and harassed by the ghosts because he deserved it. But it really hurts your movie when you hate your protagonist.
They were probably going for a sympathy shift, but the ghosts were assholes too, so screw them all.

So is CM Punk a good actor?
No, not really. But he did well enough that he could be a decent supporting guy given proper role and direction. In the pantheon of wrestler/actor he isn't the worst. He is better than Hulk Hogan (who is unapologetically horrible in every role he played). Better than Kane (albeit Kane only played a couple of wrecking ball baddies). I wouldn't say Steve Austin, John Cena, Jesse Ventura, Bill Goldberg, Kevin Nash, or even Dave Batista are any better. I'd say the likes of The Rock and Roddy Piper are only better because of their undeniable force of personality (which Punk completely lacks), and not their actual acting.
So what we learn here is basically all wrestlers are bad actors!

Overall the movie had some highlights, particularly in the gore and fxs department. But it lacked in any suspense, and impactful storytelling.

5ish outta 10. Watch for some blood and slime, try to ignore the average to poor storyline and character execution.

Remodel rant:
As a guy who worked for a few years in construction stuff in the distant past, and also has remodeled a couple of houses, I cringed at the remodel attempts here.
*A black, moist, slime spot in the wall?
-Just cut out a small section of drywall and replace it! I'm sure it'll be just fine.
*Electricity sometimes flickers, and slime actually oozes out of electrical sockets?
-Just wipe away the slime and plug in! That'll be alright! Electric systems usually work great when moisture has invaded them!
*Drywall ceiling in entire room just falls off for no apparent reason?
-That's odd! Just reinstall it as if nothing happened. I'm sure there is no underlying cause.
My first reaction when he walked into the house was "Nice woodwork and architecture! Too bad it needs to be stripped to the bones, and all electric and plumbing replaced, and inspected for possible structural repairs." Then Punk starts fixing small things and painting, and I start wondering if they even bothered to check the roof and foundation before buying it!

 

[returnofjakedog]

Holy crap!!
Has anyone here heard or seen the new release of the "lost" Romero movie The Amusement Park?


As has been well documented, Romero and Russo didn't get any royalties for Night of the Living Dead due to an error in the copyright text. So the movie was public domain (this also allowed the movie to be used freely everywhere and arguably led to it's iconic status.
So Romero remained a struggling film maker in the early '70s, and took up a church funded project PSA on elderly miscare and abuse. The result was a film that essentially uses an amusement park as a representation both as society as a whole, and also as hell for the elderly.
The PSA/movie was never released because the film was deemed too horrific by the church, and was apparently also critical of organized religion(?).

So it has now been released, and has generally good reviews (6.5 on IMDB) with a note that if you didn't enjoy the likes of other early Romero works, such as the original The Crazies, Martin, etc. then you may not like this. But the reviews also note it is conceptually horrific.

Only 50 minutes long, and for now only available on Shudder. I don't have Shudder but I found a pirated youtube version that I will check out next week if it is still up!

 

[FaCe-LeE-uS]

Spiral (2021)


This film was a crime scene; no pun intended. Terrible script, bad editing, bad acting, lots of cliches, weak plot and terribly predictable.

Plot... The plot was mediocre at best, and didn't try to add, reinvent or refresh this franchise's image. The result felt more like it merely tried to ride the coattails to another pay-day by rinse & repeating stuff thats been done before with the jigsaw-copycat. Except for in this film, the copycat didn't even try that hard. The antagonist was very weak. The kills were still pretty gruesome, and stayed true to the franchise's DNA, so I guess the gorehounds will still be somewhat satisfied. The "reveal" at the end wasn't even genuine when you could have predicted it 10 minutes into the movie. The charades that ensues for the entirety of the movie felt like a bag of cheap tricks to try and add mystery. It just didn't work for me.

Casting... Sorry but not sorry, Chris Rock is a terrrrrrrible actor. He works in comedy because he can be candid, whereas if you put him in a dramatic role you will immediately regret that decision. He was dreadfully cringe-worthy for the majority of this film. His presence as a 'tough cop' was horribly misplaced and his delivery was downright abusive. Abusive as in he was overacting on every. single. script line. Oh and what would a Chris Rock movie be without forced punchlines? Yea we get plenty of those. It was truly painful to watch. The rest of the cast was not much better. Sam Jackson was probably the best of the rest in very limited fashion, and that is really saying something about the quality of this movie lol.

I was never a big Saw fan (maybe just the original), mainly due to the "torture-pron" that these films abused but I at least enjoyed the plot creativity of the original and some of the sequels where they made the plot into its own puzzle. But this film felt like a disservice to the entire franchise. They have made a lot of sequels that simply relied on shock-value which diluted the product sotospeak, but this film felt even worse than that. I don't know if it was just a result of a bad script or bad directing (maybe a combination). The entire movie was a mess.

Not worthy of the franchise brand... 4/10

 

[FaCe-LeE-uS]

 

[UVA_Guy81]

Spiral (2021)


This film was a crime scene; no pun intended. Terrible script, bad editing, bad acting, lots of cliches, weak plot and terribly predictable.

Plot... The plot was mediocre at best, and didn't try to add, reinvent or refresh this franchise's image. The result felt more like it merely tried to ride the coattails to another pay-day by rinse & repeating stuff thats been done before with the jigsaw-copycat. Except for in this film, the copycat didn't even try that hard. The antagonist was very weak. The kills were still pretty gruesome, and stayed true to the franchise's DNA, so I guess the gorehounds will still be somewhat satisfied. The "reveal" at the end wasn't even genuine when you could have predicted it 10 minutes into the movie. The charades that ensues for the entirety of the movie felt like a bag of cheap tricks to try and add mystery. It just didn't work for me.

Casting... Sorry but not sorry, Chris Rock is a terrrrrrrible actor. He works in comedy because he can be candid, whereas if you put him in a dramatic role you will immediately regret that decision. He was dreadfully cringe-worthy for the majority of this film. His presence as a 'tough cop' was horribly misplaced and his delivery was downright abusive. Abusive as in he was overacting on every. single. script line. Oh and what would a Chris Rock movie be without forced punchlines? Yea we get plenty of those. It was truly painful to watch. The rest of the cast was not much better. Sam Jackson was probably the best of the rest in very limited fashion, and that is really saying something about the quality of this movie lol.

I was never a big Saw fan (maybe just the original), mainly due to the "torture-pron" that these films abused but I at least enjoyed the plot creativity of the original and some of the sequels where they made the plot into its own puzzle. But this film felt like a disservice to the entire franchise. They have made a lot of sequels that simply relied on shock-value which diluted the product sotospeak, but this film felt even worse than that. I don't know if it was just a result of a bad script or bad directing (maybe a combination). The entire movie was a mess.

Not worthy of the franchise brand... 4/10

I had really liked the first one and had no issues with the second and third ones. I tapped out after the fourth movie as I don’t remember liking it at all. Probably will skip this one as well. Agree about Chris Rock. He should stick to getting the easy paydays from being Adam Sandler’s buddy and standup if he even does that anymore.

 

[Blackshirts BLVD]

Not really a horror movie, but it was listed as Suspense, Horror, Drama on Amazon. Though I am sure if any of us were to go through an experience something like this we would probably use terms like horrifying or terrifying.

Take Shelter.

Without giving too much away even though it came out in 2011, this is a movie about mental illness with a minor twist ending that I enjoyed. It is about a rural family man with a history of mental illness in the family, that starts succumbing to his own and how that impacts him and his family.

It is currently available on Amazon Prime, solid movie. 7/10.

Michael Shannon showing once again that he is an underrated actor.

 

[Nasty_Magician]