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Fun Stuff => ENJOY => Topic started by: pogonrudie on 25 Sep 2009, 17:31
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Warning: geeky rant ahead.
When you hear people get into a discussion about horror cinema (my beloved genre of choice), inevitably the phrase "Master Of Horror" will get bounced around. And 9 times out of 10, Wes Craven will be mentioned under that banner...which, I'm sorry, is just wrong. Let's take a look at his (slightly abbreviated) filmography, shall we?
- The Last House on the Left
- The Hills Have Eyes
- Deadly Blessing
- Swamp Thing
- A Nightmare on Elm Street
- Deadly Friend
- The Hills Have Eyes Part II
- The Serpent and the Rainbow
- Shocker
- The People Under the Stairs
- Wes Craven's New Nightmare
- Vampire in Brooklyn
- Scream series
- Cursed
- Red Eye
Alright, now how many of these do you like? No forget that, how many of them do you LOVE? I'd list The Hills Have Eyes, A Nightmare On Elm Street and especially the little-seen The People Under The Stairs among his best works. Last House On The Left has it's fans, but to me it's only half a enjoyable film...once the parents really come into the picture I'm hooked, but everything before that is just boring exploitation and out-of-place Southern sheriff humor. And the Scream series never clicked with me, it always came across as too smug and *wink wink* for me. But besides that...what, Vampire In Brooklyn? Swamp Thing? That abortion of celluloid otherwise known as Cursed? Granted, both Red Eye and Serpent And The Rainbow start out promising, but fall apart like wet paper sacks towards the middle-end.
It's just a crime when you have genuine talents like John Carpenter and George Romero getting the shorter stick. Neither are devoid of crappy films (hello, Ghosts Of Mars and Land Of The Dead!)...but on the same hand, Craven never made The Thing or Creepshow.
Thoughts? Opinions? Am I right-on or a complete dunce?
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Really, I don't like any of his movies outside of the Scream series, which are quite a bit of fun. Also, he made Cursed, and he can never be forgiven for that.
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I've seen TWO of his movies.
Wasn't A Vampire in Brooklyn an Eddie Murphy movie?
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Wes Craven is a hack
DUUUUUHHHHHHHH
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lol Red Eye
(http://mimg.sulekha.com/english/red-eye/Stills/Redeye11.jpg)
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In related news: Axl Rose is kind of a prick.
When I think of Master of Horror, I think Romero circa the sixties and seventies. Way back before he made shit like Land of the Dead.
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When I think of Master of Horror, I thin
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_LNHk6OKJ_MU/RmwvFFdHW6I/AAAAAAAAADM/UTDjwHmdXHM/s400/suspiria.jpg)
What I mean to say is tha
(http://analogmedium.com/blog/2007/10/opera2.jpg)
Look I
(http://ministryofterror.com/tenebrae.jpg)
(Dario Argento motherfuckers)
(also seriously the only shots of argento films it is easy to find are shots of chicks
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Also, Wes Cravens career arc is hardly unique. Look at other dudes who started in the same way as him around the same time, like John Carpenter and Tobe Hooper. There was a sort of magic window in the seventies in America, during the real hey-day of new, gritty, gorey horror films, where you could really make something original and shocking for a very small amount of money, and a lot of dudes launched careers off it that bottomed out when they ran out of ideas or, more accurately, the industry ran away from them (Tobe Hooper never really had a career but I was racking my brains). A kind of similiar thing has happened with Romero as well actually; the more money and technology these dudes get their hands on, and, in fact, the older they get, the worse the stuff they churn out becomes. Maybe the problem is, these guys only really made their films so gritty and atmospheric and realistic back in the old days because that was all they could afford to do, and the cheesy high concept shit they rack out now is exactly what they would have done back then, given budgets and technology.
Also, from a film-making perspective, I don't think any of them are really that good at working with actors.
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(Dario Argento motherfuckers)
I made it through, probably about an hour of Suspiria before falling asleep. The only movie I can think of right now that I would want to watch less than Suspiria, is the remake of Suspiria that the guy who directed Pineapple Express is making.
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Yeah, as much as I love Argento, Suspiria really is a slog. I mean, it looks great, but so does all of his films. It's all about Deep Red anyways.
Also, from a film-making perspective, I don't think any of them are really that good at working with actors.
I disagree with this, I've always loved how Romero wrings naturalistic performances from unknown casts (particularly Dawn Of The Dead). Or what about Kurt Russel in any of the films he did with Carpenter?
And speaking of John Carpenter, has anyone seen his "Cigarette Burns" episode of the Masters Of Horror series? That alone shows that despite the string of bad features, he can still be a fucking genius when he wants to.
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I'd say aside from Suspiria, Argento's pretty hacky. I mean what else has he made that's actually been good. Very, very little. For some reason all the name-brand American horror guys get shat upon for making a good flick or two and then a thousand shitty films but whenever Argento comes up the only thing he ever touched was Suspiria.
I'd say Carpenter is both capable of churning out solid films and was pretty okay with actors. I mean he worked several times with Kurt Russell on seriously fun movies (The Thing and Big Trouble In Little China, the latter of which freaked me the fuck out as a kid, ironically enough)
None of these fuckheads have the hit-to-miss ratio of David Cronenberg, though. Cronenberg's a fucking genius. Go watch The Brood, right now.
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I'd say aside from Suspiria, Argento's pretty hacky. I mean what else has he made that's actually been good.
Tenebrae, Deep Red, Phenomena (aka Creepers) and his first film, The Bird With The Crystal Plumage. (I'd actually name Suspiria as one of his worst films.) I agree that he gets quite overrated, but just not to the agree that Craven does. At least Argento has a very distinct look and style to his works, which you can't say for Craven.
But when it comes to Italian Giallo auteurs, I'd take Mario Bava or Lucio Fulci over him anytime, anyways.
And I agree totally on Cronenberg. I can't think of a film of his that I've disliked, besides eXistenZ and Crash...which honestly aren't horrible at all, they just did nothing for me.
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Fulci better than Argento?
Suspiria a SLOG?
Maybe you guys don't like films?
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The only movie I can think of right now that I would want to watch less than Suspiria, is the remake of Suspiria that the guy who directed Pineapple Express is making.
Have you seen any of his movies aside from 'Pineapple Express'? He's probably one of the most talented directors going these days.
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Even if he was a genius, he can't make that movie good.
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I always find it slightly unsettling how eager Dario Arento is to see his daughter naked.
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I always find it slightly unsettling how eager Dario Arento is to see his daughter naked.
Why? He's proud of everything he's created.
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I don't think it's a stretch to say I'd go incestuous for Asia Argento.
...I mean, what?
The only movie I can think of right now that I would want to watch less than Suspiria, is the remake of Suspiria that the guy who directed Pineapple Express is making.
Have you seen any of his movies aside from 'Pineapple Express'? He's probably one of the most talented directors going these days.
Very true, George Washington is a masterpiece.
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Asia Argento sounds a lot like something I would find in a spice cabinet.
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hey guys. I am not much into horror films but I have to say May scared the shit out of me, which is what a good horror movie is supposed to do, right?
admittedly I haven't seen anything else by Lucky McKee so the rest of his films could be complete shit, but that one would probably still make up for them.
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I actually have yet to see May, but his episode for Masters Of Horror (Sick Girl (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sick_Girl_%28Masters_of_Horror%29)) is just fantastic...one of the most twisted, bizarrely original things I've ever seen.
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I love May. You should definitely watch it. One of the absolute best horror films ever.
As far as Wes Craven goes, I dunno. He can definitely direct.. anybody see his submission in Paris Je T'aime? I also like Red Eye a lot (but mostly only because Cillian Murphy is fucking awesome) and of coures A Nightmare. Some of his stuff bores me though.
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I was seriously digging on Red Eye for the majority of it's running time. Cillian was great as you mentioned, perfectly eerie. Plus he had great chemistry with Rachel McAdams, it was very entertaining to watch them inhabit those roles. But then (MILD SPOILERS AHEAD) it just goes all slasher film in it's final reel, with Murphy's character becoming more unstoppable killing machine than man. Which would be fine if it wasn't so damned over-the-top.
It's a shame because I don't hate Wes himself; he always seems like a down-to-earth, humble guy. So I'm always rooting for him to make a cinematic comeback. (And I doubt Scream 4 is going to be that.)
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Scream.....4?
Oh my God you're not joking (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1262416/)
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I really wish that I was.
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I'm not sure what's more horrifying: the fact that there is in fact a Scream 4 in production or the fact that Courtney Cox, Neve Campbell and David Arquette are all on board. Good lord.
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Well come on, what's the last thing you saw any of them in? Or for that matter, what's the last good thing you saw any of them in? They're just where they belong.
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Say what you will about David Arquette, but 8 Legged Freaks (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0271367/) was a masterpiece of cinema.
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Didn't your mother ever tell you that it's not nice to tell lies.
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8 Legged Freaks was an enormously entertaining bad horror film.
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Never considered 8 legged freaks to be a horror film. Then again I think spiders are sorta cool.
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Agreed, it really feels more like a Joe Dante-esque B-movie romp to me.
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look i didn't read the thread past khar's excellent post about the fact that basically money makes you complacent BUT i swear to god none of you better have dissed john carpenter because before he got sucky he got awesome and he wrote and sang the theme to Big Trouble In Little China
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I second May being an awesome and definitely worth a watch. Last House on the Left was actually a very good movie. The Original i refuse to see the remake. As for the others Nightmare on Elm Street was a classic and so was Swamp Thing. Yes they are cheesy in retrospect but still at the time they were great movies. Red Eye i could care less about. I think Wes Craven died for me sometime during the 90's.
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clive barker has his moments
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Speaking of Barker, has anyone seen that new film based on one of his short stories, The Midnight Meat Train? I watched it the other day knowing nothing going on, and I was pleasantly surprised. Clever, well-shot stuff with a great left-field ending. If anybody has Fear.net OnDemand on their cable service, that's how I watched it.
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look i didn't read the thread past khar's excellent post about the fact that basically money makes you complacent BUT i swear to god none of you better have dissed john carpenter because before he got sucky he got awesome and he wrote and sang the theme to Big Trouble In Little China
I can't hate John Carpenter. I haven't even seen The Thing, but I have seen Big Trouble in Little China, both Escape movies (sure, LA wasn't as good, but the ending was amazing, and it was the first one I saw, it was just ridiculous over the top '90s awesome), and They Live, I just can't hate someone that has made all of those wonderful movies.
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If you liked the Midnight Meat train then read the short story. Its on the internet and goes into more detail about why he does the things he does.
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I can't hate John Carpenter. I haven't even seen The Thing, but I have seen Big Trouble in Little China, both Escape movies (sure, LA wasn't as good, but the ending was amazing, and it was the first one I saw, it was just ridiculous over the top '90s awesome), and They Live, I just can't hate someone that has made all of those wonderful movies.
If you discount his made for TV films (which I haven't seen, they could be banging for all I know) Carpenter's early career is nothing short of stunning. He starts with Dark Star, then Assault On Precinct 13, Halloween, The Fog, Escape From New York and The Thing. He only has a drop of quality with Christine, which is understandable when you've been knocking out stone cold classics for about a decade, and then doing some genuinely brilliant soundtracks for them to cap it off. Seriously, how many other directors can not only write their own soundtracks but write legitimately classic ones? His reputation as a patchy director is really quite undeserved since it comes only from his admittedly wonky '90s period, so after around 20 years of superb films. But even that produced some fun (Vampires) along with the genuinely awful (In The Mouth Of Madness), and it's worth remembering that he hasn't actually made a film for eight years now.
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it's worth remembering that he hasn't actually made a film for eight years now.
He's actually done some really good teevee work during that time. You should see his episodes of Masters of Horror. Some of the best of that series.
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But even that produced some fun (Vampires) along with the genuinely awful (In The Mouth Of Madness)
What. I think you have this backwards...
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Admittedly it's been years since I saw In The Mouth of Madness, but I remember it as turgid mess where Sam Raimi tries his damnedest to make you think you're watching something compelling instead of half-baked. Vampires I have seen reasonably recently, and it's good fun. Not up to the standards of his early work by any stretch, but it's a fun enough little romp.
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...Sam Raimi?
And I'd cite In The Mouth Of Madness as one of the best Lovcraftian horror films. It's not based directly on anything he wrote, but his fingerprints are all over the flick.
edit: oh, and I second the love for his Masters Of Horror episode, "Cigarette Burns". Truly clever stuff.
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I saw The People Under the Stairs on Svengoolie once and it was so unbelievably bad. I mean it has to be one of the worst modern films. I do not watch that many movies though so I might be underestimating how bad they sometimes get. I haven't seen most of the other films in the OP though, but the couple others that I have seen have been bad.
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I guess if you like Lovecraft, Stuart Gordon's a pretty ace director. I think he did Dreams in the Witch House for the Masters of Horror collection, he directed Reanimator and outside of Lovecraft he made the awesome black (black black) comedy Stuck, which is based on that story some years ago of the woman who ran someone over with her car and left him to die lodged in the windshield of her car for several days. It takes a bleak story and just makes it so much meaner.
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I really want to see Stuck, I've always thought of Gordon as a real underrated filmmaker. Outside of Re-Animator, Dagon is another great Lovecraft adaptation (and much closer to the original story than Re-Animator). I also loooove a little-seen flick of his from the mid-90s called Castle Freak. Another in the long line of great Jeffrey Combs performances, with a terrific monster.
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Oh, also I changed the name of the thread to reflect more what it seems to have become. Hope nobody minds :)
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If we're just gonna talk horror now, I've got to mention Let the Right One In. While not inherently "scary" it's still creepy as fuck and brilliantly made. One of my favorite movies of all time.
(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/10/24/movies/24right.xlarge2.jpg)
I mean come on guys
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What an ending, too.
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omfg yes.
Also I looked up what they tapped to each other in the train - it was the word "kiss."
It's just simply stunning how emotionally invested you get into both Eli and Oskar even though they're killing with absolutely no remorse or second thoughts about the matter.
I need to watch this again.
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...Sam Raimi?
And I'd cite In The Mouth Of Madness as one of the best Lovcraftian horror films. It's not based directly on anything he wrote, but his fingerprints are all over the flick.
I have a bad tendency to get people's last names mixed up, I meant Sam Neill.
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I guess if you like Lovecraft, Stuart Gordon's a pretty ace director. I think he did Dreams in the Witch House for the Masters of Horror collection, he directed Reanimator and outside of Lovecraft he made the awesome black (black black) comedy Stuck, which is based on that story some years ago of the woman who ran someone over with her car and left him to die lodged in the windshield of her car for several days. It takes a bleak story and just makes it so much meaner.
I really want to see Stuck, I've always thought of Gordon as a real underrated filmmaker. Outside of Re-Animator, Dagon is another great Lovecraft adaptation (and much closer to the original story than Re-Animator). I also loooove a little-seen flick of his from the mid-90s called Castle Freak. Another in the long line of great Jeffrey Combs performances, with a terrific monster.
Yes, as a Lovecraft fan I think Gordon's probably the best theatrical interpreter of his work. I loved how Dagon in Dagon is literally shown for less than a second—exactly how it should be. And Dreams in the Witch House was pitch-perfect.
Which, frankly, makes his directing of The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0129634/) that much weirder.
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Must...track down...
And while we're on the subject, has anyone seen his Fear Itself episode, "Eater"? (Does anyone else remember that show? Haha.) I watched it the other day thanks to FearNET OnDemand and it was awesome, clever and graphic and weird. One of the highest points of the series...would be the highest point if not for the great Larry Fessenden's "Skin & Bones".
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Question:
1408?
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awesome
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8/10 Good film, it smartly relies more on atmosphere than cheap jump-scares to build the dread. The fact that I've always had a hard-on for John Cusack may raise my opinion a bit (seriously, that guy? Love that guy)...but it's still one of the upper-tier King adaptations.
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And speaking of upper-tier King films, how about The Mist? My God, wasn't that a great little creature feature?
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yeah, i really liked The Mist too, though alot of people seemed to dislike it.
the scene when they're driving in the car and there's...that thing (you know the one), hands down one of my favorite scenes from anything, ever.
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If we're just gonna talk horror now, I've got to mention Let the Right One In. While not inherently "scary" it's still creepy as fuck and brilliantly made. One of my favorite movies of all time.
You don't have an idea how awful I feel about living in Sweden and I still haven't seen it. I have to get out of my cave sometimes. Music usually takes all my time and that's why I never see all the movies I want, and this one seems indeed brilliant maded.
One thing I find amusing is that all the swedish people I talked to about the movie thought that it was bad [with some exceptions fo course], but all the people outside the country says it's brilliant :-D But I'm not swedish so what the heck.
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Poltergeist
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Tobe Hooper's best film?
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Probably! Though I haven't seen any others.
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Texas Chainsaw Massacre?
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Nope
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...Sam Raimi?
Speaking of. I liked Drag Me To Hell a whole bunch. I have to say that I know nothing of horror as a genre in an analyitcal way, I thought it was just a good flick.
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Texas Chainsaw Massacre? A good old slaughterfest, as I remember it. Having the guy's family in it was a nice twist.
But man, The Mist. Absolutely fucking brilliant. The best thing is, it was so close-minded. It didn't matter what was going on outside, in the rest of the world, or how it happened or whatever, all that mattered was the people inside that supermarket. And then the ending... Damn.
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Yeah that ending really shocked me, which is fairly hard to do in horror films anymore.
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Terence Fisher was a much better director than Mr. Craven.
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Yeah that ending really shocked me, which is fairly hard to do in horror films anymore.
They took the script to Stephen King who looked at it, looked at them, and then said "man...I wish I had written that."
Yeah, the Mist is really, really amazing, I was completely blown away by it. Big Budget Horror generally tends to be absolutely horrible.
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Really? I thought The Mist was pretty (very) bad (awful). The ending definately shocked me, in as much as I can not to this day find the words to describe how bad I thought it was.
Anyway, there was this film festival here last month, and I saw three "zombie movies". Quotations because two of them really are not zombie movies, despite the living dead being central to the plotlines. The only legitimate zombie flick was Dead Snow, the norwegian one about nazi zombies. I have heard a lot of complaints about that one, mainly that it does nothing but regurgitate tired horror cliches and I have to disagree. The movie is indeed full of cliches, but they are (nearly) all used flawlessly. It had some truly great scenes, was pretty funny, and the snowy mountains provided a great ambiance.
The other two movies both had great premises, and while I enjoyed both, they really were flawed films. Minor spoilers ahead meybe, but not really, just outlining the premises. The first one, Grace, is about a pregnant woman whose baby dies shortly before she gives birth. She carries the baby to term anyway, and miraculously the baby comes to life shortly after birth. We soon find out that the baby is special, and causes some unusual problems for the mother. My main complaint with this one is that it is really slow. Also, the extra characters were kind of plot device-y. But the movie features some pretty disturbing imagery. See it if you like the premise.
The final movie I'm going to talk about is called Deadgirl, and is about two highschool kids who find a bound girl in the basement of an abandoned mental institue. One decides to keep her as a sex slave. Then they find out she can't be killed. Wacky hijinks ensue. The story that is woven around this premise is a bit too high-school-drama for this to be a genuinely good movie, but iagain, if the premise sounds good to you, see it, for the perverse shock value. It has some excellent scenes and ideas.
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I've really been wanting to see Deadgirl...that's a real compelling premise for a horror flick, there.
And while I certainly had a good time with Dead Snow, it's true that the film doesn't have an original bone in it's celluloid body. But it's a cheap splatter-flick, who cares?
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Hey guys, guess which movie I just saw? Copperhead. *SNRK*
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I saw May yesterday, and i loved it. I have to agree it is one of the best horror films ever. Evil dead (1981) is another one of my favorite horror movies. When i saw it as a kid i almost shat in my pants. I still leak a little whenever i watch it.
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Deadgirl has been sitting on my PS3 for a few months now, I've been kind of avoiding it. From all the reviews I've read of it it's definitely quite dark and quite twisted, I don't know if that's just hype or whether it's really that bad. I have a huge, huge problem with watching any kind of rape in film and so I'm not entirely sure whether or not I want to watch it at all.
Les Yeux Sans Visage (Eyes Without A Face) is a fantastic and old French horror film. This doctor is trying to save his daughter whose face was horribly disfigured in an accident. As a result we always see her wearing a mask. I thought it was quite fantastic and the music is spot on.
Triangle is more of a thriller than a horror film but has got a few horror elements. It's got this time loop thing going for it and I thought it was quite fantastic. I'm not entirely sure if it'll hold up on repeat watches but the first time I watched it I was quite impressed by how everything was handled.
I also watched The Orphanage, that Spanish horror film from a few years ago that's considered to be utterly fantastic. I thought it was utterly disappointing in almost every aspect that counts. The concept is that this woman is starting up this orphanage again and she has this adopted son who has all these imaginary friends. Spooky things happen and then her son disappears and the woman thinks that the ghosts are the ones who have him. She then has to play a game in order to get him back. The premise is really cool but the film plays on all the wrong elements, it spends too much time to get rolling and then the pacing is completely erratic. Also I think that the non-supportive spouse is one of the single most annoying horror cliches that immediately come to mind along with no cell-phone reception and inept cops. The ending to the film is, like all thriller films comes with a twist ending that's absolutely stupid and ruined whatever the film had going for it.
And finally I watched a wonderful French horror film called Inside. It's about this pregnant woman who on Christmas eve, the day before she's supposed to give birth, who is terrorized by this woman who seems to know her quite well. If you know anything about this new wave of French horror films you can expect there to be a healthy amount of gore. A trend in horror that I find annoying, especially with most Hollywood garbage is that they have to amp up the tension to an insane degree and then show something shocking, which while effective for making you jump a little bit isn't all that scary. This movie almost never does that; every scare is terrifying. My girlfriend ended up watching the last 30 minutes of the film and was visibly trembling the entire time.
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Eyes without a face is indeed a great movie. But i would rather call it a 'gothic' movie than horror movie. I loved the last scene - after the the girl whose face is disfigured releases the dogs and the dogs attack the doctor- where the girl lets go of the doves from the cage and walks away with a dove sitting on his wrist. Classic!
'Inside' sounds very interesting. I'm going to watch it, right after i watch Deadgirl. I've been meaning to watch Deadgirl forver