#141

Village of the Damned is a film I remember seeing as a kid with friends at like 7 and being absolutely terrified by it. Not seen it since but I did watch a trailer and it looks so cheaply done. Might give it another watch though as it proper scared me as a kid

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#142

Hi Rolling Horror Thread folk! I love this thread and have watched quite a few films based on your recommendations but haven’t had a chance to join in until now.

His House

I wanted to highlight how good His House is and @hesastopsiiiiign has just beaten me to it! It has all the best aspects of a good ghost story but is fully backed up by hard hitting subtext, fantastic acting and film making. It’s got properly tense jumpy bits.

I also just recently watched The Wolf of Snow Hollow (I keep thinking it’s sleepy hollow) and Scare Me.

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Both of which are OK but nowhere near as good as His House. The Wolf of Snow Hollow does attempt to say something about the difficulties of addiction and there is an unexpected werewolf plot twist but I couldn’t help thinking it could have been done better.

Scare Me (which is on Shudder) also seemed to have a lot of potential but was ultimately a bit of a lightweight in the horror stakes. It must have been made on a tiny budget and it has good ideas and acting but felt more like an amateur dramatic production than a proper horror film. Maybe that was the point.

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#143

Scare Me was essentially a play. The two leads were great but I wouldn’t call it horror. His House really built as it went along, I had trouble getting along with it for the first half hour but it certainly delivered.
Regarding the Carpenter posts upthread, I enjoy both Vampires and Ghosts of Mars. They have a bad rep from fanboys who worship his early films but I think that’s unfair, they aren’t trying to be The Thing.

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#144

I’m a big JC fan, but sadly there are no films worth recommending in his post MoM canon. His episodes of Masters Of Horror are decent though…

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#145

That’s fair, I think I had as much really but wanted to see if the DiS hive mind said any differently. Thankfully pre-MoM I’ve still got Dark Star and Prince of Darkness to look forward to.

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#146

Two absolute, and contrasting, gems there :+1:

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#147

Nice! Well hopefully I can seek them both out at some point soon. Had a real Carpenter itch since Lost Themes III came out…

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#148

Is the directors’ cut streaming / rental from anywhere? I’d be curious to see it!

His next project I’ve heard is Beau Is Afraid, with Joaquin Phoenix. Seems possible that it could be based on this short film:

Definitely curious to see how the absurd panic attack of this might be developed into a feature.

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#149

Prince of Darkness is so good. I love anything ‘anti-christy’ and this is such a different take on it.

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#150

Finished last night: Daphne Byrne 4th Hill House title and easily the least satisfying so far. It’s hard for me to pinpoint exactly what it is here that doesn’t do it for me: it could be the fact that it’s set in the past which makes it feel less immediate than the other titles. Also, the plot itself seems full of ideas that I’ve seen explored in other horror narratives. It’s a shame, because based on the premise alone (a young woman is sought out by dark forces and starts developing disturbing abilities), I was well up for this. But the execution just didn’t do it. What did work for me though, was Kelley Jones’ art, which in many places is wonderfully, nightmarishly disturbing. Here’s a taste of what I’m talking about:

image

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#151

Watched both of these recently

POD is fun but I fell asleep during Dark Star and didn’t feel inclined to revisit as it was quite boring

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#152

actually I think Village of the Damned is alright, couple of brutal kills, but it’s widely regarded as bad.
Similarly Vampires has a campy B-movie charm to it.
The other vampire-y one on the planet that I can’t remember the name of is the only truly risible film I can think of that he’s made.

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#153

And sometimes that’s all you kind of want for a Friday night, popcorn flick. Something mindless that you don’t have to dwell to long over.

Cheers all! Expect some more ramble-y Carpenter thoughts and posts soon.

#154

if those are your expectations I say go for it. Couple of James Woods lines that still make me chuckle in that one.

#155

I think for Damned it was just so cheap, that real 90s TV movie aesthetic that is so ugly. I caught a bit of it on the Horror Channel last night actually and probably would have watched a bit more if I hadn’t been so tired. Vampires I don’t remember too much about to be honest.

#156

I bought Damned on VHS years ago - remember watching it once and remember next to nothing about it. Then several years back a relative got it for me on DVD and I still haven’t rewatched it yet. Keep meaning to but there’s always something more appealing…

#157

I think I’ve bigged up the Evolution of Horror podcast on here before, but it’s just so good. I’m working from home and this has been playing in the background for the past several weeks. Just finished listening to this episode which features a fun slasher quiz:

https://www.evolutionofhorror.com/slashers-pt-14

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#158

Wow, thanks for sharing this short, I’d not seen it before. It’s amazing how dark this gets in such a short space of time. I’m afraid I don’t know about streaming options for the director’s cut of Midsommar - I splashed out for a physical copy A24 put out…

#159
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#160

watched Sator tonight. Bloody hell that’s a great piece of work, made even more extraordinary when you consider that the central grandmother is the director’s real grandmother who really says she has been visited by the spirit in question