Cold fingers around my throat - The Rolling Horror Thread 2018

exactly this

it’s like a horror film they’d play in elevators if for some reasons elevators piped in films and not music

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Right on.

“for the duration of the picture, it certainly was a pretty thing that lived in my house… but nothing more than that”

-my Pullitzer Prize winning review

There is a pretty high bodycount in Skull Island but nothing explicit in my memory - I’m not sure you even see any blood. I would say it’s slightly more scary than the recent Godzilla overall :+1:

The Haunting of Hill House

The high points of this are great, but the lows undercut it a little. In the grand scheme of horror telly, this isn’t Channel Zero but it’s way better than American Horror Story or even The Walking Dead.

What is great is the way all of the through Hill House is the way the characters are well fleshed out. They’re flawed people but you care about what happens to them and once you’re up to speed on them all (around episode 4) it’s really great watching them interact with each other. This is something that couldn’t happen in a film because the film would be ridiculously long, and it shows the benefits of serialised horror.

One thing that did make it a bit difficult to follow is that there are a LOT of thin white woman with long dark hair. Both of us had serious face blindness in the first couple of episodes.

The early episodes have some of the best setup in the genre, and the middle section (episodes 4-8) build on that setup fantastically with many satisfying moments. The depiction of addiction in episode 4 along with the cane-slender-man guy is great, and the bent-neck girl stuff and the truth behind it is masterful. Episode 6, which is one seemingly uninterrupted shot is up there as one of my favourite episodes of telly ever…

…but the build up is far better than the pay off, and the final 15 minutes are extremely frustrating. The show becomes unsure about what it’s best at, loses confidence, and as a result veers away from everything that it had been building up to. The ending feels weirdly seperate to the rest of the show, as though it were written in a different process and by a larger committee.

My issues (with many, many spoilers)

  • The Dudleys. Oh hey you killed our daughter but we forgive you immediately and want to start this secret pact it’s okay it’s cool. The Dudleys needed more screen time, with them being much weirder for this to work. More time anguishing over the loss of their child. Considering the time loop stuff, I’d even forgive it if the Dudley’s knew through a loop that their daughter would die but if they do this, they would at least have the ghost to be with

  • The Dad agreeing to the Dudley pact. He has too much to lose. If he gets caught burying Abigail then he goes to jail. Yes he doesn’t want the children to know about the poisoning, but this is a huge risk he takes and I don’t think a person would do it

  • Nell gets forgotton about after saving them. As soon as the family unit is restored, the grief over losing Nell is pushed to the side, even though grief about the loss of a loved one is one of shows major themes

  • The family have no hints of trauma/PTSD after the final events. Everything is wrapped up way too neatly and this becomes a very hopeful show when at no point did it appear to be optimistic. One of the best scenes is when Theo has her “i felt nell and i felt nothing and death is completely empty”. Which is deeply unsettling. But the show forgets that happened because at the end, death is a calming force where young dad lives on with dead mum. where nell is content to live with her parents in the house forever. The house is a place where horrible things happened and is clearly an evil force, but in the last 15 minutes we’re supposed to change that view and decide it’s now a force for good. After 9 hours of “this house is bad” we get 10 minutes of “this house is good”, with that change having zero build up. Really poor writing

  • Although I don’t mind having a montage at the end, the song that plays over it is a horrible choice. Lyrics that refer to the story too literally, and a tone that isn’t in ANY other part of the soundtrack. If the montage had a darker electronic piece behind it, it would have been much more suited to the show. Even a sadder acoustic guitar instrumental piece would have been a better alternative

  • Theo’s slightly-goofy superpower (empathy through skin contact) doesn’t get utilised at the end, and then she throws the gloves away? What? Is she okay with suddenly being able to feel everything, including the bad? Wouldn’t she be walking around town going like “ah shit just touched another murder bench”

  • Theo’s GF. Theo treats her like shit for ages but she keeps coming back, after a one night stand where she got messed around? It’s a bit of a reach for her character to show Theo the devotion she does. I think this comes about because the show writes itself into a corner. Theo’s trait is that she has her guard up and pushes people away, but everyone else gets a happy ending and Theo should too. At that point, you have to forcibly insert a character who forcibly inserts their presence into Theo’s life, who has zero concern about Theo’s treatment of her.

I could probably go on and on about the last 15 minutes, so yeah, it ends up being dissapointing. That said, if you’re into horror this is well worth checking out for its high points, but if you like horror it’s hard not to also analyse all of the many fuck ups it does at the final hurdle. It’s definitely a really interesting exercise in how not to end a story.

The TV and I bloody love those - they’re called ‘Bottle Films’ I think

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For me the first two episode were ok. Nothing special but worth sticking with. The next three were absolutely brilliant. Now it “makes sense” to me. Looking forward to the rest. 9/10 series so far.

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My Friend Dahmer - not a horror as such but a very upsetting and uncomfortable film. Thought it was fantastic. Then I had to watch…

Insidious - what a piece of shit. Insultingly bad. The first half hour is okay and then it just… abysmal

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got about 60 minutes into Killing Ground, increasingly finding it hard to see any worth in films where people are slowly brutalised like that. it’s a snuff film and neat cinematography doesn’t change that.

I’ve never seen the first Insidious film but saw Insidious 2 a few years back and was genuinely creeped out by it. Have realised later though that that was probably mostly due to being my first time at a horror film festival. Wrote a really long blog post about it and everything

Done some horror today

Hostel - offensive in almost every way, surprisingly dull. A piece of shit, vile film.

The Dead Zone - enjoyed this! Walken doing some great overacting. OTT in all the right places and the two hours flew by

The Thing - amazed I’ve never seen this before. Had it in my head it was a more implied horror where there wasn’t much action/gore. Wrong.

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Episodes 4 and 5 were so excellent, I reckon! Glad you’re on board now!

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posted my thoughts in the October film thread on Halloween but it is enjoyable

I grew up with both The Thing and The Dead Zone. Both brilliant.

If I watched The Dead Zone again I reckon Trump would be so at the front of my mind that I’d have to switch off.

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Cool. Belated thanks for the info. Must admit, I’m pretty excited to see this one myself…

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Haha! Yes I did think this a few times when I watched it

would like to echo the hill house love, very well executed

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gf is on nights this week, so we’re holding off the last ep of HOHH until she has time to watch. anyway so i’ve been going to bed and absolutely bricking it thinking i can hear stealthy ghost noises :joy: cat jumped on the best last night and i almost shat myself :rofl::sweat_smile:

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We’re only half way through. I’m forcing us to savour/ration it. Have you noticed stuff that deliberately looks like faces in the background and stuff in the background out of focus that moves a tiny bit? Purely to fuck with you I think. Love it.

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