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Post by Jumpin' Jesse Walsh on Mar 8, 2019 21:41:45 GMT -5
My review of Poltergeist (1982)
Have you ever watched a classic, highly influential film long after you’ve watched its countless imitators, thus making its impact a little dulled and lost on you? That’s precisely how I felt watching Poltergeist, which I recently did for the first time ever. I’ve seen quite a few of the mind-numbingly boring haunted house films it inspired (*side-eyes The Conjuring*). Heck, I’ve even seen the Family Guy parody. I feel like I already watched every scene of this film before I actually watched it, so I knew to expect the man-eating tree and killer clown doll.
But even if it provides little surprise for me, I can definitely see why the film has such wide-reaching appeal. This is a horror film for the whole family, so to speak. Most of the scares are PG enough that those more sensitive to the genre won’t stop watching out of fright. Your mom who usually hates horror movies because of “all the bloody stuff” can watch Poltergeist. Your 10-year-old cousin who otherwise isn’t allowed to watch horror movies can watch Poltergeist. You can throw allegations that it’s a horror film for weaklings all you want, but you can’t deny it makes the genre accessible and brings it to blockbuster heights it’s rarely afforded.
There’s wide-reaching appeal in the characters, too. The Freelings are depicted as your average, working class family of the ‘80s, the kind of folks they’d model the Simpsons after. They’re all super likable, and probably would’ve been a suitable family for a sitcom in another universe. I can’t go much further without mentioning Heather O’Rourke as Carol Ann, the film’s most enduring character. I kinda hate the “creepy kid” trope so I’m happy it’s mostly avoided here. Carol Ann is an adorable little anime character come to life who just so happens to encounter the spooky shit in her house and drops some iconic sound bytes along the way. There was a missed opportunity to do Pepsi commercials in her tragically short life.
Debate ensues to this day over whether Steven Spielberg or Tobe Hooper had control over this film, and I’m gonna have to go with Spielberg. There are a few moments where the Hooper-ness shines through, but this is ultimately coated in the same E.T. sheen and the actual poltergeist feels two steps away from eating Reese’s Pieces. I do wonder what sort of film we could’ve gotten had Hooper been given 100% creative control. Would Craig T. Nelson saw off the clown doll’s head with a chainsaw? Inquiring minds want to know.
Nothing in Poltergeist scares me all that much but, again, I’m so familiar with its most famous scenes that I’m not subtracting points because of that. It’s so much more entertaining and charming than many of the films that followed it. If you’re looking to see a lot of the tropes seen in similar, modern work fully on display, then look no further. They’re here.
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mystermystery
Dennis Stamp
Still in the White Hummer
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Post by mystermystery on Mar 9, 2019 17:04:07 GMT -5
INTO THE GRIZZLY MAZE[/u]
Two men who grew up a valley over from a "Grizzly Maze" where the bear population flourishes behind a mountain, surrounded by a forest so thick that supposedly even the animals get lost are forced to return to it when a giant Grizzly has 'gone rogue' and began killing humans with ruthless aggression.
The two men are brothers (whose father showed them a path through the maze as children), one returning after 7 years of prison, the other a deputy of the town. They have family drama as you might guess. It turns out one of them (guess who) showed a friend the path through The Maze and that friend has been leading poachers through for extra cash. This has upset the balance of nature and set off a big bad nasty bear set on evening the score.
As someone who openly enjoys the nonsense that was the Jaws knockoff Grizzly, seeing the title of this film was enough for me to hit "play." Throw in the fact that the deputy brother is played by Thomas Jane, the criminal brother is James Marsden, and the Quint-like bear hunter I haven't even mentioned yet is Billy Bob Thornton and I was pumped.
And...it's okay. Eh. Piper Perabo plays the deputy's conservationist wife who has gotten him to swear off hunting (until he sees the bear, immediately throws down the tranq gun, and produces his father's old rifle that he brought along) and she's fine in a literal nothing role. Her character is deaf and therefore she is there to get separated from the group and be scared until either the bear or her husband finds her. The family drama stuff is bland and doesn't really help keep the movie interesting between bear attacks.
The bear attacks are fantastic in the first act but once the animal can't be as devastating to the main characters things temper down. Female characters are there to be constantly in danger for the guys. Plus, the ending is truly a let down.
I'd give it "C" or "2.5/5" or...an "Eh, Okay." There are some amazing moments between the bear and poachers and Billy Bob Thornton's character is bafflingly amusing. Oh, and Scott Glenn is in here as the Sheriff, too.
Edit: OH, and the director is the guy who directed SAW V. Take that however you will.
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Post by 'Foretold' Joker on Mar 15, 2019 5:04:12 GMT -5
In the Mouth of MadnessI do like a good H.P Lovecraft style tale and In the Mouth of Madness brings it. The story follows David Trent (Sam Neil) an insurance investigator who gets caught up in the disappearance of Sutter Cane a prestigious horror writer. As the investigation proceeds Trents reality is brought into question when odd and gruesome things start to happen be it zombified cop beatings to a tentacle creature in a greenhouse. Sam Neil is great throughout as he slowly begins to realise his reality may not be as real as he first thought. This is a John Carpenter film and the atmosphere, effects and direction are all solid. The old ones/creatures from the void effects are all suitably horrible but still left ambiguous while the author Sutter Cane comes across well in his role, (would have made a good Warlock in that series of films). As a film I enjoyed it. 4 out of 5 Pumpkins.
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mystermystery
Dennis Stamp
Still in the White Hummer
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Post by mystermystery on Mar 15, 2019 22:54:26 GMT -5
So, I've developed a theory that every Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie is True Crime Documentary taking it's own special turn with the information at hand.
The Original? The first one that inspired people to look up the history. Even opens and closes with narration.
The Second? Someone trying to expand on stories around the first documentary's tale. Focusing on victims not included in the first doc. Side story about a distraught cop thought to have gone hunting.
The Third? A retelling of the original with a different approach and focusing on the most infamous of the assumed cannibal family. Names are changed to protect the innocent.
The Forth? The interviewed source was a conspiracy theorist and that's how robot legs and the Illuminati get thrown into the proceedings. Think the "ALIENS" guy from the History Channel.
The Remake? A modern approach to researching the story, revealing more details and names. Shows photos and previously unreleased footage. Victim names still changed.
The Remake Prequel? Focusing on rumors and assumed history of those involved in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, along with the proposed first victims. More of an attempt to fill-in blanks than provide a legitimate documentary.
The 3D? Trying to track down family relations and playing loose with the family history while proposing a "Hunting Hitler" History Channel-like reveal for ...this is my weakest one.
The Prequel Prequel? Someone cashing in on the Texas Chainsaw Massacre story by proposing another "Hunting Hitler" History Channel-like story about the incidents leading to the development of the most infamous character by including him in a story of escaped asylum killers. A cash-grab.
...
No. I don't...I just wanted to share this to get it off my brain. I'd love to see a Texas Chainsaw Massacre revolving around a group of documentary staff now.
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Post by Jumpin' Jesse Walsh on Mar 16, 2019 13:07:15 GMT -5
My review of Cry Wolf (2005)
The year is 2005. Brad Pitt and Jennifer Anniston have broken up. Britney Spears is having a baby. Youtube is launched. Myspace is a thing. But perhaps most importantly, AIM is alive and well. Not only that, but a group of bratty prep school kids are using it to create a huge serial killer hoax that winds up becoming real. Oops! That’s the premise of Cry Wolf, my friends. Sounds fun, right?
Well, I hate to kill the buzz, but it’s actually kinda boring. What we get is essentially a less interesting version of April Fool’s Day with even less likable characters. The experience may be totally lost on Generation Z, but those of us who are old enough can look back on AIM as the hilariously awkward holdover before texting and Facebook chat became more readily accessible. There’s a lot of potential to make a good movie around the concept, but this one doesn’t quite go deep enough with it. Maybe it’s because the real terror of cyber bullying hadn’t quite seeped into our culture just yet. This was pretty early in the social media’s development, after all.
But even if you were to cast the AIM angle aside, there’s still a lot to this film that just feels like more could’ve been done. The middle portion weighs the film down, as a solid portion of it features our protagonist running around like a cat chasing after a running ball of yarn. Things don’t pick up until the last 30 minutes when we get some interesting-ish twists and ends on a weird note that suggests an additional 20-25 minutes should’ve been added.
Maybe it’s just me, but I found the majority of the characters annoying. I know teenagers can be rotten, but are they this heartless? As the protagonist, Julian Morris is a mopey rich kid who we're supposed to empathize with but, eh, it’s not working for me. Jon Bon Jovi (yes, really) plays a journalism professor (yes, really) who realistically would’ve been thrown on the sex offender’s list a long time before the film’s events began. Kristy Wu plays the snarky, alternative-leaning one who would probably be considered a sociopath if she existed in real life. Jared Padalecki is here and his character is a sucky person with a terrible haircut.
I will say I do appreciate Cry Wolf for its attempt at reviving the good ole whodunnit slasher, especially at a time when the market was becoming populated with Saw ripoffs and J-horror remakes. Again, there’s a lot of potential in the story; it’s just the execution doesn’t quite pop. There’s a fun movie in here somewhere, but the overall product is about as satisfying as a conversation with one of those AIM chat robots.
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Post by DSR on Mar 18, 2019 0:37:36 GMT -5
BOLTNECK (1998) professes in its boxart to be a "hip teen horror" in the vein of SCREAM or I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER, only this film is a spin on the classic Frankenstein story. When goth high schooler Karl (future Sexiest Man Alive Ryan Reynolds) crashes a party held by popular dudebros, they attempt to beat the young man up. Unfortunately he falls into their empty swimming pool, suffering head trauma and dying almost instantly. Another kid who didn't get in to the party caught a peek at his dead classmate. Luckily for dudebros, this kid is the oh so cleverly named Frank Stein (Matthew Lawrence, of Boy Meets World), who offers to help the jocks out of their jam. He's got a theory about reanimation that he's just aching to test. A quick stop at Stein's father's research facility and a brain transplant and ol' Karl is as good as new. Well, except he's gotta wear a hat to cover the staples holding the top of his head on...and that new brain previously belonged to a noted murderer. Oops!
In addition to the names listed above, the cast also includes Shelley Duvall and Judge Reinhold as Frank's parents, Christine Lakin (Step By Step) as Frank's crush, Richard Moll (Night Court) as Karl's father, and Charles Fleischer (A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, TALES FROM THE CRYPT PRESENTS DEMON KNIGHT, and probably most famously the voice of Roger Rabbit) as the students' science teacher. So the cast list seems to support the presentation of this as a post-SCREAM horror flick, but literally nothing in the film is actually played for horror. This is just a straight-up comedy...and not even a particularly good one. Some truly weak dick and boob jokes, a few gay jokes mixed in. There's literally one joke that got a smirk out of me.
The movie is interesting in that it features one megastar before he made it big and a bunch of solid character actors slumming for a paycheck. But all in all, it's like a shittier ENCINO MAN...and I enjoy ENCINO MAN.
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Post by DSR on Mar 21, 2019 23:34:56 GMT -5
Gave a re-watch to Marvel's action/horror hit BLADE (1998). Directed by Stephen Norrington, the film stars Wesley Snipes as the titular vampire slayer with vampire blood running through his own veins! Also stars Stephen Dorff as Deacon Frost, a young vampire looking to wrest control of the world out of the hands of ordinary people and claim it all for himself.
While the CGI in this film has not aged well, it's still a lot of fun. There are some decent non-CGI effects and Snipes is endlessly badass as the Daywalker who blows bloodsuckers away with silver bullets and martial arts. The movie is just cool as hell!
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Post by DSR on Mar 24, 2019 20:19:36 GMT -5
RIP to Larry Cohen, writer/director of classic films such as IT'S ALIVE and its two sequels, GOD TOLD ME TO, Q - THE WINGED SERPENT, and THE STUFF, among others.
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Nr1Humanoid
Hank Scorpio
Is the #3 humanoid at best.
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Post by Nr1Humanoid on Mar 29, 2019 11:50:31 GMT -5
The Flesh Eaters 1962 (released 1964)
Finally got a second TV in my bedroom and lying there watching horror in deep darkness added a lot.
I walked into this one expecting zombies so the story was a pleasant surprise.
Too much talk in movies can get boring quickly but they were so much better at such back in the 60's and tge lengthy talk segments never felt slow.
Good actors, especially the villain does a great disturbing take on the role.
By today's standards the special effects are rather crude but highly effective none the less and surprisingly gruesome.
The end monster though was a cheap piece of crap.
Good film, well worth it, though a flesh eating monster vulnerable to human blood made zero sense.
Enjoy.
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Post by KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!! on Mar 29, 2019 15:46:13 GMT -5
Watching a lot of Tales from the Darkside lately. It’s on Amazon for about $25 for those curious. For 90+ episodes it seemed like a good deal.
I’m almost done with season one, but might take a break tonight to watch a horror movie. Anything good from the 1950s-1980s on Vudu, Hulu, or Netflix?
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Post by prettynami on Mar 29, 2019 17:08:18 GMT -5
Watched "Queen Crab" (2015). It's about a kid who pet crab is exposed to material that makes it grow beyond normal crab size and many years later it, and it's offspring, wreck havok on a small town!
Plot is pretty thin, the cause of the crab disappears pretty much as soon as it is used. The acting and script are soooo bad. The acting is like cinemax softcore porn level. Some of the actors don't seem to know their lines at all. The camera work during the "drama" scenes also feels like a softcore porn. Most of the characters are pretty much garbage human beings (In particular the victims of the crabs, because the viewer is supposed to feel for the crabs). The movie also has atrocious sound, the levels on people's voices is laughably inconsistent and it has the wacky music on 15 second loops over many of the scenes. And the ending... The ending makes absolutely no sense and would require a level of sentience and cooperation from the crab monster to be executed that it boggles the mind.
That being said, all of those are actual pluses in my book. The movie falls into the so bad its good territory regarding these faults. There are other faults though, that are just plain bad. For instance, the movie badly needed some interesting or zany B-plots to carry the movie between monster scenes. The pace slows down so much at times. There are also large gaps between people talking and often, feels like attempts to pad the run time (Or the people acting had to slowly process what they were saying). These could be positives if this movie was given the Rifftrax treatment.
Of course, I have been skirting around the most important part of the movie... The giant crab! Special effects wise, I quite liked it. We have a mix of practical, CG, and what seems like stop motion effects for this movie! I say seem because its odd to me that a movie made in 2015, that seems so lazily made, would take the time to make stop motion monsters. So I am left to assume that it is actually CG trying to capture the stop motion aesthetic, and if so it accomplishes it in spades. I love the stop motion look and it makes the movie fun, and the scenes using it are pretty detailed and well done! There is a bit of gore and some other terrible SFX shots mixed in with the crab, very fun stuff.
If you liked movies like "Arachnia" by Edgewood Studios (Which has a similar stop motion look to this movie amd came out in 2003. I wonder,, but am too lazy to look, if the special effects were done by the same people) or are a fan of older or classic creature features with stop motion monsters ("The Black Scorpion" in particular comes to mind) then you might like this movie. If you like cheese and bottom of the barrel acting too than you may very well love this movie.
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Nr1Humanoid
Hank Scorpio
Is the #3 humanoid at best.
Posts: 5,471
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Post by Nr1Humanoid on Mar 29, 2019 18:58:12 GMT -5
Night of Bloody Horror. 1969. Mama's Boy would have made an equally good title.
I do believe Mrs. Voorhees baby boy might have been a fan of this film in his teens with its penetrated eye, hacked chest and cut off body parts.
It was decidedly weird seeing Gerald McRainey this damn young and skinny.
I loved the bloody murders, tolerant cops and kooky characters in this one. It even has a pair of boobies. So that's what real ones look like.
It took me half the movie to figure out the killer and was rather embarrased I hadn't figured it out from the start. Just keep Psycho in mind and it's easy to figure out.
Oh, yeah, 50 year old spoiler alert.
One scene is both bad for those plagued with seizures and awesome for anyone high.
I rather enjoyed the one montage in the film being in still photos, especially since it proved pointless in the end.
Neither a good movie nor a bad one.
I give it 2 and a half incestuous dreams out of 5.
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Post by DSR on Mar 30, 2019 12:15:37 GMT -5
Last night I watched John Carpenter's THE THING (1982), a critical and commercial failure at the time of its release that has since been reappraised as a classic, thanks to Carpenter's building of tension and Rob Bottin's special effects work.
The story, for those unfamiliar, is that an alien entity finds its way to an American research facility in Antarctica. An alien entity that absorbs and replicates lifeforms. Once the scientists (and man of action helicopter pilot Mac, played by Kurt Russell) figure this out, paranoia takes them. How do you know if the person next to you is who or what they say they are?
I followed up my viewing of the film with a reading of Anne Billson's book The Thing, part of the British Film Institute's BFI Modern Classics line of books (I've mentioned them a time or two in the past). Billson's book references John W. Campbell Jr.'s original novella Who Goes There? and Howard Hawks' 1951 adaptation THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD and the ways in which Hawks veered away from the source material and Carpenter adhered more closely. There are also references to Lewis Carroll's poem Jabberwocky and the occasional bits of Freudian analysis: Billson asserts that the titular Thing is basically female, opening strange new orifices to devour the film's all-male cast as part of it's reproductive cycle. And finally there is a handful of references to later films and filmmakers that have taken influences from Carpenter's THE THING.
Carpenter's film is a masterpiece. I think it's essential to own or at the very least to have seen it. Billson's book was designed to change the minds of people who turn their noses up at the "low art form" that is horror and/or sci-fi film. For horror-philes such as us, the book has some interesting bits but I don't think need-to-own.
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Post by KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!! on Apr 9, 2019 22:59:25 GMT -5
Las Vegas Serial Killer (1986) I just watched this one from the second Ray Dennis Steckler box set I got from Media Blasters. I'm watching the movies in the order they were packaged rather than how they were chronologically released so this is actually a sequel to another movie in the box set I haven't watched on it yet, The Hollywood Stranger Meets The Skid Row Slasher. In any event it doesn't have much of a plot so it doesn't matter much. This was one Steckler directed under the name Wolfgang Schmidt. It is pretty much the last feature film Steckler directed outside of a sequel to Incredibly Strange Creatures made right before he died and some silent film he made in the 1990s (?!). Despite being released in 1986 it feels like one of his movies from the 1960s. Outside of some small things like a random Payless Shoes storefront and a Big Papa Smurf doll there is little to indicate the 1980s. All the sound was obviously dubbed in later and I believe it was shot on super 8. No idea why Steckler did this as perhaps he just liked shooting on super 8 for fun. Or perhaps the Steckler family was willing to let Ray keep making movies as long as he didn't dump much money into them. In any case the production was a family affair as you see the name Steckler a few times in the crew credits. A lot, if not all, Steckler's films are thought to be pretty bad in a conventional sense. In this case though the film plays so fast and loose with what makes a movie a movie that at times it comes off more like an experimental film than anything with a coherent narrative. But there is a narrative as thin as it may be! The film opens with a murder and explanation of how Johnathan Klick (the killer from he Hollywood Stranger Meets The Skid Row Slasher) was released from prison. From there it cuts back between Klick (who has very little dialogue) and a set of two hoodlums mugging people and committing other mischievous acts. Since there is not enough footage of this to make a full movie the film is heavily padded with very random footage shot around Las Vegas. I would not at all be surprised if this was just stuff Steckler shot for home movies and re-purposed. There is a pool party, what looks to be a parade, lots of shots of casinos and other buildings. Just random stuff. Sometimes during these scenes Klick shows up and kills someone or the hoodlums are shown doing something. Other time these shots are just there for no conceivable reason. The film concludes when Klick finally crosses paths with the two hoodlums in a way that is more random than surprising. I won't spoil it, but Steckler tries to make a statement. The bigger message he ends up making though is, "Don't watch any more of my movies." Actually, I love Steckler stuff and though I'd rank this closer to the bottom of his feature films than the top you really have to love b-movies to get any joy out of this. Apparently Steckler wanted to make this a trilogy of movies featuring the guy who played Klick as the killer. However, that guy told him no.
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Post by Jumpin' Jesse Walsh on Apr 10, 2019 16:28:02 GMT -5
My review of Pet Semetary (1989)
Pet Sematary sits somewhere in the middle in the pantheon of Stephen King adaptations. Not quite a classic in the same vein as Carrie or The Shining, but nonetheless features some of the most effective and disturbing moments to derive from the work of Maine’s favorite twisted son.
Let’s focus on the flaws first though, m’kay? The premise is great. A cemetery which brings living things back from the dead is a simple premise that opens up tons of space to be creative. Unfortunately, the film makes the decision to throw in a bunch of other subplots from the book that its runtime can’t handle properly. It just can’t settle for one lane and it annoys me.
There’s a lot of family feuding between Lewis Creed and his in-laws for, like, reasons. Oh, and the in-laws are pretty damn infuriating, complete with a funeral fight scene that’s every bit as difficult to watch as you might imagine. Then there’s the whole business of Rachel Creed being haunted by her dead sister, who was apparently stricken with spinal meningitis that somehow turned her into something from The Exorcist. Like, what? Oh, and Ellie Creed is able to communicate with the ghost of guy who got hit by a truck earlier in the film because why? All of this worked better in the book, I’m assuming, but it’s a lot to unpack in a 100-minute movie, leaving a lot of loose ends.
The good thing is that Mary Lambert is here to make us forget about those things by giving us some wonderful scenes of grisly violence and haunting imagery. When the film just sticks to the Pet Semetary and its associated bedlam, it works. There are sliced Achilles tendons, demonic pets, and matricide abound. It’s pretty hard not to feel unnerved by Miko Hughes transforming from a kid you’d see in a Cheerios commercial to a little homicidal member of the undead. The film ultimately would’ve been better served as a look into parental grief following the death of a child and the lengths they’ll go to fill the void left by that loss. The few bits of that we get here are genuinely chilling. It’s a shame all that other stuff gets in the way.
I’m quite aware I’m reviewing this right when the remake has been released in theaters. It kinda goes without saying that there’s a lot of needless remakes of classic ’80s horror flicks out there, but I’m okay with remaking this one. The premise boasts serious potential, and the original film offers glimpses of that, so I’m not scared of it returning from the dead.
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Post by GuyOfOwnage on Apr 10, 2019 18:13:22 GMT -5
My review of Pet Semetary (1989) Pet Sematary sits somewhere in the middle in the pantheon of Stephen King adaptations. Not quite a classic in the same vein as Carrie or The Shining, but nonetheless features some of the most effective and disturbing moments to derive from the work of Maine’s favorite twisted son. Let’s focus on the flaws first though, m’kay? The premise is great. A cemetery which brings living things back from the dead is a simple premise that opens up tons of space to be creative. Unfortunately, the film makes the decision to throw in a bunch of other subplots from the book that its runtime can’t handle properly. It just can’t settle for one lane and it annoys me. There’s a lot of family feuding between Lewis Creed and his in-laws for, like, reasons. Oh, and the in-laws are pretty damn infuriating, complete with a funeral fight scene that’s every bit as difficult to watch as you might imagine. Then there’s the whole business of Rachel Creed being haunted by her dead sister, who was apparently stricken with spinal meningitis that somehow turned her into something from The Exorcist. Like, what? Oh, and Ellie Creed is able to communicate with the ghost of guy who got hit by a truck earlier in the film because why? All of this worked better in the book, I’m assuming, but it’s a lot to unpack in a 100-minute movie, leaving a lot of loose ends. The good thing is that Mary Lambert is here to make us forget about those things by giving us some wonderful scenes of grisly violence and haunting imagery. When the film just sticks to the Pet Semetary and its associated bedlam, it works. There are sliced Achilles tendons, demonic pets, and matricide abound. It’s pretty hard not to feel unnerved by Miko Hughes transforming from a kid you’d see in a Cheerios commercial to a little homicidal member of the undead. The film ultimately would’ve been better served as a look into parental grief following the death of a child and the lengths they’ll go to fill the void left by that loss. The few bits of that we get here are genuinely chilling. It’s a shame all that other stuff gets in the way. I’m quite aware I’m reviewing this right when the remake has been released in theaters. It kinda goes without saying that there’s a lot of needless remakes of classic ’80s horror flicks out there, but I’m okay with remaking this one. The premise boasts serious potential, and the original film offers glimpses of that, so I’m not scared of it returning from the dead. Absolutely love the original Pet Sematary. I was pretty impressed by how much of the book they managed to pack into a 100-minute runtime, and the few loose ends found in King's screenplay of his own book didn't bother me. There are very few manifestations of grief as deep and profound as what you see with the death of a child. Louis' descent into madness after Gage's death is as heartbreaking as it is a fascinating study of the human psyche. And the supernatural elements never feel forced or hokey to me. If nothing else, it makes the compelling force of the burial ground even more evil for manipulating and brainwashing a grief-stricken father. It's genuinely unsettling, which to me, is one of the qualities that makes it one of the greatest horror stories ever told, in writing or on film. And on a side note, Fred Gwynne is a damn treasure; it's going to be hard to not compare Lithgow's performance to his as I'm watching the new film.
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Paul
Vegeta
Posts: 9,237
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Post by Paul on Apr 10, 2019 20:41:06 GMT -5
On IMDB I read in the Trivia section for Pet Sematary (1989) that director Mary Lambert thought of Victor Pascow as the "good angel" who Louis should have been paying attention to and thought of kindly neighbor Jud as the "bad angel" who he should have been ignoring the whole time.
I thought that was a pretty good point.
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Chainsaw
T
A very BAD man.
It is what it is
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Post by Chainsaw on Apr 10, 2019 23:42:38 GMT -5
My review of Poltergeist (1982) Have you ever watched a classic, highly influential film long after you’ve watched its countless imitators, thus making its impact a little dulled and lost on you? That’s precisely how I felt watching Poltergeist, which I recently did for the first time ever. I’ve seen quite a few of the mind-numbingly boring haunted house films it inspired (*side-eyes The Conjuring*). Heck, I’ve even seen the Family Guy parody. I feel like I already watched every scene of this film before I actually watched it, so I knew to expect the man-eating tree and killer clown doll. But even if it provides little surprise for me, I can definitely see why the film has such wide-reaching appeal. This is a horror film for the whole family, so to speak. Most of the scares are PG enough that those more sensitive to the genre won’t stop watching out of fright. Your mom who usually hates horror movies because of “all the bloody stuff” can watch Poltergeist. Your 10-year-old cousin who otherwise isn’t allowed to watch horror movies can watch Poltergeist. You can throw allegations that it’s a horror film for weaklings all you want, but you can’t deny it makes the genre accessible and brings it to blockbuster heights it’s rarely afforded. There’s wide-reaching appeal in the characters, too. The Freelings are depicted as your average, working class family of the ‘80s, the kind of folks they’d model the Simpsons after. They’re all super likable, and probably would’ve been a suitable family for a sitcom in another universe. I can’t go much further without mentioning Heather O’Rourke as Carol Ann, the film’s most enduring character. I kinda hate the “creepy kid” trope so I’m happy it’s mostly avoided here. Carol Ann is an adorable little anime character come to life who just so happens to encounter the spooky shit in her house and drops some iconic sound bytes along the way. There was a missed opportunity to do Pepsi commercials in her tragically short life. Debate ensues to this day over whether Steven Spielberg or Tobe Hooper had control over this film, and I’m gonna have to go with Spielberg. There are a few moments where the Hooper-ness shines through, but this is ultimately coated in the same E.T. sheen and the actual poltergeist feels two steps away from eating Reese’s Pieces. I do wonder what sort of film we could’ve gotten had Hooper been given 100% creative control. Would Craig T. Nelson saw off the clown doll’s head with a chainsaw? Inquiring minds want to know. Nothing in Poltergeist scares me all that much but, again, I’m so familiar with its most famous scenes that I’m not subtracting points because of that. It’s so much more entertaining and charming than many of the films that followed it. If you’re looking to see a lot of the tropes seen in similar, modern work fully on display, then look no further. They’re here. This reminds me...there was news that a remake of Poltergeist being developed... And then I remembered there already WAS a Poltergeist remake! I'm amazed how many 80s movies have been remade in the 2000s that have been utterly, completely forgettable.
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Post by Jumpin' Jesse Walsh on Apr 11, 2019 12:34:44 GMT -5
My review of A Quiet Place (2018)
We’re now a full year removed from when A Quiet Place’s unexpected triumph became the talk of social media and the subject of various hot takes on clickbait sites, so it’s funny for all the hype for the film that I can sum up my thoughts on it in three words: I loved it.
A Quiet Place is an instant classic, absorbing all the best traits of Alien, 1978’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and Saturday afternoon creature features. It boasts a creative premise that’s terrifying in the way something like A Nightmare on Elm Street is terrifying⎯we can’t avoid making noise much like how we can’t avoid falling asleep and, in this film’s universe, that could spell our end. And the film definitely deserves all of those hot takes. The premise lends itself to about five thousand different interpretations.
Here’s my totally baseless one: largely due to the rise of social media, it’s often said we’re living in a time where everyone gets a say. This is often phrased as a negative and, hey, it certainly does bring some negatives, but the films works as a metaphor on how that can also be a good thing. When we lose a platform to share our voice, society loses a crucial way to progress and evolve. The film takes that to the extreme because, in that case, losing that platform means the world has pretty much ended. Sure, we could probably live without social media, but think of the way the world would be like now if it didn’t exist.
But, again, that’s all just my own interpretation of the story. Let’s focus on how it tells its story. Of all its influences, I’m particularly happy with how it takes one best parts about Alien, by slowly revealing the creature to us. Much like the alien, we start out only receiving a few split-second glimpses of these creatures who are now running the world. We get a leg here, a shot of their teeth there. We do see their fullest form by the film’s end, and that’s helluva of scary sight enough, but at that point they’re already completely terrifying before we even see them fully. How brilliant.
Not gonna lie, once it ended, I suddenly became much more self-aware of the noises I was making as I walked around the house. Obviously nothing would come to hunt me down, but what if? Honestly, if a horror movie is making you double-check the locks on your door, it’s a major success in my book. For a film that’s all about staying hush, A Quiet Place deserves the commotion surrounding it.
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Ultimo Gallos
Grimlock
Dreams SUCK!Nightmares live FOREVER!
Posts: 14,323
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Post by Ultimo Gallos on Apr 11, 2019 13:57:28 GMT -5
TIL Bruno Mattei made a cheap NoES ripoff in 89 or 90. Now gotta track down a copy of Night Killer.
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