Cold fingers around my throat - The Rolling Horror Thread 2018

i looked into Baskin a bit more after my last reply, apparently there’s all kinds of stuff going on there that’s related to Turkish folk stories, superstitions etc. seems like there’s a lot going on under the surface.

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Cool list of horror fiction with lots that I’ve never heard of: 100 Best Horror Novels And Stories : NPR

Of the newer ones that I’ve read here, I’d recommend: The Fisherman, House of Leaves, The Red Tree and Experimental Film - all well worth checking out. Happy reading!

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I see Slenderman is getting rave reviews not

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Some great stuff on this list

Agreed. Just wish I had more time to read some of it…

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Did two days of FrightFest at the weekend which is always a blast. Films were a mixed bag as ever, but just the joy of seeing some of the more pulpy ones playing to a packed house on a massive screen makes everything bar the worst an enjoyable experience…

Ravers – rave based zombie flick, set in Chicago but actually filmed in Cardiff (neat trick). Good fun twist on the zombie genre, with a good mix of peril and laughs plus a likeable young cast. The soundtrack for the rave scenes sounded immense coming through Empire (now actually sadly Cineworld) Leicester Square’s speakers. Also features Natasha Henstridge – for about a minute. 6/10

Heretiks – nuns versus demons. This was by the director of The Seasoning House and Howl, both of which I found entertaining, so had high hopes for this especially as Clare Higgins (Hellraiser) was in the main cast. . Nice use of location, but overall found it a bit flat. That said, my sister enjoyed this so maybe it’s horses for course. Also features Michael Ironside – for about a minute. 5/10

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Chuck Steel: Night Of The Trampires – saw the short film of this five (!) years ago at FrightFest and loved it. Feels a bit like less is more having seen the feature length version of this tbh tbf, but enjoyable nonetheless. Adult stop go animation is something of a niche genre for sure, but the amount of love that has obviously gone into crafting this is impressive – the puppetry, action scenes and settings are awesome. Plenty of jokes all the way through, but overall struggled a bit to maintain my interest for a full 90 minutes. 6/10

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What Keeps You Alive – surprise gem of the weekend. While this may have a classic horror set up (isolated cabin on the lake natch) this is definitely not standard horror fare. Annoyingly one of the cast gave away a key plot point in the intro to the film (wtf?) so I would say that not knowing too much about this in advance is certainly beneficial. Edge of the seat stuff and excellent performances from the two leads. 8/10

Upgrade – this has already been released in the US and is getting a cinema release here too, so is understandably more commercial fodder. More near future sci-fi than horror, nonetheless this is entertaining actiony stuff. Directed by Saw star/creator Leigh Whannel, his Q&A afterwards was an interesting insight into the lengths a film may have to go to in order to stretch a $5m budget into making a visually very stylish sci-fi flick. As an aside, he is a very entertaining guy :+1: 7/10

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Fright Fest – don’t know to what extent this got billed purely because of the name but it is absolute garbage. It felt as though someone had watched four horror films ever and has decided they know what the kids liked and mashed them together into one giant cliché. Not a single element of this works well. 1/10

White Chamber – British near future psychological thriller starring her from The Descent. Initially looks like it might be an uncomfortably close re-tread of Cube before becoming something much more interesting altogether. Makes good use of it minimal settings and cast to deliver an interesting moral conundrum. 7/10

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Sybil – short film from the wonderful Joanne Mitchell, who was great as both writer and star of Bait at FrightFest a couple of years back (while not being part of the Emmerdale cast with her also second job in horror husband Dominic Brunt). Nice set up and execution with a good visual style. 7/10

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He’s Out There – extremely derivative slasher terrorises women in isolated cabin in the woods by the lake (in contrast to What Keeps You Alive above). Features some serious child peril, which is pretty much my kryptonite in horror films, but otherwise fairly lacklustre. Features Dexter’s missus from the final two series in the lead as someone who even by horror film standards struggles to make logical decisions. Few decent jump scares and some reasonably creepy imagery, but nothing new here. 5/10

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Aterrados (Terrified – UK title) – this Argentinian ghost story is pretty great. Edge of your seat scary pretty much all the way through, it constantly keeps you guessing what is coming next right up to its conclusion. Judging from the reactions of the audience around me, a lot of other people found this pretty scary as my neighbour virtually jumped into my lap at one point. Great visual style as well. 9/10

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Got 10 minutes of footage of the next Cloverfield (?) instalment Overlord too, on pain of being sued into oblivion by Bad Robot if anyone was so much as seen as reaching for their phone during the showing. It looks…fine I guess. Will be hard pushed to not better The Cloverfield Paradox tbh tbf…

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Good work, chap! Love that poster for American Fright Fest - kind of what people who regard horror fans as deviants probably think all horror movie posters are like…

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I watched Selfie from Hell the other day. Here is my review:

Do not watch Selfie from Hell.

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And the title promised so much :disappointed_relieved:

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Thanks for the recommendations, will definitely check a few of those out!

Edit: that Aterrados front cover is haunting!

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great work m8

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Watched on Sunday night: Colossal! As with several really good films from the last few years, I first saw this on a tiny screen on the back of a chair about 35,000 feet above the Atlantic. Not the best movie-watching conditions, but even with the small picture and crappy sound, it was obvious that a good film was lurking underneath. So it was nice to reconnect with this, as it really deserves to be seen and admired for the indie drama/kaiju tribute that it is. From what I gather, people seem to have a real problem with Anne Hathaway… TBF, I’m not sure that I’ve seen her in enough to feel that strongly about her one way or the other, but’s she’s pretty spot-on in this. Here’s she’s playing one of those types that should probably have cut down on the booze years ago as it’s really beginning to impact her life. When her boyfriend dumps her, she moves back home and runs into an old school friend, played by Jason Sudeikis. It’s not long before they’re hanging out at his bar together and it seems like there might be a spark of love in the air. Meanwhile, in Seoul, a giant monster appears that apparently has a strange connection to Hathaway. To give away any more plot details would be to take away much of the fun of discovering exactly where this film is going. Let’s just say that it very quickly moves away from the quirky rom-com it starts as and becomes something quite a lot darker. There’s a really good review of this film here, but only check it out after watching: Colossal movie review: becoming the monster - FlickFilosopher.com And yes, I know this is clearly not a traditional horror film, but I figure I’m OK posting about it here because it’s one of those recent films that flirts with the genre (A Ghost Story, Personal Shopper etc), without ever diving headlong into it. Definitely the best film ever to star Anne Hathaway and a giant monster…

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I enjoyed Colossal a lot, and I would highly recommend you watch the director’s earlier film Timecrimes, which is all kinds of brilliant.

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Might watch Onibaba tonight, while I still have access to uni’s DVD library

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Cool. While I was reading about Colossal, I saw that folk seem to rate his other stuff, none of which I’ve seen. Thanks for the tip!

I enjoyed Extraterrestrial quite a bit as well - a sorta facial comedy set during an alien invasion.

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I also watched this the other week but haven’t had a chance to write it up in this thread :smiley:

Am a big fan of Nacho Vigalondo but somehow it had passed me by that he wrote and directed this. As @riverwise says, Time Crimes is absolutely brilliant. A must see. And @guntrip is also right that Extraterrestrial is very entertaining - just don’t watch the 2014 US film of the same name like my sister did when I recommended this to her. Apparently that is a pile of crap. His English language debut feature Open Windows is…a mixed bag. Still, it does feature the delights of Sasha Grey :+1:

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do it

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am doing

Lots of goodies on at the Prince Charles this October

https://princecharlescinema.com/PrinceCharlesCinema.dll/WhatsOn?s=448

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