The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

[knives]

Oh, it was exactly the televised scene I was thinking of. That's as perverse as the ghost being murdered in that one Bella Thorne movie only the forum likes.

[mfunk9786]

The Dead Zone (David Cronenberg, 1983)
Boy oh boy, what a stinker. What do people see in this? Christopher Walken can be very special when he's right for a role, but here he's bizarrely suited for his character, and he has no chemistry with anyone else onscreen. From a visual perspective there are some signs of things to come with Cronenberg, but then there are shots that look like they're right out of Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders or that are framed so strangely (check Walken's head framed in the ceiling because Cronenberg rests the camera down at his waist and films him from the perspective of an 8-year-old, inexplicably, during a conversation with his father) that... I mean, I really cannot guess at why people like this. If you told me that early 80s midnight movie rentals and enthusiastic auteurism around Cronenberg are the only two reasons people ever profess to enjoy it, I would accept that explanation at face value. It's mostly quite bad.

[therewillbeblus]

Kill List (Wheatley)
A Wickerman knock-off essentially though it doesn't have anything to hold you on with before the pagan shenanigans start jumping around.

I won’t pretend it’s some great movie, but I can’t see The Wicker Man connections beyond the paganism rituals, and the way that neither movie feels like a horror at all until it finally does click at the end. You’re right that this movie doesn’t really earn that descent into chaos by shifting tones with no clear indicators or symbols of process, though I still enjoy how it assaults the viewer so unexpectedly in that third act. Watching the man get more brutal over time is peculiar and terrifying as we lose our own connection to the already mysterious story and mood changes as he becomes a less stable or readable protagonist. While The Wicker Man’s finale makes sense given its entire plot is consistent with its material and the reveal to be a ruse fits within its milieu, Kill List remains cryptic and confusing, and that final ‘reveal’ of the hunchback and subsequent crowning at the end is a beautifully horrifying culmination of insanity.

Speaking of insanity, I rewatched the original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre tonight and am still struck by how perfectly this executes the fear of the unexpected and the insane. There’s no fat as we get exposed to doses of the crazy in the initial hitchhiking scene, and the killings occur with little to no buildup or expected beats of tension, just full blown brief spurts of raging intensity that takes grindhouse filmmaking to new heights of dirty and abrasive. The ending is the ultimate explosion of chaotic terrorizing, the fear of fellow man, and the horror of the perceived meaninglessness of it all. Pure madness.

[Mr Sausage]

My Halloween viewings, in the order in which I watched them:



Wolf Guy (Kazuhiko Yamaguchi, 1975)

The movie has survived on its weirdness and gore, but there’s little else beyond that. It’s about the last surviving member of a werewolf tribe who’s…a private investigator? A journalist? It’s hard to tell. But he gets involved in a million things the film feels no obligation to develop properly. There’s an invisible tiger that rips people to shreds, wolf-to-human blood transfusions, genocidal peasants, gang warfare, and the Japanese CIA (literally called JCIA). As for the premise of the film, our hero never turns into a wolf. The full moon gives him some healing abilities, and his martial arts are sometimes feral looking, but that’s it. He’s Wolverine from the X-Men, basically, except without the claws and only for a couple of days a month. Oh, and every female character in the film gets naked and sleeps with the hero, except the syphilitic, drug-addicted, gang-rape victim, who’s somehow accorded even less respect by the film.


Dark Water (Hideo Nakata, 2002)

Not quite as frightening as The Grudge nor as cold and despairing as Pulse, to name a couple films it superficially resembles. It’s a quieter film with more pathos to it, and finds its effectiveness there. The film generates its tension as much from the stress afflicting our heroine, a recent divorcee going through a bitter custody battle, as it does from the low-key haunting she and her daughter undergo. The visual grammar will be familiar to anyone who’s seen the above two films, with ghosts hiding in corners or looming into CCTV camera footage, and the cinematography favouring muted colours and empty compositions. The film never pushes its premise as much as you’d expect, but as a small-scale portrait of stress and frustration, it’s effective.


Jigoku (Nobuo Nakagawa, 1960)

Difficult to know what to make of this one. The first two-thirds are a melodrama of crime and guilty consciences that notoriously culminate in a gore-filled visit to Buddhist hell. And yet the melodrama is so arch and borderline surreal I was fully expecting the movie to reveal the characters had been in hell all along. It’s the only thing that would explain half of what’s going on. I mean, the lead character’s friend could only have been a demon from hell—how else to explain his preternatural knowledge of everyone’s past sins and ability to just show up wherever, at any moment. But, nope, the first two-thirds are indeed the real world, and the friend is punished for his worldly sins like everyone else. The film’s mostly an exercise in the uncanny.


The X from Outer Space (Kazui Nihonmatsu, 1967)

A film whose charms no doubt rest on how early in your life you first see it. Coming to it for the first time as an adult, it’s mostly tedious with a couple laughs at the bad effects. Your mileage depends entirely on how much you enjoy laughing at bad filmmaking.


Genocide (Kazui Nihonmatsu, 1968)

Ballsy ending, I’ll give it that. Points taken for the racism (sure, make the one black guy a hysterical, drug addicted, rapey fiend) and its plot point involving holocaust survivors wanting to genocide the human race in retaliation for what they suffered. Oh, and the Americans are fine with the idea of setting off nuclear bombs in Japan a third time.


The Living Skeleton (Hiroshi Matsuno, 1968)

Ghosts of a murdered boat crew seek revenge on their murderers by taking the forms of floating skeletons, or bats, or by impersonating/possessing/influencing/something the twin sister of one of the murdered. The film can be atmospheric, with its chilly, windswept fishing village. It’s also just silly, with awful special effects that ruin all tension and an incoherent script. Its score sounds like outtakes from Once Upon a Time in the West.


Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell (Hajime Sato, 1968)

A body snatching alien menaces an irritating set of characters who’ve just survived a plane crash. Has one of the most needlessly involved and complicated openings I’ve ever seen in a junk programmer. As irritating as its characters are, as thin and clumsy as its anti-war message is, and despite the fact the villain basically has a large vagina on his forehead, the film is coherent and has a proper sense of mystery, which I guess makes it the best of the Shochiku horror Eclipse set.

[nitin]

I actually prefer the Dark Water remake by Walter Salles, although admittedly more as a drama than a horror film. Have you seen that Mr Sausage?

[Mr Sausage]

I haven't, no, but I think the original works just as well, if not better, as a drama than a horror film. I might give the remake a try.

[knives]

Weirdly enough the American RIng 2 movie works more closely as a Dark Water remake.

[Rayon Vert]

The House of the Devil (West 2009). I happened to watch this last night not having noticed that it just got reviewed in this thread, looking around internet lists for a couple of rare modern horror films that a friend and I hadn’t watched yet that have gotten some appreciation. I’m not saying this to brag or stand out in any way but honestly and simply because it’s a complete puzzle for me (am I missing some subtle points in these films? have I just seen too many horror films that I have gotten desensitized to the point that I never find anything remotely scary, or my sensitivities are too dulled to begin with – maybe, just maybe part of the answer is that second reason, I really don’t know, although at the same time something inside me insists these movies are bad and that therefore that means there’s an as-yet-unintelligible reason why there’s a substantial amount of people who think otherwise!) I am constantly bewildered at people seeing quality in so many of these films that I find completely mediocre or just duds. This unfortunately wasn’t an exception. So yes you get that it’s an homage to slow-burn horror of an older era because of the period setting and the cinematic style, but I didn’t feel the slightest hint of a flame here, just the incredible and unending slowness. The opening text lets you know what we’re in for, so there’s no real sense of mystery and I can’t see how the abstract idea of a Satanic cult is frightening to start with, and the mansion owners we’re presented certainly don’t provide any sort of intimidating presence to create a sense of threat. And for most of its run time the film just sees this girl going from room to room as she “babysits”, turning lights, turning them off, checking out objects in rooms, etc. etc. (all the while in a set of painfully unchanging and dull set of jeans and flannel shirt that’s more ’80 than ’83, especially for a girl listening to The Fixx!). Then suddenly there’s that predictable Rosemary’s Baby-esque twist, but that whole sequence was run thoroughly so quickly and abruptly that I gasped when the movie ended right where it did. That’s it?? Suffering through all of that for this?? I couldn’t give this more than a 2 out of 10.


The Hallow (aka The Woods) (Hardy 2015). This was only marginally better. A couple of English conservationists and their small baby have settled in a village near a woods in Ireland to study plant & moss life and their presence is clearly seen as trespassing by the inhabiting wyrd creatures, and so what you think will happen does. The film kind of wants to have a foot in a mythological-fairytale mode and one in the realistic and ultimately violent, but it just progressively becomes this uninspired creature horror action movie à la The Thing so that it neither delivers on atmosphere or charm for the former aspect, or real scares for the latter.

[domino harvey]

I don’t find horror movies “scary” but I do find many of them “suspenseful”... between the above and an earlier dismissal of Triangle, I have no earthly idea what you want out of a horror movie, if you even do want one. You’ve seriously never experienced being all alone in a house or building and feeling spooked, even as a kid? How can anyone dismiss such a universal experience and such an effective replication of that tension in House of the Devil as mere boredom?

And a Satanic cult isn’t a credible threat? You’re like that level headed realist in these films who always gets killed right after telling the hero that whatever is happening can’t possibly be happening! Don’t accept any invitations to a haunted mansion, RV!

[Rayon Vert]

lol Actually I was as a kid. I mean those big 70s & early 80s classics that are so well-known it's not worth mentioning them did terrify me, and some still do create chills. I just don't see any equivalency whatsoever between something like HOFT and those. The friend beside me yesterday didn't have much of a reaction either. He had it seen previously and had a vague memory of it being creepy, that's why we chose it, but this time out he didn't feel anything and remember what had caused him to like it. We felt zero suspense in this case.

Just going on memory and I may be missing some, but the last that really created an actual sense of horror & terror for me were Wolf Creek and The Devil's Rejects, The Ring to some extent. In terms of mere suspense, yes there are others, but I can't say they're frequent (You're Next, the remake of The Last House on the Left that I thought was actually better than the original, the opening Amateur Night episode in V/H/S - there are others but I'd have to jog my memory by going through lists). Then there are the other movies that offer original ideas or direction and are good in other ways (mother!, The VVitch, Mandy), but I don't find them completely involving on a suspense-level. But, yeah, I don't mind being catalogued as a special case.

[colinr0380]

I have to say that the best 'haunted house' horror recently has not been a film but that video game Anatomy

[therewillbeblus]

RV- When I try to analyze a horror film as scary, I’m always thinking about the deeper psychological, social-emotional, or existential implications. I wasn’t huffing and puffing or watching through my fingers in The House of the Devil or The Blackcoat’s Daughter, to name two recent discussions, but each had moments that affected me - the former with the far longer than average wait in the slow burn followed by an assaultive burst of chaos, and the latter with many moments but ultimately a realization that sends chills down my spine thinking about it, because of how it relates to the universal experience of loneliness and the necessity that easily can then to desperation for seeking connection.

Looking at my own list, I can’t find any recommendations for ‘rollercoaster’ scares, but if you haven’t seen AntiChrist, that’ll likely leave a mark.

[Rayon Vert]

I've stayed away from AntiChrist because I haven't seen most of the director's filmography and would've wanted to see it in context, but I'll probably make an exception given your recommendation. I'll also take a look at Blackcoat's Daughter, although I'll probably do my write-ups of these board beloveds with a level of fear of provoking disappointment and receiving more disapprobation! Oh well.

[DarkImbecile]

See, horror movies can still be scary!

[Rayon Vert]

[therewillbeblus]

I saw AntiChrist upon release having no knowledge of who von Trier even was, so it’s definitely one way to catch yourself off guard for this project! I also naively dragged a buddy along who wasn’t into film and admittedly sticks to frat pack comedies and Vin Diesel programmers. He still hasn’t forgiven me a decade later.

As for The Blackcoat’s Daughter, much of its power comes from your re-reading of the film following its final images. I liked it when I was watching it the first time, really liked it upon analyzing it from posts on this board, and then fell in love with it after a re-watch with the analysis in mind. It brings one back to reality in a way that it seems you might appreciate (I know I do).

[zedz]

My number one will almost certainly be Triangle, which I find more rewarding with each revisit (and isn’t that perversely appropriate?)

Can you point me to your original rave about this (or, by all means, to a new one), as I watched it last night and while I found it enjoyable I'm struggling to see what makes it so great to you.

It's a fun conceit, but I felt like I was way ahead of the film throughout.

SpoilerShow

e.g. The very choppy editing of the opening scene announced that the filmmaker was withholding key information (and possibly shuffling chronology), and as soon as she got to the boat all freaked out, I knew her boy was dead. (I figured it was his corpse in the boot rather than hers.) The biggest surprise at the end was that what was being concealed was that she was a shitty mother, which I concede is a good twist! And all the deja vu screamed "time loop" immediately, and I knew she was the stalking killer right away as well. The little blurb about Sisyphus that somebody just has to read out could hardly have been less subtle, too!

It's a strong concept that made for some strong visuals, such as the pile-up of corpses at the top of the boat (though shouldn't we have seen a lot more of those kind of pile-ups given all the corpses that must be on the boat?), but the logic seemed conveniently loose at several points.

Perhaps my favourite part of the film is that this is one instance where "movie driving" (actors turning to face the person they're talking to instead of keeping their eyes on the fucking road) actually ended in the fatal collision we should be seeing in 60% of movies in which this idiotic phenomenon is depicted.

I won't be voting for this film, but I'm glad I saw it. I will be voting for another recent film that deals with a similar high concept in what I felt was a more effective (and more chilling) way.

I also watched The Dead Center, which is another of those low-ish budget modern horrors with a bunch of good ideas, and solid acting and filmmaking, but which ends up feeling fuzzy and dissatisfying. I feel like that's a judgement that applies to 90% of the hyped new horror work out there. Worth a look, but not really worth a vote. Perhaps notable that Shane Carruth gets epically wasted / stoned / drunk during his commentary. As you might expect from Carruth, this starts out with him explaining quantum physics and ends up with him comatose.

[swo17]

I will be voting for another recent film that deals with a similar high concept in what I felt was a more effective (and more chilling) way.

Fish and Cat?

[domino harvey]

Avengers: End Game, duh

zedz, Triangle is a classic example of a movie that’s slowly sneaked its way into my favorites, though I liked it more in first pass than you did. I feel like I end up writing about it in passing in conjunction with other films (such as Happy Death Day, which I doubt you were referring to as the other recent film but which I think you also might enjoy in the spirit of something like Tucker and Dale), but I’ll try to say a few more words at some point during the voting process

Unrelated to the above, zedz, but I think a worthy film for this list that you’d really enjoy is La vie lointaine, but there’s no commercial release (even in France) and as I recall you’re opposed to watching back channel copies, but if ever there was a film worth making an exception for...

[zedz]

Avengers: End Game, duh

zedz, Triangle is a classic example of a movie that’s slowly sneaked its way into my favorites, though I liked it more in first pass than you did. I feel like I end up writing about it in passing in conjunction with other films (such as Happy Death Day, which I doubt you were referring to as the other recent film but which I think you also might enjoy in the spirit of something like Tucker and Dale), but I’ll try to say a few more words at some point during the voting process

Unrelated to the above, zedz, but I think a worthy film for this list that you’d really enjoy is La vie lointaine, but there’s no commercial release (even in France) and as I recall you’re opposed to watching back channel copies, but if ever there was a film worth making an exception for...

Yeah, that does indeed sound intriguing.

Oh, and I realized when I looked at the cover of Triangle that I'd seen the director's previous Severance (which was gimmicky, jokey and not that good)

[zedz]

I will be voting for another recent film that deals with a similar high concept in what I felt was a more effective (and more chilling) way.

Fish and Cat?

I hadn't actually thought of that as a horror movie, but it does indeed do something similar in a much more creative and creepy way.

What do you think? Horror or not?

[Mr Sausage]

I will be voting for another recent film that deals with a similar high concept in what I felt was a more effective (and more chilling) way.

Which is...?

[zedz]

zedz, Triangle is a classic example of a movie that’s slowly sneaked its way into my favorites, though I liked it more in first pass than you did. I feel like I end up writing about it in passing in conjunction with other films (such as Happy Death Day, which I doubt you were referring to as the other recent film but which I think you also might enjoy in the spirit of something like Tucker and Dale), but I’ll try to say a few more words at some point during the voting process

The similar film that shall not speak its name (because even announcing its similarity is a spoiler) is

SpoilerShow

Ko-Ko-Di, Ko-Ko-Da.

Seriously, not knowing what's going to happen going into the film is a large part of the charm.

If you want to know any more, unspoiler this:

SpoilerShow

The central conceit of the film is that it takes the "horror movie character wakes up from a nightmare, which then starts to happen for real" trope and turns it into an entire narrative structure, so that a camping couple keep reliving the same ghastly encounter with freakish characters in the woods, but with the knowledge of what had happened (and hadn't worked) in previous iterations, so the husband keeps getting the chance to try new strategies to escape their dire fate. It's very tense, and very strange (there's one reiteration that is radically different, where the focus is on the wife). There's quite a bit more to the film than this, and it's a while before the film arrives at the time loop structure. Each loop is also accompanied by additional flashbacks to what went immediately before, so the film has quite an elaborate narrative structure even without factoring in the weirdest part of it.

Unlike Triangle, or something like Source Code, there's no internal narrative explanation for the looping structure: it's just the narrative form of this particular film. Psychologically, of course (and the same is true of Triangle to some extent), it's a form that expresses how one can obsess over what one could have done differently when confronted with a personal tragedy.

[swo17]

I will be voting for another recent film that deals with a similar high concept in what I felt was a more effective (and more chilling) way.

Fish and Cat?

I hadn't actually thought of that as a horror movie, but it does indeed do something similar in a much more creative and creepy way.

What do you think? Horror or not?

Technically on paper maybe (there's a killer loose in the woods!) but it only occurred to me in response to your vague clue

[domino harvey]

I liked Severance for finally figuring out a way to make a wilderness-set slasher work, and I think the big visual joke at the end with

SpoilerShow

the plane

is wickedly tasteless and audacious, but I don’t really remember much else about it other than that large portions of it seemed to exist solely to be able to say some variation of “It’s the Office meets Texas Chainsaw Massacre” on the DVD cover