Cold fingers around my throat - The Rolling Horror Thread 2018

I really wish I’d seen the stage version; from what I’ve heard the twist is conveyed in part through the fact that Nyman drops a pencil at the start that is treated as an honest mistake on the part of the actor and then called back to at the end, which sounded intriguing as af

Found it on itunes
Didnt like it :frowning:

nice! Love Sunshine too

If I sold it on I can’t have thought it worthy of a second watch. I remember it being interesting enough but I forget what the twist was.

he claims it was all a game with the hostage, his ex wife, but turns out he actually did kill her

Anyone clocked this triple bill on Film4 tonight?

https://twitter.com/Film4/status/991286116862095360?s=09

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Watched last night, final episode ever (!) of Ash Vs Evil Dead

All good things must end unfortunately. When the first series was announced I was initially a little nervous as a) I loved the original trilogy a ridiculous amount and b) I wasn’t convinced that it would necessarily lend itself to a weekly format. Of course, the first series turned out to be essentially the greatest thing ever. Ash is obviously a genius comic character played to perfection by Bruce Campbell, but the supporting cast of Pablo, Kelly and Ruby were all great characters in their own right.

Was then a little sceptical about a second series as it seemed as though, despite some amazing comic and gore scenes, most of the Evil Dead mythos had been played out. Wrong again - Ashy Slashy, the possessed Delta, Elk Grove, Ash’s dad and Ted Raimi were all inspired additions. However, the format of demon of the week was definitely becoming repetitive, and so it’s not entirely surprising that series three turned out to be the final series. Proving that death is not an obstacle in the Evil Dead world, Lee Majors was back on top form as Ash’s day. Ash also accrued a daughter along the way, who managed to successfully change Ash’s reluctant hero dynamic (albeit slightly at the expense of Kelly’s character who had played the role of surrogate daughter to Ash up to this point). The Deadite stakes were raised to maximum, with a pleasingly Cloverfield finale, and the epilogue is a neat nod to the finale of Army Of Darkness. Possibly not quite as good as the first two series, but then again, what is? 9/10

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Watched last night, Creep 2

Similar but crucially different set up to the first film, this sees Mark Duplass back on top form as Josef (now Aaron). He is joined by Desiree Akhavan who is great as the final girl - haven’t seen her in anything else, but she is super believable in this. There are some entertaining scenes between the two of them and all of the dialogue is extremely natural even when some of the ideas being discussed are fairly off the wall. This rips through its 78 minute run time and has a pleasing finale. Nice bit of Xiu Xiu over the closing credits too. Word has it that they are going to make a third film, so will be interesting to see where they take the story next. 8/10

Creep%202%20(2017)

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So Lars Vo Triers latest looks like a typical bantersome lolfest [WARNING: TRAILER DEFINITELY NWS]

Not sure I’m going to bother with that - after Nymphomaniac it seems that his ‘craft’ these days appears to just be as shocking as possible. Also, talk about giving the film away in the trailer. Looks like it’s been generating the standard Cannes outrage (without many good reviews to back it up)…

Shame, as I quite like Matt Dillon as an actor particularly when he plays sleazy.

If anyone needs some light relief to wash the taste of that trailer away, check out this neat video of artworks that have been referenced in horror flicks - note to self, when I make my horror directorial debut don’t think it’s clever to reference Henry Fuseli…

I may go see this. I’m a sucker for outrage. (I’m thinking mother!, for instance).

mother! was just a badly made film :rage::rage::rage:

You say tomato, I say tomato. Hmmm…

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Pretty sure that some folks only went to the Von Trier so that they could walk out.

Watched last night: Zombie Holocaust!!! I’m a sucker for these old Italian zombie/cannibal movies – blame it on coming of age in the post-video nasties era when magazines like The Dark Side ran classified ads selling EP VHS tapes with 2 uncut nasties per tape. I didn’t order many of these but one I did get had this on it and something else (probably The Beyond or Anthropophagous, The Beast…). Given how crazy I was about these films back then, it’s kind of amazing to me that I can recall only ever watching this once, at a friend’s house late at night, probably intoxicated – why I never came back to it later, I don’t know. But I did last night and… for a film that mashes together cannibals and zombies in one film and features the delightful Alexandra Delli Colli, this manages to be significantly less interesting than you’d imagine. I won’t bother summarizing the plot here – I made the mistake of trying that this morning at breakfast with my wife and son; didn’t go well – but this basically ends up in the jungle with Ian McCulloch and Della Colli facing off against 1) a tribe of cannibals and then 2) some zombies, who seem to be the by-product of a mad doctor’s attempts to increase humanity’s life-expectancy by 100 years. And how this all ties into the spate of cannibalism in New York that opens the film and prompts McCulloch et al to venture into the jungle is never really explained. Still, plot is not what you come for here – you come for outrageous special effects and (arguably) Della Colli’s name in the credits and in these respects, the film doesn’t disappoint. Eyes are gouged out, stomachs ripped open, and vegetarian Vietnamese boat-people are obliged to look like they’re enjoying chowing down on the by-products of this carnage. Della Colli spends the last few minutes of the film entirely naked, spread-eagled on a sacrificial altar and I hope that my wife doesn’t wake up and come downstairs. Ultimately though, this never really becomes the sum of its parts – there’s a lackadaisical quality to the direction that fails to draw you into the story in any real way so that even when our protagonists are placed in peril, it’s hard to get too bothered about what might happen to them. Still, if you like this kind of film, there’s plenty to enjoy here; it’s definitely not an all-time classic a la The Beyond or Zombie Flesh Eaters but it certainly has its sordid charms…

First watch last night: “Return of the Living Dead.” I’ve always dismissed this as a low rent, low value rip of the Night/Dawn/Day trilogy so purposely avoided. Did enjoy though, will have to watch 2 and maybe 3 now. Brains!

I liked it a lot. Watched it on New Year’s Eve and I had a moment of wondering how anyone who could see through the window at the TV (meaning television in this case, obviously) may have felt at seeing me alone in the living room on NYE while, on the screen, stood Mark Duplass awkwardly with his wang out.

It was like The Dismemberment Plan’s ‘Ice of Boston’ but for the Netflix generation

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that Excision doesn’t look like the sort of film they should be showing at twenty past one in the afternoon

CHORTLE

No such thing as a bad time to watch it imo m9 :+1:

Part 3 is well worth checking out, really perverse little film. Directed by Brian Yuzna too, if I remember correctly, who’s always pretty interesting…

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Watched a bunch of stuff recently. Most of it at least decent…

Death Proof – watched the original Grindhouse version of this when it came out and absolutely loved it (in fact, the whole Grindhouse experience remains one of my favourite cinematic experiences). I know it didn’t do it for a few people however. Surprised it’s taken me this long to watch the standalone version, but my local chazzer had a cope on DVD so I picked it up. Kurt Russell is awesome in this – fully at his John Carpenter years peak. The film is essentially a two-parter as he takes on two different groups of women, and is deliberately designed to feel like two filmes stitched together – the first a sleazy bar set up and the second a classic chase thriller. This worked excellently in the Grindhouse version, but here the addition of an extra 30 minutes adds basically nothing except making the middle of the film feel horribly flabby. The star her is the final car chase, and Zoe Bell’s part in it in particular – this is visceral stuff, and the stunt work is properly edge of the seat stuff. The largely female cast gets to kick some ass, literally in cases, with a pleasing pay-off. 6/10 (9/10 for the Grindhouse version)

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Life – this got fairly lacklustre reviews when it came out so I had fairly low expectations. In fairness, while it doesn’t add too much new to the In Space No One Can Hear You Scream genre, this is a fairly effective sci-fi horror. The characters are all pretty decent and pleasingly don’t die in order of bottom billing to top for a change. The creature design is pretty fresh, and there are some fairly nasty kills. Nice switcheroo ending too. 6/10

Read this article shortly afterwards that was fairly sobering: Scientists find new deep sea species in seas off Java - BBC News

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Arrival – clearly not a horror film, but I’m including this here solely on the basis of the creature design. The heptapods in this are the most cthulhu thing I’ve seen on screen – really striking. There’s yet to be a really great cthulhu adaptation for my money, but anyone looking at doing one could definitely take a look at the aliens in this. As an aside, this is actually a really great film. Amy Adams seems to be good in everything these days. 9/10

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Nocturnal Animals – oh look, it’s the stars of the previous two films teaming up! Any Adams and Jake Gyllenhaal are both very good in this (Gyllenhaal in particular playing two parts). This is beautifully filmed and the story within a story brilliantly executed – some if the scenes are some of the most harrowing stuff I’ve watched recently. The ever dependable Michael Shannon is excellently crazy in this and, depending on which way your sympathies fall during the film, has a pleasingly bleak ending. 9/10

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Evil Dead – avoided this at the time as I am such a massive fan of the original trilogy (and latterly the series) that a non-canon installment held little interest to me. That said, it has routinely got great reviews since its release so I decided to give it a spin. What this certainly does have that none of the original films have is that it is genuinely scary at times – some of the imagery, minus the slapstick of the originals, is properly haunting. Not afraid to get extra gory either. That said, this has none of the comedy that makes the original trilogy so loved, and obviously Bruce Campbell is essentially irreplaceable (he gets a very brief semi cameo at the end of the credits). Also, after a solid setup (with a few nods to the original) this feels as though it just goes on too long, possibly as the characters are not particularly likeable enough to care about, and gets a bit boring/repetitive. Don’t think I’ll be re-visiting quite as often as I re-visit Evil Dead II tbh tbf. 5/10

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200 posts up :+1:

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