šŸ¦“ All the spooky kids in here - The Rolling Horror Thread 2023... šŸ¦“

Such a great poster. If only the zombies were really that big.

That wouldnā€™t be very believable, huge nazi zombies that have been entombed underwater for decades. Tbf, itā€™s not that much of a stretch from the actuality! It is a weird choice of image though, possibly part of my dismissal.

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In terms of images and what you see on screen, absolutely not. In terms of atmosphere and claustrophobia, very much so

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Itā€™s the opposite of intense, itā€™s deliberately unsettlingly slow. There are literally only a handful of moments in the whole thing, but the atmosphere steadily builds a sense of dread throughout. Plus thereā€™s no real release like there is in Resurrection or Barbarian. Definitely itā€™s own thingā€¦

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Vaguely remember this one. Props for brutally killing someone I expected would survive the film

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Tonightā€™s film isā€¦ Last Night in Soho. Hoping that all the folk that didnā€™t like it are wrong, somehow.

Were they?

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As far as Iā€™m concerned, absolutely. I fucking loved this. Plan to write more about it later but bottom-line there was hardly anything here that I didnā€™t enjoy about it.

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Look forward to reading your thoughts.

Its still one ive yet to see!

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Watched last night, Run Sweetheart Runā€¦

Had seen some middling reviews of this but decided to give it a go anyway. Ella Balinska is pretty decent in the lead, while the guy that played Euron Greyjoy in Game Of Thrones displays his range by playing a character who is essentially Euron Greyjoy in Game Of Thrones. Decent score, and itā€™s filmed in a nicely neon noir way and makes good use of its LA settings. Not sure how scary it is at any point, but there is certainly blood in this. Becomes a bit of a repetitive chase affair around the halfway point, and overall an hour forty five was probably a bit long for this. Some of the messaging is fairly blunt, but this was entertaining enough. 6/10

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I didnā€™t get the hate for this, but it wasnā€™t a horror film except for the latter scenes. Loved a lot of the imagery, and ATJ rocked it.

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I disliked Last Night in Soho because I thought it handled misogyny really badly. It just does not work to have a film that says ā€œdonā€™t romanticise the past because men treated women badly back thenā€ then to show men still treating women badly in the present day scenes. Also the reveal that Sandy is the woman that owns that house was painfully obvious to me.

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also remembered the character who keeps hassling Thomasin McKenzie but he couldnā€™t possibly have been the killer because heā€™s a cop! Cops are never a threat to sex workers!

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Soā€¦ my thoughts on Last Night in Soho. As a piece of pure cinema, I loved this. Visually and sonically, it fired on all cylinders for me. Iā€™d seen the trailers and had some sense of what to expect from the recreation of 60s London and the characters that populate it; the final product didnā€™t disappoint. I spent a decent amount of time in Soho in my younger days and so I guess the film has a nostalgic pull for me. Also, my dad spent a lot of his youth there as well, so seeing quick shots of places like the 2 iā€™s Coffee Bar made it feel like the filmmakers had done their homework. Thought that the performances were fine, Thomasin McKenzie and ATJ both do good work here and make for an interesting pairing. As for the narrative, let me say that I can see why some folk didnā€™t like the twist/ending, although personally, it didnā€™t ruin the film for me. Iā€™m often the first person to let a filmā€™s crappy ending spoil an otherwise decent film for me, but for some reason, that didnā€™t happen here. Thereā€™s been a lot of talk lately about movies being influenced by giallos but this is the first Iā€™ve seen in a while that genuinely felt like a modern giallo (visually stunning/narratively perplexing) rather than just a re-hashing of obvious tropes. Not the classic it could have been, but as a treat for the eyes and the ears, so impressive.

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Watched last night, M3GANā€¦

Canā€™t remember the last time a mid-budget horror film had this level of hype behind it so was keen to check it out, particularly as Gerard Johnstoneā€™s previous film Housebound is excellent and well worth watching. Was fairly underwhelmed tbh tbf - the story is super generic, and if you seen the trailer not only have you seen the best bits you also know the entire arc. This is set up as something of a black comedy, but despite a few campy moments it falls way short of something like Childā€™s Play. I struggle to remember a memorable zinger from the whole film. On the horror front, itā€™s extremely shy at showing any gore on screen and itā€™s no surprise to read that it was re-shot to ensure a PG-13 rating. Then again, itā€™s made a ton of money, is a TikTok sensation and has a sequel in the works so what do I know? 4/10

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Yes! Loved the ridiculousness of Malignant. Proper trashy fun nonsense (with an ACE twist) :+1:

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Thanks for watching this so I donā€™t have to.

Thatā€™s pretty much my mission statement in this thread :sunglasses:

Seriously though, the above mentioned Malignant and Housebound are both about ten times better than M3GANā€¦

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I thought Mthreegan was sooo much better than Malignant because it knew what it wanted to be and stuck to it, rather than trying to be 3 different genres of film with an obvious twist.

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Was listening to a recent episode of a Year in Horror and there were some folk on talking about The Owl Service. They put out this fanzine and it looks pretty great. They even do a folk horror bingo!

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