Lick Ness Monster
Dennis Stamp
From the eerie, eerie depths of Lake Okabena
Posts: 4,874
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Post by Lick Ness Monster on Jan 1, 2009 13:30:25 GMT -5
How's that Omen treating you? I just got done watching NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. DAWN OF THE DEAD is up next, followed by DAY. Yeah, I'm ringing in the new year with George Romero. Hell, twas either that, or my porno collection, and I really am trying to cut back on that. It's one of my resolutions, LOL! The really depressing thing - I fell asleep BEFORE FRIGGIN' 9:30. Definitely feeling the effects of the nocturnal work schedule, but for the first time since I was eight years old I slept right through the new year - and woke up around 3 to the freaky "eye" DVD menu screen of The Omen which had played while I slept. ;D You know, when I reviewed the Omen flicks, I think I was a little harsh on Damien: Omen II. While it still really feels like the story of a bunch of "Keystone Cops"-like adults' attempts to kill the teenage Damien, Jonathan Scott-Taylor is seriously so good in the Damien role that it drags the entire movie up by another star on my scale. Every time he's on screen, the movie is pure awesome, and while those occasions are few and far between, A++ for Jonathan Scott-Taylor. *** for Damien: Omen II. And Tehboobz, as an added bonus, the Omen set that I ordered is a newer one, and it includes the 2006 remake which I'll be seeing for the first time. I didn't even know I was going to be getting it - can't complain. I, like you, find Audition to be a masterpiece, but I've yet to see a Miike film that comes close to living up to it. I've seen Ichi the Killer (and barely remember any of it), I own Gozu (I like it a little more each time I see it, but I'm still not to a point where I'd call it really significantly good), and I quit on Dead Or Alive as soon as there was a scene in which a dog mounted a naked women (not something I wanna see, thank you). I thought Imprint was okay, and I appreciate a movie that can make me cringe nowadays, considering I GREW UP on horror movies, but its far from the heights of Audition, in my opinion. I really love pretty much every movie that I've seen of his, and I don't really even know why. Well, I think I DO know why, but it takes some of the credit away from a guy that I really admire a great deal in Miike. When I first began building my horror library, I started with slasher flicks which I was comfortable with - but after 50 or so of those I got tired. Miike was the first Japanese director that I actively sought out, and I loved them because they were just DIFFERENT from what I was used to, and as sick as this will sound, I found the lengths to which this man will go to shock refreshing and vibrant. I really love Gozu and Ichi the Killer, along with the entire Dead or Alive series and MPD Psycho. Imprint is also snorkin' SICK - I just love how the guy pushes the envelope, and like Rorschach said, he doesn't push it in an obviously artificial Saw or Hostel way either. It's cartoony, yeah, but I find his movies undeniably entertaining - and definitely not boring. One things for sure, while watching Diary I couldn't help but notice that it exposes a real weakness of the slow Zombie type, the only reason anyone dies in this is due to abject stupidity, and "movie logic" in general. You can pretty clearly see most of the victims lets themselves be victims, or Zombies that have no Earthly right sneaking up on people are doing just that, or people slowing down to let Zombies catch up, or my favorite part a group of militant survivors let one of the members die of a heart attack and without a second thought let him "wander off" so he can cause problems latter, puu-leeze. Some of this stuff can be covered up in a normal film by using music cues, or editing or anything else, but in this POV type of film it's just what it is, really slow people eating really stupid people. I've often thought that myself, and it's indeed one of the reasons why I'm not a fan of the zombie sub-genre as a whole. Actually, one thing that I've never understood about Romero's Dead series as a whole is this - in all the movies, we're shown humans killing COUNTLESS zombies and other various deadites, the amount of zombies killed compared to humans is something in the neighborhood of 50 to 1, so I don't understand this - how is it that the zombies seem to be WINNING this fictional war? I really feel that if something like this were to happen in the real world, it would obviously catch us off-guard at first and they might overtake one or two large cities, but I really can't see a zombie infestation overtaking our modern world - with our HIGHLY evolved machine guns and such - with the aplomb that they do in Romero's universe. Finally completed my Omen triumverate, and maybe later on I'll have some thoughts about the two Omen flicks that I haven't seen which I'll be watching for the first time. At any rate, The Final Conflict was my favorite movie in the original trilogy, and still is. Sam Neill is really excellent in the movie (the scene in Damien's "prayer room" contains some truly outstanding acting by him - just one guy in a room, but riveting stuff!), and by and large the story is the best in the series. Surprisingly, for a series of horror films, the original Omen trilogy also follows a really good logical flow and makes a good deal of sense - George Lucas, are you paying attention? *** 1/2 for The Final Conflict. ADDED: I also find it extremely creepy that the moment I posted this comment, the amount of views for this thread was 999 - or 666 turned upside down. Be afraid - be very afraid.
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Post by GuyOfOwnage on Jan 3, 2009 5:45:10 GMT -5
I really love pretty much every movie that I've seen of his, and I don't really even know why. Well, I think I DO know why, but it takes some of the credit away from a guy that I really admire a great deal in Miike. When I first began building my horror library, I started with slasher flicks which I was comfortable with - but after 50 or so of those I got tired. Miike was the first Japanese director that I actively sought out, and I loved them because they were just DIFFERENT from what I was used to, and as sick as this will sound, I found the lengths to which this man will go to shock refreshing and vibrant. I really love Gozu and Ichi the Killer, along with the entire Dead or Alive series and MPD Psycho. Imprint is also snorkin' SICK - I just love how the guy pushes the envelope, and like Rorschach said, he doesn't push it in an obviously artificial Saw or Hostel way either. It's cartoony, yeah, but I find his movies undeniably entertaining - and definitely not boring. See, I can definitely understand the point you're trying to make. When I first watched Ichi the Killer, I couldn't help but continuously think "oh man, this is snorked up, this is snorked up", which is why I said before that it didn't really need to go as far as it did to make the statement that it wanted to make. But I won't deny that it was refreshing, original, and innovative. My biggest problem with Imprint actually had nothing to do with the violence. I actually liked some of the violence in it. I thought it was very subtle and actually more effective than just hacking someone's limbs off. For example, the needles going under the girl's fingernails - OH excretory matter was that brutal; it had me squirming in my seat. My problem arises when they show the one girl's mother who is an abortionist, and showing that process in graphic detail, then seeing a bunch of dead fetuses floating off down the river. It's something that hit a little too close to home for me personally (I obviously won't discuss that here), and almost lead to me turning off the DVD right there. All in all that was a unique, original horror story, but that one part hit all the wrong buttons for me, and pretty much solidified my decision not to purchase it. Showing live people getting sliced and diced (ala Ichi the Killer) is one thing, but the fetuses were just a little much. I probably would've thought a lot more of the film had that scene been more implied. You can love that way of pushing the envelope, you're entitled your opinion - but I think there's a certain point where, even in horror films, you have to question what exactly it is you're putting on film. I guess we all have our own personal thresholds when it comes to certain subject matter. I'm not trying to come across as snobbish or prudish or stuck up - but that particular viewing experience gave me the impression that, despite my overwhelming love for the red stuff, a director like Miike probably isn't for me. (I felt the need to clarify that point just so I wasn't coming across as being too sensitive to excess violence in films or anything like that. After all, I certainly wouldn't be participating in this thread if I was.)
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Lick Ness Monster
Dennis Stamp
From the eerie, eerie depths of Lake Okabena
Posts: 4,874
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Post by Lick Ness Monster on Jan 3, 2009 13:48:44 GMT -5
No need to apologize, guyofownage. I thought everyone but me had given up on the thread! That scene with the fetuses is extreme, isn't it? Oh, and watched Omen IV: The Awakening last night for the first time in my life. To say that its tone is a little different from the other films in the series is a huge understatement. While the earlier movies in the series built up this sense of dread while everyone died bizarre freak accident deaths around Damien, for some reason this flick just felt like a light, happy horror film (if that makes any sense) - and the actress playing Delia has to be the most annoying creature in the history of man. The movie was actually meant to jumpstart a TV-movie series of new Omen films, but obviously that didn't pan out after this disaster. * 1/2 So, now I have the Omen remake to enjoy/impugn next, and then I'll be revisiting another series. In the meantime, how about this topic for discussion. OK, just got done watching the Omen remake, and I was actually pleasantly surprised. It's far from a great movie, but I walked away from it not wanting to choke anyone - a welcome feeling with present-day horror remakes. I surprisingly liked Liev Schreiber's take on the Robert Thorn character a great deal, and while Julia Stiles was a little grating, it just made her death scene all the sweeter. ;D The movie also follows the first movie's story almost by-the-letter, which I'm all for - no Rob Zombie Halloween style changes just for the sake of change with this movie. At the end of the day, though, it just doesn't retain that Gothic-style eerie atmosphere that the original movie had with all the slick, music-video style editing that is prevalent in it. Overall, just feels a little dull, unscary, and uninspired. ** 1/2 for The Omen 2006 remake. And...I'm just now revisiting a series that I have not seen in over ten years, and suffice to say, I'm really glad I made the purchase. Ridley Scott's 1979 movie Alien is definitely one of the more influential horror films out there (and yes, I consider it a horror film - after all, it even features a "last girl" ;D), leading to a veritable wave of "astronauts stranded in space with horrific monstrosity" movies in the '80s. The formula was never done better than in this original movie (with the exception of another movie in its own series). The characters are all memorable and likable, making the deaths hit home that much harder. The alien itself is most assuredly one malevolent SOB (kudos to the screenwriter who came up with the acidic blood component - as Parker himself says, it is indeed one hell of a defense mechanism ), and Ripley herself is a badass, something which would only get even more fleshed out in the series' three sequels. Classic film, and a hallmark in the sci-fi/horror genre. *** 1/2 So how 'bout this topic for everyone - what horror movies do YOU personally enjoy that everyone else - critics and fans alike - hate? And conversely, what critically adored movies with a "classic" tag, for whatever reason, can you simply not stand? I'll start with my own choices. For whatever reason, I've always enjoyed Gus Van Sant's remake of Psycho (and I am the ONLY person I know, online or otherwise, who feels that way). I found it to be a good homage to the original, and very much enjoyed an in-joke that a lot of people miss - near the beginning of the film when Marion walks into her office, there's a fat man obviously made up to look like Hitchcock chewing out Gus Van Sant. I agree with everyone that Vaughn didn't make the best Norman, but I just don't feel that the movie deserves the sheer amount of venom that is thrown its way. I'm also a big fan of Texas Chain Saw Massacre: The Next Generation. It's awesome seeing two HUGE A-list stars of today get their start in a freakin' slasher film, and who knew Matthew McCoughnahey could play such a badass? ;D Ditto for Candyman II: Farewell to the Flesh, a movie that I feel is almost as good as the original but seems to catch a lot of flack from fans. As for beloved movies that I dislike, it begins with the original A Nightmare on Elm Street, obviously, for reasons that I've already said. Also, The Exorcist - I think the measure of any great film, horror or otherwise, is that it should still be as effective today as the day it came out. If you really look at The Exorcist now, it's just not that scary. Anybody else got some unloved movies that they feel didn't get their due or fan favorites that you've gotten in fanboy flamewars over? ;D
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Post by Rorschach on Jan 4, 2009 21:10:34 GMT -5
I'm just now revisiting a series that I have not seen in over ten years, and suffice to say, I'm really glad I made the purchase. Ridley Scott's 1979 movie Alien is definitely one of the more influential horror films out there (and yes, I consider it a horror film - after all, it even features a "last girl" ;D), leading to a veritable wave of "astronauts stranded in space with horrific monstrosity" movies in the '80s. The formula was never done better than in this original movie (with the exception of another movie in its own series). The characters are all memorable and likable, making the deaths hit home that much harder. The alien itself is most assuredly one malevolent SOB (kudos to the screenwriter who came up with the acidic blood component - as Parker himself says, it is indeed one hell of a defense mechanism ), and Ripley herself is a badass, something which would only get even more fleshed out in the series' three sequels. Classic film, and a hallmark in the sci-fi/horror genre. *** 1/2 On the subject of ALIEN....loved the original, loved ALIENS, but I just sit and wonder what Fincher could have done with ALIEN3 had he been left the hell alone. And since you're doing this series now, will you be subjecting yourself to the horridness that is AvP? I wouldn't if I were you. Let me think a while and I'll be back with answers to your other questions above.
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Lick Ness Monster
Dennis Stamp
From the eerie, eerie depths of Lake Okabena
Posts: 4,874
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Post by Lick Ness Monster on Jan 4, 2009 21:32:23 GMT -5
On the subject of ALIEN....loved the original, loved ALIENS, but I just sit and wonder what Fincher could have done with ALIEN3 had he been left the hell alone. And since you're doing this series now, will you be subjecting yourself to the horridness that is AvP? I wouldn't if I were you. Let me think a while and I'll be back with answers to your other questions above. Alright - someone's paying attention. Which means I can merge my triple post up above. ;D No, won't be doing AvP - don't own them, and I've only seen the first one, which sucked horribly (which was only compounded by listening to my old college roommate yack about it nonstop for about a month straight and spend that month's rent money on freakin' AvP action figures).
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erisi236
Fry's dog Seymour
... enjoys the rich, smooth taste of Camels.
Not good! Not good! Not good!
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Post by erisi236 on Jan 4, 2009 21:42:22 GMT -5
Even with the theatrical cut I like Alien3, it's one of my favorite movies actually, can't really explain why but I do watch it quite a bit. The "directors cut" or "producers cut" or whatever the Hell it is cut just makes it even better. AvP was just all wrong, in tone and story and basically everything else, I do like to see new movie about the Predators but not when it stomps all over the established continuity of everything we know about them. AvP2 tried to fix it a bit but then messed up the Aliens, sigh, it was still a nice bloody mess tho'. Although you couldn't see a damn thing it was so poorly lit, Paul Anderson might get some grief but at least in the first AvP you could see what was going on.
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Post by Rorschach on Jan 4, 2009 21:45:30 GMT -5
Well, the first part of that is easy, TR....that would be FEAST. A few people here and there liked it ok, but for the most part, it got ripped to shreds critically, and panned by horror fans because you "couldn't ever see the monsters". So the filmmakers rectified that for FEAST II, and what do they hear? "They showed too much of the monsters!"
*SIGH*
As for the second part....I think I would have to say that, while I didn't HATE the film, I did think that HATCHET was, for the most part, very overpraised within our community. It was decent, but I can think of several OTHER indy horror films that were much, much better, and didn't receive a TENTH of the verbal blow-jobs that DreadCentral and BloodyDisgusting gave to HATCHET. Was it fun? Kind of. Was it gory? Yeah, it was. Was it also completely derivative and uninspired? HELL YES. TR , your COMMENCEMENT would have been a hundred times the "horror homage" that HATCHET was.
And that's the thing that bugs me the most about DreadCentral....they USED to be the rebellious, new kid on the block of the horror internet community. Now, they have "pet directors" whose projects they praise ad nauseum, to the point where said directors seem to get free passes for crappy work, while other directors, who don't play nice with DC, get ripped to shreds for no lesser offenses.
This is one of the reasons I don't trust their judgement of REPO! THE GENETIC OPERA. I remember the LAST time DC sucked that much dick, and it was for HATCHET. Fool me once.....
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Lick Ness Monster
Dennis Stamp
From the eerie, eerie depths of Lake Okabena
Posts: 4,874
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Post by Lick Ness Monster on Jan 4, 2009 21:50:03 GMT -5
Interesting choices there, Rorschach - you actually named two movies that I haven't even seen. I've actually heard really good things about Hatchet, but every time I suggest to whoever I happen to be with at the time that we rent it, they shoot it down. One of these days I'll see it for myself and be my own judge.
I've only been on dreadcentral a little bit, and actually enjoy it a little better than the Fangoria website. Their reviews just seem more well-written.
Once again, thanks much for the comments on the screenplay. I'm extremely flattered. I'm actually kicking around changing the title of it to Graduation Day, just because it sounds more '80s slasher. ;D
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Post by Rorschach on Jan 4, 2009 22:00:38 GMT -5
Interesting choices there, Rorschach - you actually named two movies that I haven't even seen. I've actually heard really good things about Hatchet, but every time I suggest to whoever I happen to be with at the time that we rent it, they shoot it down. One of these days I'll see it for myself and be my own judge. I've only been on dreadcentral a little bit, and actually enjoy it a little better than the Fangoria website. Their reviews just seem more well-written. Once again, thanks much for the comments on the screenplay. I'm extremely flattered. You're very welcome! And you know, the thing that I truly liked, and when you see HATCHET you'll realize this, but the thing I liked about COMMENCEMENT was that yeah, you covered the "stock character" bases, but your teens were MORE than just POTHEAD #1 and SLUT #2....they had characterization! I CARED about those kids, and their deaths just packed one hell of a punch. Contrast that to HATCHET, where the deaths WERE creative, but packed about as much emotional punch as my last bowel movement. I was like 'Oh, did GENERIC BLACK GUY just die hideously? YAWN. Oh well. " And I go to DC and they're all like , "If you don't LOVE HATCHET, you're un-American!" I don't GET that kind of over-hyping, myself. Seems like it does more harm than good. Gets expectations up WAY too high. Another very divisive horror film is HAUTE TENSION....for the twist ending, mainly. I was LOVING that movie right up until that goddamned twist, which made absolutely NO sense, and ruined everything that had gone before it, for me. Oh, and Erisi....I concur with you on the lighting of AvP. At least you could SEE the monsters. Uncle Creepy from DreadCentral noted in his review of that film that there is an unintentionally hilarious snippet of dialogue on the commentary track for AvPR: One of the directors is talking about how AMAZING the creature design in a particular scene is....and said scene is lit about as well as the back end of a black steer's tuchus on a moonless prarie night. But there they are, raving about how AMAZING this critter looks...and you can't make out a damn thing they're yapping about. Way to expose the darkness of your own film, guys.
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Lick Ness Monster
Dennis Stamp
From the eerie, eerie depths of Lake Okabena
Posts: 4,874
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Post by Lick Ness Monster on Jan 4, 2009 22:05:09 GMT -5
Even with the theatrical cut I like Alien3, it's one of my favorite movies actually, can't really explain why but I do watch it quite a bit. The "directors cut" or "producers cut" or whatever the Hell it is cut just makes it even better. AvP was just all wrong, in tone and story and basically everything else, I do like to see new movie about the Predators but not when it stomps all over the established continuity of everything we know about them. AvP2 tried to fix it a bit but then messed up the Aliens, sigh, it was still a nice bloody mess tho'. Although you couldn't see a damn thing it was so poorly lit, Paul Anderson might get some grief but at least in the first AvP you could see what was going on. Huh. Here I saw a box set a couple days ago at Best Buy with ALL the Alien and Predator movies, including the AvP films, and I thought I was a dumbass for buying all the movies separately on amazon (and NOT the AvP films), but now I think I made the right choice. The whole concept of Predator is just so cool, and you're right - that goddamned Paul W.S. Anderson messed it up. Then again, pretty much everything the dude touches turns to excretory matter.
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Post by Rorschach on Jan 4, 2009 22:16:56 GMT -5
Even with the theatrical cut I like Alien3, it's one of my favorite movies actually, can't really explain why but I do watch it quite a bit. The "directors cut" or "producers cut" or whatever the Hell it is cut just makes it even better. AvP was just all wrong, in tone and story and basically everything else, I do like to see new movie about the Predators but not when it stomps all over the established continuity of everything we know about them. AvP2 tried to fix it a bit but then messed up the Aliens, sigh, it was still a nice bloody mess tho'. Although you couldn't see a damn thing it was so poorly lit, Paul Anderson might get some grief but at least in the first AvP you could see what was going on. Huh. Here I saw a box set a couple days ago at Best Buy with ALL the Alien and Predator movies, including the AvP films, and I thought I was a dumbass for buying all the movies separately on amazon (and NOT the AvP films), but now I think I made the right choice. The whole concept of Predator is just so cool, and you're right - that goddamned Paul W.S. Anderson messed it up. Then again, pretty much everything the dude touches turns to excretory matter. And nothing turned faster, or into a bigger pile than RESIDENT EVIL. Also affectionately known to the game fans as "The Milla Jovovich ACTION AND ASSKICKING Hour!" Stupid lousy vanity projects anyway. Anderson should either be forced to incorporate RE elements to the films, or change the goddamn name and let someone ELSE make the movies.
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erisi236
Fry's dog Seymour
... enjoys the rich, smooth taste of Camels.
Not good! Not good! Not good!
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Post by erisi236 on Jan 4, 2009 22:20:30 GMT -5
I actually like most of Paul Andersons work, nothing he made ranks as "gawd awful" in my ranking, a couple of them actually rank as "I really like it". Event Horizon in particular is something I really like, sci-fi horror is kind of a rare genre and good ones are even rarer, and this one comes off as a pretty good one to me. Soldier, Mortal Kombat, Resident Evil, Death Race, nothing really vomit inducing in my opinion, there's far worse Directors out there making money right now. Even AvP has some good parts and most of the bad parts aren't really due to any Directing problems, just some writing ones.
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Lick Ness Monster
Dennis Stamp
From the eerie, eerie depths of Lake Okabena
Posts: 4,874
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Post by Lick Ness Monster on Jan 4, 2009 22:24:58 GMT -5
Erisi, I actually agree with you on Event Horizon. Liked it a great deal when I saw it as an eight-grader, and still think it's pretty damn cool today. Sam Neill is really awesome in it - come to think of it, he may be one of my favorite actors. I've liked him in pretty much EVERYTHING I've seen him in - the JP films, Dead Calm, In the Mouth of Madness, the dude is money.
The rest I respectfully disagree on. ;D
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Post by Rorschach on Jan 4, 2009 22:48:12 GMT -5
I agree on EVENT HORIZON as well. I really liked that movie, and maintain that it is Anderson's crowning achievement.
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King of Fighters
Unicron
Me and you, we get Superman, were from the streets
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Post by King of Fighters on Jan 5, 2009 0:50:47 GMT -5
Even with the theatrical cut I like Alien3, it's one of my favorite movies actually, can't really explain why but I do watch it quite a bit. The "directors cut" or "producers cut" or whatever the Hell it is cut just makes it even better. AvP was just all wrong, in tone and story and basically everything else, I do like to see new movie about the Predators but not when it stomps all over the established continuity of everything we know about them. AvP2 tried to fix it a bit but then messed up the Aliens, sigh, it was still a nice bloody mess tho'. Although you couldn't see a damn thing it was so poorly lit, Paul Anderson might get some grief but at least in the first AvP you could see what was going on. Huh. Here I saw a box set a couple days ago at Best Buy with ALL the Alien and Predator movies, including the AvP films, and I thought I was a dumbass for buying all the movies separately on amazon (and NOT the AvP films), but now I think I made the right choice. The whole concept of Predator is just so cool, and you're right - that goddamned Paul W.S. Anderson messed it up. Then again, pretty much everything the dude touches turns to excretory matter. Me and my boy Jeff for some reason find AvP amusing in a "Its so bad its decent" kind of way. The second one on the other hand was just absolutely terrible and after we saw the maternity ward scene me, hm, and half of the audience got up and left the theater. One of the only two movies I've ever actually walked outof (the other being 300).
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Post by DSR on Jan 5, 2009 2:34:17 GMT -5
Okay, a horror movie that gets lots of praise, but I can't stand it...how's "Dracula" work for ya? Yeah, 1931, starring Bela Lugosi "Dracula." I will admit that Lugosi's performance is good, but the direction is absolutely static. Tod Browning merely pointed the camera at Lugosi and left the room for a few hours. On top of that, the other actors give us other horrendous over-acting or total wood (of the robotic acting variety, not an erection). There's a good reason for the lack of music (its the dawn of the talkies, so naturally the studio wants to highlight all the great talking in all of their movies), but it still fills me with utter boredom. Music heightens dramatic tension, y'know. Lastly, the script simply isn't up to snuff. Mina's best friend Lucy DIES and comes back as a vampire later on. You'd think that would be a major plot point, but Mina either doesn't acknowledge or barely acknowledges the fact that her friend is dead. And when Lucy comes back, its primarily off-camera and we're almost left to speculate that its Lucy at all. Nosferatu, the silent film, tells pretty much the exact same story in a more beautiful (and at the same time dreadful) manner. I think part of the reason it's so revered is because its from the dawn of Universal's horror line, but really, Frankenstein, The Mummy, and Murders in the Rue Morgue (Lugosi's follow-up film) are much better, and Dracula only secures its "legendary" status by association, Lugosi's performance, and the fact of it being the first talkie Dracula movie ("first" doesn't always equal "best" y'know). As for an unloved horror movie that I love, I'll go with the aforementioned Murders in the Rue Morgue, starring Bela Lugosi. It's got a creepier Lugosi performance as Dr. Mirakle, a mad science plot that involves prostitutes, and a big "missing link between man and ape" played by a chimp in extreme close-up. It's more of a guilty pleasure than a true masterpiece, but it's certainly a hell of a lot of entertainment. I admire the guy's ability to make me cringe after all these years of watching horror movies, and his work is certainly much different from the slasher movies that you and I grew up on, but I just generally don't feel as strongly about his work as you do. But like I said (or maybe I didn't say it, but I thought it a few times), Audition is a masterpiece, Imprint is very good, and I've warmed up to Gozu. Maybe its because you went from slashers to Miike, and I went from slashers to Fulci. *shrug* Not only that, this was just another in a bunch of "the killer and the hero are the same person" twist endings. I'm in full agreement with ya. Finally, I recently found out that the local Coconuts store (its basically FYE in all but name) is going out of business, so I went to see what I could scrounge up. The good horror movies were picked clean for the most part, but I managed to grab It's Alive (directed by Larry Cohen) and...Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla. Now I know you're saying "that's not a horror movie!" Well, I kinda count it anyway. For one thing, the original Gojira was definitely a horror movie, in the vein of many 50s horror/sci-fi pictures about giant monsters. They all attempted to play on their audience's fears, its just in this case, nuclear fallout was a prevalent fear in society (with the human results pretty vividly and horrifically displayed in Gojira). So basically, every Godzilla movie following the original at least has a strenuous tie to horror (even if its in the same vein as Freddy's Dead, which plays largely like a comedy). The counterpoint to that argument would probably be that Ghostbusters or Beetlejuice have slight horrific elements, but those are flat-out comedies. And sure, any Godzilla movie that features the big gray/green guy talking or his son prominently really doesn't count as horror. But my response is that none of those movies has the gore (GORE! GORE!) of Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla. Anguirus practically vomits blood when his jaw is broken in the first half hour by Mechagodzilla, Mechagodzilla's bullet fingers cause a shower of blood to spray from Godzilla's neck much like many later J-Horror films would feature, and even a humanoid alien gets a blood-spray when he's shot in the neck (his blood is gray, but still...). I suppose my overall point with this whole thing is this: some Godzilla movies are horror movies. And I'm semi-ready and semi-willing to debate that point to my last breath...or until I get bored. Really, I just wanted to participate. By the way, TR, there was already a horror movie called Graduation Day.
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Lick Ness Monster
Dennis Stamp
From the eerie, eerie depths of Lake Okabena
Posts: 4,874
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Post by Lick Ness Monster on Jan 5, 2009 10:06:14 GMT -5
I'm with you all the way on Lugosi's Dracula, DSR. One Halloween, my roommate got the bright idea to pop in nothing but '30s monster movies, and while I really enjoyed most of them (it's always nice to see an MST3K movie in un-MST3ed form like I did with Revenge of the Creature that day), Dracula also bored me to tears.
As for the title of the script - crap. I really need to learn the value of an imdb search. ;D
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Post by DSR on Jan 5, 2009 13:36:13 GMT -5
I'm with you all the way on Lugosi's Dracula, DSR. One Halloween, my roommate got the bright idea to pop in nothing but '30s monster movies, and while I really enjoyed most of them (it's always nice to see an MST3K movie in un-MST3ed form like I did with Revenge of the Creature that day), Dracula also bored me to tears. As for the title of the script - crap. I really need to learn the value of an imdb search. ;D Yeah, I'll take any of the sequels to Dracula over the original anyday. I actually found myself liking the mostly forgotten Dracula's Daughter when I got the boxset for my birthday. As far as I know, its the first movie in which a vampire desperately wants to be a normal person.
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Post by Rorschach on Jan 5, 2009 21:59:37 GMT -5
So I guess it's back to COMMENCEMENT then, TR? ;D
Anyway, yeah, the Lugosi DRACULA is revered mainly for it's star making (and in all actuality, crippling typecasting) of Lugosi. There have been many better, and lesser known, DRACULA movies, and I would have said that BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA would have beaten the 30's DRACULA....if not for Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder, who were dreadfully miscast. Gary Oldman gives a brilliant performance as the Count, Anthony Hopkins is wonderful as Van Helsing, and even the actress who plays Lucy (her name escapes me) does a great job.
Now, if only we could get Tarantino onto the task of giving us Samuel L. Jackson as BLACULA, we'd be talking!
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Lick Ness Monster
Dennis Stamp
From the eerie, eerie depths of Lake Okabena
Posts: 4,874
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Post by Lick Ness Monster on Jan 5, 2009 22:11:04 GMT -5
I have an opinion that differs much from a lot of people, but I actually don't mind Reeves as much as Ryder. For whatever reason, I can at least watch Reeves' version of Jonathan Harker and not want to punch the TV - but Ryder's Mina...ughhh. Just, ugh.
Also just got done watching Aliens, one of many projects at the time that James Cameron was attached to. Man, what an awesome film-maker that guy is - kickass action movies that, for the most part, have a STORY that you actually care about. And while the last hour of Aliens is nonstop action, it's refreshing to go back to a time when this sort of film actually MADE SENSE and didn't rely on Michael Bay-ish music video style editing meant to make teenage boys go "oh, cooool!" It also takes time to build on what we know about the creatures from the first film (the alien queen=pure badassness), makes Ripley even cooler than she was in the first movie, and manages to NOT simply be a rehash of the first film.
**** for Aliens
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