A New Nightmare - The Rolling Horror Thread 2016 Reborn

Busy man! I’m definitely up for seeing The Void when I get round to it. Coincidentally, I’m just about to order the original Godzilla movie on Blu-Ray. I’ve never seen it before and understand that it’s a lot bleaker than later installments in the series might lead you to believe.

Question: has anyone here seen Personal Shopper? Am thinking I might go see it tomorrow night. It seems to be getting really mixed reviews, but those that like it seem to really like it…

You’ve pretty well summed Personal Shopper up. It’s very muddled and feels like two or more completely separate plots shoehorned together. It’s a curate’s egg…Some good bits, others…not so good. Kristen Stewart decent though.

Hmmm… Figure I might still check it out. I’m a sucker for ghost stories and ‘lonely girl wanders around foreign city’ movies, so I’m hoping this might do it for me…

How about Colossal, anyone seen that yet?

Went to see this last night and enjoyed it enough, I guess. Found the ending a little frustrating and too ambiguous, but most everything that leads up to that is pretty good. Definitely think this shows why if you’re making a ghost film it’s better to suggest than show. First ghost shows up, and I’m like, Ey up! It’s Casper! Find it hard to believe that Cannes couldn’t find a director slightly more deserving of their award than this guy…

Watched a bunch of stuff over the past week as the thinly veiled is overseas with work and as such, there is no one around to stop me…

Get Out
Enjoyed this, but possibly not as much as other people seem to be doing so. Good setup that gets increasingly creepy and doesn’t show its hand until right near the end. A satisfying payoff for the protagonist too, superbly played by Daniel Kaluuya who I am also currently enjoying in Psychoville (I don’t think I will ever tire of Mark Pemberton calling his character ‘Tealeaf’). Maybe just not quite scary/bloody enough for me, nonetheless this has been wildly successful at the box office which is only ever a good thing for future horror productions. 7/10

The Void
Been looking forward to this after the John Carpenter comparisons, which turned out to be well founded. A small disparate group of characters end up besieged in a hospital by a force with no clear motive - classic stuff. Some of the acting/dialogue in this is, well…not great, but the practical effects, score, and general Cthulu/weirdness vibe more than make up for it. 7/10

The Shallows
This could well have been alternatively titled “Blake Lively is beach body ready’ (see below poster) such was the amount of screen time dedicated to the main character getting in and out of her swimwear. Fortunately, once it actually gets going this is a genuinely tense animal attack feature. Sharks will never not be scary tbf, especially when they seem to take things as personally as this one does, and this wears its Jaws influences firmly on its sleeve. The final shark confrontation in particular is pleasingly bombastic. 6/10

Wake Wood
The return of Hammer Films (although the poster is somewhat misleading of the actual tone) is something to be celebrated by the British film industry/horror fans in general This is a mashup of themes from Don’t Look Now and Pet Cemetery and falls squarely into the ‘folk horror’ genre. Starring Littlefinger from Game Of Thrones, supported by a nicely hammy Timothy Spall, this has some genuinely eerie moments. Going back to Aidan Gillen, his accent is a bit all over the place in this, which we may have come to expect from his previous work only presumably this is his actual real accent in this? Nonetheless, he does his thing, whatever that is, and from looking at his filmography, in addition to being main cast in two of the most celebrated TV shows of recent years (The Wire and Game Of Thrones) my god has he made a lot of films. Obviously has something. 6/10

After Midnight
An 80s horror anthology is usually right up my street, but this was, what’s the word I’m looking for here…shit. Seemingly assembled entirely out of horror film cliches (the painfully dislikable victims in both of the first two chapters end up stranded after running out of gas in the middle of nowhere - really?), this has approximately zero scares and not even much redeemable 80s nostalgia/kitsch. 2/10

Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair
Not horror per se, but I’m including it here as it has some serious gore in it. This is the directors cut of the two films combined, with additional scenes added, the gore restored to full colour rather than black and white, and with the chapters in the originally intended order. I found the split of the two original films deeply frustrating (this was obviously before Peter Jackson has unleashed the full terror of his Hobbit cycle on us) so seeing this restored to its full glory was very exciting. The revenge arc makes far more sense with the story in its correct order, particularly (spoilered just in case)…

…we only find out that The Bride’s daughter is alive when she does, right before the final showdown with Bill which gives the whole story far more weight.

Also, The House Of Blue Leaves/Crazy 88 fight is about a third of the way through which doesn’t involve a huge anti-climax like it did bookending the first chapter in the split versions. Watching this as a whole, it is impressive the ambition of the story telling involved as this jumps around a lot of characters and locations all of which are cast, shot and scored to perfection. The support from the likes of Lucy Liu, Darryl Hannah, Sonny Chiba and David Carradine is superb. The undeniable star of this however is Uma Thurman, who is amazing in every part of this - wish she was still doing more stuff. While I’m not sure how wide a market there is for four hour long revenge epics, I think that had this been released as a single instalment, possibly edited down to maybe more like three hours, this would be regraded alongside the very best of Tarantino’s work. 9/10

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Kind of feel like we’re in a bit of a golden age for intelligent, independent horror films at the moment. Seems like each year for the past few years now, there have been several releases that most fans of the genre can agree are taking things in exciting, new directions. It’s a good time to be alive. In some respects.

Literally just read that Michael Parks, who plays two roles in Kill Bill (one of which, Sherrif Earl McGraw, he also plays in From Dusk 'Til Dawn and Planet Terror and Deathproof) has died.

A great horror actor. In fact, a great actor full stop :+1:

That sucks - I loved him in Tusk and We Are What We Are. Was also suitably menacing in Twin Peaks… RIP…

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Watched Spring last night. This had been on my watch-list for a while. Everything I’d heard about it made me think it would be another addition to the past few years’ collection of intelligent horror films, but… This shows a lot of promise, but it just didn’t come together for me. Basically, this answers the long-pondered question of what would have happened in Before Sunrise if Julie Delpy’s character had been a monster. Sadly, the dialogue between the two central characters here often falls far short of its inspirations. That’s compounded by the fact that neither of the two leads are that likeable. Tonally, this is a difficult sell. It wants to be all artsy and brooding with lots of deep and meaningful conversations between its two protagonists but when it switches gear and introduces the horror elements, it doesn’t quite work. Maybe if it had adopted a more consciously comedic tone from the get-go, it might have fared better when the script seems to realize that it needs to become a comedy in order to accommodate quite how implausible it’s all become. That’s not to say that there’s not stuff to enjoy here: the music and cinematography are both pretty flawless and the concept for the creature is nothing if not original. Ultimately though, I couldn’t help but feel somewhat disappointed with this. It could have been so good and despite all my criticisms, it nearly gets there. This has been called Lovecraftian which I think goes to demonstrate how much that term has become over-used in recent years; sure, there are tentacles (badly CGI-ed), but that’s about it. Oh well, Nightmare on Elm Street 4 tonight – at least you know where you stand with Freddy Krueger…

great write up

where/ how did you see the uber Kill Bill?

Thanks!

Funny, the monster reveal was what made the film for me.

Found this article yesterday, which I think sums up some of my other problems with the film: Spring movie review: she’s waaay out of his league - FlickFilosopher.com

Moving on, watched Nightmare 4 last night. Missed this back in the day, because I think my Freddy-fever was pretty much over by this point. And… it’s good enough. So far in my re-watching of these, I’d probably put it slightly ahead of part 2 but some way behind 1 and 3. Some very inventive kills can’t make up for the fact that Freddy just isn’t scary anymore. Also, having survived part 3 intact, it’s a pity that the remaining characters from that film get offed immediately. But I think my main problem with this one is that whereas part 3 really added to the Freddy mythology, this one has hardly any of that. Maybe I’m asking too much for the 3rd sequel in a franchise like this, but still…

Oh, and if there are any Jean Rollin fans out there, you should check this out for info about a book coming out soon that looks to be pretty amazing: LOST GIRLS: The Cinema of Jean Rollin | Indiegogo

Have you seen the 4-hour Freddie documentary? have heard it’s amazing as these things go.

Been working my way through it after I watch each movie. Been doing the same with the similar one that was put out for the F13 movies. Total nerd escapism. Both are well worth watching if you have any interest in the films. Amazing how many participants in the movies they’ve been able to dredge up. Watching the section on F13 Part V gave me a whole new appreciation for that film…

The combined Kill Bill is available from the usual ‘sources’ on the internets :+1:

Watched last night, Drive

I loved this when I saw it at the cinema on release, so was excited to revisit it. I found myself somewhat…underwhelmed. Don’t get me wrong, it still looks and sounds amazing but it felt like a fairly empty experience overall. Ryan Gosling deliberately delivers a blank canvas performance, and Carey Mulligan doesn’t really do much more. There’s excellent support from Brian Cranston, Albert Brooks, Ron Pearlman and Oscar Isaacs, but they can’t make up for unrelatable leads. Christina Hendricks is also in this for about two minutes, gets slapped around, then dispensed with. Refn and Gosling’s follow up Only Good Forgives got slated for a lot of reasons that could also apply to Drive to my mind. 6/10

Watched last night, Goosebumps

Watched this with my four year old (it’s a PG) and it’s definitely kid friendly if anyone were looking to introduce their children to minor peril. A nicely meta approach where Jack Black plays R L Stine, author of the books, whose ouvre comes alive to terrorise him and the inhabitants of smalltown USA. I’ve not read any of the books so can’t say how much comes directly from them, but there’s plenty of classic horror tropes (haunted funfair, high school dance, cemetery, etc) and familiar characters. Some of the CGI is fairly average, but the snappy dialogue and quickfire situations make this fairly entertaining. Jack Black is on top form here, playing both protagonist and chief villain deftly. 7/10

Heads-up to all you Lucio Fulci fans out there… FAB Press are re-releasing their Fulci book, Beyond Terror. They’ve started an Indiegogo campaign here: FAB Press: Beyond Terror Lucio Fulci Book & DVD | Indiegogo

Book looks absolutely fucking amazing. Quite pricey but it looks like it’ll be worth every penny.

Over and out…

nice article about the Sacrament here, i know this is a divisive one in the horror thread but i think it’s really good

http://reflectionsonfilmandtelevision.blogspot.ie/2014/12/2014-at-movies-sacrament.html

I really enjoyed this when I saw it. I think I saw it not too long after You’re Next, which shares a lot of the crew with this so I was already pre-disposed to like it (despite the fact that the only other Ti West film I’d seen up to this point was The Roost, a copy of which I won on DVD and really didn’t like…) I remember a lot of comments from folk who seemed pissed that West didn’t make this as a straight up non-fiction adaptation of the Jonestown events, but that was never a problem for me. I really liked this film precisely because of how disturbing it is - to have willingly given up your freedom in pursuit of a better life only to be brainwashed to the point that feeding your own children poison seems like your only way forward - that’s pretty fucking scary… And the inevitability of knowing how the story will end makes it even more tense…

On a completely separate note, I watched the original Godzilla movie this weekend. Had never seen it before and my son has a burgeoning interest in all things giant monster-related, so i figured I’d check this out before watching it with him soon. Everything I’d read about it warned me that this is far from the day-glo monster mash-ups the Godzilla movies have come to be thought of and this is entirely correct. The back of the box describes it as ‘humane and melancholy’ and I can’t think of a much better way to summarize it. Definitely some pretty obvious reflections happening here on the dropping of the bomb and its impact on the Japanese psyche, plus some awesome scenes of the big fella stomping all over Tokyo - so pretty bleak then, but a rare combination of thought-provoking and guy-in-a-suit-stomping action…