Nr1Humanoid
Hank Scorpio
Is the #3 humanoid at best.
Posts: 5,484
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Post by Nr1Humanoid on Feb 8, 2019 16:44:49 GMT -5
Deadline. 1979. Released 1984.
More of a drama than straight up horror but there's enough elements to make it qualify.
There's blood, there's gore, with good special effects and it has the death of a little girl that contains neither, yet unlike the rest is seriously tough to watch. Interestingly, the gore drenched deaths has nothing to do with the main storyline.
As for nudity, if you're a fan of the fallen Madonna with the big boobies, this picture has plenty of rounded flesh.
The cast does a good job, though every character is an unredeeming asshole.
Watch the deaths on YouTube and skip this one is this one man's opinion (feel free to ignore it.)
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Nr1Humanoid
Hank Scorpio
Is the #3 humanoid at best.
Posts: 5,484
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Post by Nr1Humanoid on Feb 9, 2019 13:06:17 GMT -5
Krampus 2015.
Normally, I am not much of a horror-comedy fan but this hybrid of Christmas Vacation and Gremlins manages to combine the two nicely without one being detrimenal to the other.
I love horror against a winter background though that aspect of this movie is somewhat diluted thanks to all the snow being fake.
You always walk in to horror with a pg 13 rating with dread but I think this picture manages to stay within those confines in several of the deaths and still be highly effective, though several demises are relagated to completely off screen sadly.
The actors does great work without any truly weak links, though the Uncle Eddie rip off could gave used the charm shitter was full brought to the picture.
It was nice seeing Augustus Gloop strike again and to see a few more Calvin creations in the snow.
And just when you think the movie has cheated us with a cop out ending they pull the rug out from under you. Though I understand the ending has been interpreted differently by others than it was by me.
And not a hunky stud or busty babe in sight, how refreshing.
I give it 5 gingerbread men, 4 teddy bears, 3 toy robots, 2 squirrels in the attic and a killer angel on top of a tree. Enjoy.
As usual, Conchata Ferrell is worth the price of admission alone.
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Post by DSR on Feb 9, 2019 23:15:46 GMT -5
DARK MEASURES (2009) is a no-budget rape-revenge film from the director Chris Hazenberg, who also co-directed the truly awful THE CURSE OF BLANCHARD HILL.
DARK MEASURES is not good in any way whatsoever, but it's not as obnoxiously bad as BLANCHARD HILL was. And the movie begins with a title-card dedicating it to survivors of abuse, so its heart is in the right place. It's an obvious improvement over its predecessor, but that's an incredibly low bar to clear.
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Nr1Humanoid
Hank Scorpio
Is the #3 humanoid at best.
Posts: 5,484
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Post by Nr1Humanoid on Feb 10, 2019 17:33:48 GMT -5
Under the Bed 2012.
Frankly, the picture got on my nerves at first with its overbearing score and an endlessly brooding teenager for a hero. But once the brother dynamic were properly established and we got served a full fledged monster picture, I enjoyed it tremendously.
I honestly started to think this was a pg 13 movie until I got walloped across the head with two wonderful gore set pieces, with practical effects to boot. The monster too was of great design.
The supporting cast didn't really get anything meaty to do, especially the shoed in love interest which showed about as much chemistry with the hero as Renesmee did with Jacob.
The two lead boys did a great job and was very believable as close nit brothers.
I didn't really feel the 80s nostalgia from this movie as online reviewers evidently did, exept the bike riding scene.
Be patient through the first half, you'll be richly rewarded.
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Post by DSR on Feb 11, 2019 1:23:26 GMT -5
BY THE DEVIL'S HAND (2011) - I swear I'm almost done with this Freakshow Cinema set. Tonight's feature comes from writer, editor, director Christopher Abram.
Twenty five years ago, a man killed 6 different women 6 different ways across 6 days and buried them in a mass grave. The bodies were discovered, but the killer's identity wasn't, and thus the legend was born of The 666 Killer.
Flash-forward to the present day and it appears that ol' Triple Six is up to his old tricks. Meanwhile, a cute blonde office worker named Jamie (Susana Gibb, who also acted as a producer on the film) has just received a promotion. This doesn't sit well with the conniving Marni (Arianne Martin), who was competing for the same promotion. Marni's jealousy of Jamie seemingly knows no bounds, as she's willing to do things that would lead to a prompt firing and even jail time if they were discovered by her bosses.
Inevitably, the worlds of corporate backstabbing and Satan-inspired literal stabbing will meet for poor Jamie. But is it really The 666 Killer of a quarter-century ago, or is there a copycat killer on the loose? Worse yet, we are given plenty of evidence to indicate that the killings are being perpetrated by more than one individual. Just who can Jamie trust, if anybody?
This might be damning with faint praise, but BY THE DEVIL'S HAND, out of all of the films in this collection, looks and feels like an actual movie. There's actual style to the camera-work, actors who have actual acting ability (and credits), and genuine special effects, not just obviously sticking a knife in the side of someone's shirt.
Which isn't to say that the film is amazing by any stretch, but its competence stands out as an oasis in the desert of suck that has been this collection. It calls to mind the mid-2000s Kane-starring SEE NO EVIL. That was a fun little slasher, even if it wasn't groundbreaking or anything. This feels kinda like a way lower budget version of that.
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Post by DSR on Feb 12, 2019 1:28:28 GMT -5
The final film of the Freakshow Cinema set (TUCK BUSHMAN AND THE LEGEND OF PIDDLEDOWN DALE) is an unfunny comedy about a monster hunter, with only the tiniest tiniest connection to horror so I won't bother with a full review. I've passed on reviewing other non-horror selections in this set, but I figured since I'm now done with it I'll give some final thoughts.
BY THE DEVIL'S HAND is the best made film of the set, and ORDER OF ONE is the most entertaining (not reviewed because it's a martial arts movie). Still, this whole collection is skippable.
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Post by 'Foretold' Joker on Feb 12, 2019 6:29:42 GMT -5
Question for the Horror fans:
Has anyone watched Maneater of Hydra (1967) if so is it any good?
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Post by DSR on Feb 12, 2019 9:25:05 GMT -5
Question for the Horror fans: Has anyone watched Maneater of Hydra (1967) if so is it any good? I have and it sucks.
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Post by DSR on Feb 23, 2019 3:30:15 GMT -5
NOSFERATU: PHANTOM DER NACHT (1979) is Werner Herzog's remake of F.W. Murnau's silent classic. Herzog filmed all dialogue scenes twice, once in German and once in English, rather than dubbing the film. Specifically, PHANTOM DER NACHT is the German language edition, which Herzog finds the more "authentic" of the two (the English version is titled NOSFERATU: THE VAMPYRE).
Like it's predecessor, Herzog's film is an adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula novel. The story and its many film adaptations are well-known, but I'll give a brief synopsis of Herzog's version, so if you've read the book you can see where he differs: Jonathan Harker (Bruno Ganz) leaves the small town of Wismar, Germany and his pretty wife Lucy (Isabel Adjani) to venture a great distance to Transylvania. Once there, Harker brings real estate contracts to the remains of an old castle and its bald-headed, pointy-eared, fang-toothed owner, Count Dracula (Klaus Kinski). Dracula signs the contracts immediately after seeing Mrs. Harker's picture in a locket of Jon's, attacks the real estate agent, then leaves for Germany by ship. Harker, now severely fevered, attempts to make it back home, but once he gets there, the Count has already arrived, bringing a rat-carried plague to the town.
With Jon Harker weakened and amnesic, and a Dr. Van Helsing who staunchly denies any of the vampiric folklore told to him as superstitious nonsense, it falls to Lucy Harker to find the strength to destroy the ancient blood-sucker...
I found it quite novel that, for once, the great romantic love story of Dracula wasn't about the "bad boy who deep down inside really cares, I mean it" coming to rip the woman away from her straight-laced (read: boring) beau and the restrictive society they both live in. Instead, the romantic aspect of the film seemed to be focused on Lucy and Jonathan. The angelic-looking woman never waivers in her devotion, even as Jon disappears from her life for over a month's time (and Jon tells his employer that he's willing to go on this assignment so he can buy his wife a new house). And later, when Jon comes home unable to recognize his own wife, and the vampire himself offers to restore the man's memory in exchange for even a portion of Lucy's love, Lucy abjectly refuses, asserting that her love will bring Jon back to her without the Count's say-so. Even SPOILERS in the end, when Lucy lets the vampire drink her blood, it seemed to me like a sacrifice made out of love for Jon rather than succumbing to the raw sexual magnetism of a goblin-man. It's still a sexual scene, but I didn't find it particularly erotic.
HOWEVER, I followed my viewing of the film with a reading of the BFI Modern Classics book about the film by author S.S. Prawer, who asserts that Lucy spends much of the film in more of a childlike role to the fatherly Jon, only really awakening sexually when Dracula bites her in that climactic scene. Also, Jon's desire for a better house for him and his wife is a metaphor indicating that he's stuck in a rut and their marriage isn't all that satisfying.
There's also some densely worded paragraphs throughout about Herzog's obviously German influences and contemporaries. The most interesting parts of those are about the fact that Werner's generation grew up after WWII and don't have the greatest relationship with their parents who may or may not have been sympathetic to the Nazi Party, and this divide between fathers and sons expresses itself in the attitudes of the New German Cinema.
All this to say that I came to one conclusion about the film, and the Taylor Professor Emeritus of German Language and Literature at the University of Oxford came to a different conclusion. He wrote a book about it. The film is really well done, with a sense of slow-moving dread throughout rather than a frenetic pace, and great performances by its professional leads and even some minor roles from people that had no prior acting experience (a frequent Herzog tactic). I highly recommend you watch the film, read Prawer's book if you feel like it, and draw your own conclusions either way.
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Post by KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!! on Feb 24, 2019 13:20:18 GMT -5
Where do you guys find your best rare horror stuff online?
I use eBay a lot, but I'd like to check out some more niche places.
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Post by KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!! on Mar 2, 2019 11:51:34 GMT -5
I just watched Blood Freak (1972). There is one scene where hippies are talking about how hard it is to keep a drug addicted turkey man from becoming dangerous. Not to undersell it, but I’m pretty sure it’s the greatest movie in the history of mankind.
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Post by DSR on Mar 2, 2019 13:42:08 GMT -5
Where do you guys find your best rare horror stuff online? I use eBay a lot, but I'd like to check out some more niche places. Sorry I didn't answer this when you posted it, but I also just use eBay. Used to go to a big flea market in Ohio and try to find stuff, but nowadays everybody selling there is just looking to unload the same stuff you can find anywhere. *shrug*
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Post by prettynami on Mar 2, 2019 14:47:50 GMT -5
The Abomination (1986)
A religious woman barfs up her "tumor" that then infests her son, multiplies, and urges him to kill Kill KILL!!!!!
The movie spoils all the action before the credits even roll by literally showing all of it with a strange pre-flash (?). The first 3rd of the movie is our main character, the son, mopping around about his mother and how she religiously watches some preacher on TV and is his like most devoted follower through what appears to be him revealing his actions to some 3rd party interviewing him. She has a tumor, that is actually her child with the preacher (She is the "whore of babylon and it is THE ABOMINATION!!!!). It escapes her body and infests her son, who's knew found craving for murder feeds it and allows it to multiply!
Eventually the the murder rate increases as he fills all the cubards, nooks, crannies, and toilets (He drowns a cat in that toilet or something too?) in his house with puppet monsters. There is a voiceover (And a wind sound effect too)throughout the whole movie, his voice. And the final part of the movie is him just going "the abomination which makes all things desolate" over and over again. This movie never seemed to end, to go on and on with the same shots of his muppet friends flapping their jaws as various meaty tidbits inter-spliced with footage of his next victims doing mundane things. So meaty. The ending is dumb, since he dies... so you wonder who is talking the whole time... But then it reveals over the credits that it WAS ALL A DREAM! BOOOOOO! BOOOO!!! He was just a regular murderer who had this whole thing in his head to reason to himself why he did it! Groan inducing.
The characters are pretty much universally annoying jerkwads. The music is the same beat repeated for 10 minutes at a time. The plot, acting, and execution of shots and everything screams student film or something: "artsy" God babble, long shots of horses eating, etc. The best parts of this movie is the cheesy and quaint monsters and gore. Some of its shit, some of its funny, and some of it you can see the clever merit of how they executed it. We have people who get their heads cut off and their neck is just like an empty tube filed with the pink stuff people warn you that they serve at fast food joints and oh so many arms being chopped off (gotta get good use out of the fake arm, I suppose!). The ADR is so bad its good as well, and related to sound the foley... My god, the foley. Every sound effects sounds like a guy shaking a box full of nick-nacs.
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Post by Jumpin' Jesse Walsh on Mar 2, 2019 17:42:24 GMT -5
My review of Happy Death Day (2017)
It’s weird how it took so long for someone to realize, “Hey, how about if we did Groundhog Day but as a slasher flick?” It feels like something that should’ve been tackled a long while ago. But I’m glad the concept was finally realized, because the results are largely terrific. Happy Death Day is the most fun I’ve had watching a horror film in some time, and I’m happy for its success. Plus, it’s so nice to have a hit, money-making genre film that is neither overtly pretentious or serious. It’s just comfortably mainstream and lets the horror diehards decide how to take it.
Yes, the plot is rather silly in a Rube Goldberg sort of way, but that’s by no means an excuse to write it off. While it’s designed to be a play on the various slasher setups that usually see your garden variety mindless young folk killed off, Tree’s repeated and failed attempts at avoiding her fate also play like Wile E. Coyote’s disastrous attempts at catching Road Runner. And like those cartoons, it may be simple slapstick, but it’s one hell of a good time. That’s not to say it’s all laughs and lightweight though. The film still builds up enough suspense to maintain tension all the way through.
A large part of its success is Jessica Rothe, who is excellent as Tree. She’s a pretty unlikeable character in the early going, but that’s precisely the point. If the film is primarily “Groundhog Day but as horror,” it’s secondarily about fleshing out the vapid sorority chick who’d be killed within the first 30 minutes in a similar film. You just know if this were, say, Urban Legends or Prom Night that a character like Tree would be easily dispatched and forgotten about, and the film wisely plays on our preconceived knowledge of that trope. But it's Rothe who makes that character unforgettable. She’s hilarious and despite the facade, she makes Tree out to be a wholly likable person by the end.
This film gets compared a lot to Scream, primarily because of its humorous take on horror cliches. Also much like Scream, there’s commentary on the ennui one can feel from watching too many horror films. You can watch so many slasher flicks and suddenly you feel like Tree herself, reliving the exact same scenarios and characters you’ve come to expect within the genre. I mean, outside of the window dressing, is there really that much of a difference between something like The Prowler and My Bloody Valentine?
Despite the premise, Happy Death Day doesn’t need to worry being accused of trodding down a familiar path. It forges its own, and manages to be genuinely funny and charming along the way. Needless to say at this point, I enjoyed the heck out of this one and wouldn’t mind experiencing it over and over again.
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Ultimo Gallos
Grimlock
Dreams SUCK!Nightmares live FOREVER!
Posts: 14,401
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Post by Ultimo Gallos on Mar 3, 2019 11:06:39 GMT -5
Where do you guys find your best rare horror stuff online? I use eBay a lot, but I'd like to check out some more niche places. Diabolik dvd,Google them. They carry releases from all over the world. Might need a region free DVD and/or blu ray player for lots of what they carry. They also carry lots of small and niche label stuff from region 1.
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mystermystery
Dennis Stamp
Still in the White Hummer
Posts: 4,375
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Post by mystermystery on Mar 3, 2019 23:25:56 GMT -5
Watched TREEHOUSE on Hulu, the latest of the Blumhouse monthly horror films.
I thought it was holiday based, but I guess I missed something. It has a good cast and a good concept but I never got into it and felt it was a bit heavy handed at times.
In this Blumhouse experiment, I'd say this is going to be near the bottom of the list instead of the top of it.
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Post by prettynami on Mar 4, 2019 20:38:03 GMT -5
Watched "Cave of the Living Dead" which I guess actually was made under the more makes sense title "Night of the Vampires".
It's about a german village that is undergoing a rash of mysterious murders and the inspector who hunts down the culprits!
It's pretty neat and moody in the first part of the movie, has a really old timey feel with spooky shadows stalking people and what not. The inspector is slowed by the people of the area who believe its the doing of a vampire, but he doesn't believe them. Eventually he does and immediately recruits a stinkin' witch of all things to help him in his crusade. A little before this part the movie sorta hits a wall with a combination of the characters seemingly wandering aimlessly about with an attack mixed it, and each wandering about and attack seems the same as the last. The movie did end with a pretty cool vampire death with a glowing skull, though. Basically, the middle of the movie is an uninteresting bore that sorta sours the rest of the movie. Maybe if you can pay attention to the details and get sucked in a little more than I did (I admit I was a bit distracted) you could get more out of this movie. Pretty and atmospheric, too bad about the rest.
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mystermystery
Dennis Stamp
Still in the White Hummer
Posts: 4,375
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Post by mystermystery on Mar 5, 2019 19:59:06 GMT -5
The Car: Road to Revenge is a rights-retaining sequel to the 1977 film The Car. It has nothing to do with the original. It is nonsense and I love it.
Here's a review I did:
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Square
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
Official Ambassador
Grand Poobah of Scavenger Hunts 2011
Square-Because he looks good at all the right angles.
Posts: 18,700
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Post by Square on Mar 5, 2019 20:05:19 GMT -5
So I need help. I've gotten into competing in movie trivia contests because I'm super cool innit and I can hold my own in most however horror I know nada. Barely watched any because I'm a bit of a pansy. Firstly any suggestions of good horror that won't make me need a secondary pair of pants would be awesome and secondly any books or podcasts so I can try and fill this hole even a little.
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Post by DSR on Mar 6, 2019 2:09:21 GMT -5
Just finished the Japanese horror comedy WILD ZERO (1999), in which young punk Ace becomes blood brothers with his favorite band, Guitar Wolf, falls in love with a young woman, and finds himself smack-dab in the middle of a zombie attack caused by aliens. Ace's new friends will teach him a thing or two about love and ROCK 'N' ROLLLLLLLLLLLL! before the night is through.
Directed by Tetsuro Takeuchi, whose background is music videos, and it shows. I don't mean that negatively, as this whole film benefits from the giddy, over-the-top energy. It's not particularly scary (save for a jumpscare during the end credits (seriously!)), it's just balls-to-the-wall fun. Guitar Wolf is a badass punk band who don't kick zombie ass nearly as often as they comb their hair! It's ROCK 'N' ROLL HIGH SCHOOL meets PLAN NINE FROM OUTER SPACE!
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