The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

An ongoing project to survey the best films of individual decades, genres, and filmmakers.
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DarkImbecile
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Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Projec

#1351 Post by DarkImbecile » Mon Mar 16, 2015 2:35 pm

I was teaching in North Philadelphia about a decade ago, and a teacher was fired when, out of frustration at his students' constant use of profanity in class, showed the documentary Fuck, which - in addition to repeating "fuck" and its many derivations and competitors about 1000 times - also features various people, cartoons, dolls, etc. acting out the titular word as a verb. Needless to say, this film presentation had not gone through the usual administrative clearance channels beforehand.

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Adam X
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Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Projec

#1352 Post by Adam X » Tue Mar 17, 2015 8:24 am

The only film I was shown during high school that was provocative in any way, was Roeg's Walkabout, for English. Runner-up was the Shogun mini-series, where our (history?) teacher stood in front of the screen and fast forwarded through any sex scenes. Not sure what she was afraid of.

I'm amazed you wrote so much about ABC's of Death 2, Colin. I thought the film was absolutely horrible, with barely any decent segments. I did like the claymation Adam and Eve-like tale; or was that from the first film?
On the other hand, V/H/S/2 was actually pretty good, and much more consistently interesting than the first one.

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Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Projec

#1353 Post by colinr0380 » Tue Mar 17, 2015 8:58 am

The problem is there is no real consistency, as I loved the first ABCs of Death and hated the first V/H/S film! Hopefully I'll get to V/H/S 2 and V/H/S: Viral at some point but they're not high on my list of priorities at the moment, and that's really the fault of the lacklustre and muddled first film!

I think it is rather telling that the producers on the commentary track during the end credits talk about the way that the director for Z, Chris Nash, apparently was annoyed by a couple of the lacklustre segments of the first film (presumably something like Ti West's M) and, feeling that he could do better, pushed to be included on the sequel, to which the producers responded by saying he had to take Z to close out the entire film! It is easy to tell that Z was made by someone who is seizing the opportunity presented by the project rather than the majority of the rest of the segments just seeming like non-ambitious commissions - even the other segments I really liked by established talents such as Bill Plympton, Vincenzo Natali, Maury and Bustillo still have that sense of not exactly adding anything new to their body of works.

I wonder if the difference is that everything was experimental in the first film, leading to wilder and more unique visions, compared to tone and content being a bit more locked down in the sequel, with everyone knowing what was expected of them?
Last edited by colinr0380 on Tue Mar 17, 2015 2:15 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Projec

#1354 Post by Adam X » Tue Mar 17, 2015 9:25 am

I thought I'd read that each writer/director was given a letter and that the rest was up to them?
Maybe that was only for the first film.

I can't say I liked anything about the original V/H/S either. It's sequel, while much better and worth seeing (as far as horror anthologies go), isn't really something I'd suggest rushing out to see.

I remember when Plympton's segement went by, I kinda liked it but my reaction was "that looked like Bill Plympton animation" rather than "that was Bill Plympton animation!". While it was recognisably his style, visually, I don't remember it being anywhere near as good as his usual work. As you said, none of the more experienced director's involved really produced anything that stands up to the rest of their output, and you wonder who/what might be the cause of that.

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Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Projec

#1355 Post by colinr0380 » Tue Mar 17, 2015 2:12 pm

From the extras on both films I think it is a mix of directors getting assigned letters as well as some coming up with ideas related to letters and pitching them to the producers (Vincenzo Natali talks about just asking to have any letter assigned and then being surprised at getting U for example, as he would have thought that would have been a popular choice with a lot of options for stories). I also get the impression that there is a bit of swapping around and finessing in the final stages too, as in both films some of the directors have talked about having the letter swapped and having to come up with a new title for their segment.

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Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Projec

#1356 Post by Adam X » Tue Mar 17, 2015 10:54 pm

Well, that definitely makes some sense of things.
Thanks Colin.

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Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Projec

#1357 Post by colinr0380 » Mon Apr 20, 2015 5:12 pm


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Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Projec

#1358 Post by gorgeousnothings » Fri Jun 12, 2015 10:01 pm

AMC to offer a new horror movie streaming service.

I'm curious to see how something like this will turn out, especially since every premium network and their mothers are now turning out their own subscription services, not to mention those who already market to niche audiences (Vinegar Syndrome).

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Lost Highway
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Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Projec

#1359 Post by Lost Highway » Thu Jul 02, 2015 5:42 am

colinr0380 wrote:The problem is there is no real consistency, as I loved the first ABCs of Death and hated the first V/H/S film! Hopefully I'll get to V/H/S 2 and V/H/S: Viral at some point but they're not high on my list of priorities at the moment, and that's really the fault of the lacklustre and muddled first film!

I think it is rather telling that the producers on the commentary track during the end credits talk about the way that the director for Z, Chris Nash, apparently was annoyed by a couple of the lacklustre segments of the first film (presumably something like Ti West's M) and, feeling that he could do better, pushed to be included on the sequel, to which the producers responded by saying he had to take Z to close out the entire film! It is easy to tell that Z was made by someone who is seizing the opportunity presented by the project rather than the majority of the rest of the segments just seeming like non-ambitious commissions - even the other segments I really liked by established talents such as Bill Plympton, Vincenzo Natali, Maury and Bustillo still have that sense of not exactly adding anything new to their body of works.

I wonder if the difference is that everything was experimental in the first film, leading to wilder and more unique visions, compared to tone and content being a bit more locked down in the sequel, with everyone knowing what was expected of them?
Maybe I'm easily pleased, but I found something to like about every one of the V/H/S and ABCs of Death films. Their inconsistency is also their strength. Like with any short film programme, if you don't like a segment it will be over soon enough and you may like the next one better. Reading reviews for them, different people respond to different segments, so there seems to be something for every horror fan. V/H/S Viral is the weakest of the bunch as it only has three segments, two of which are terrible as is the wrap-around, but the Lovecraftian middle episode by Nacho Vigalondo is worth a watch.

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Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Projec

#1360 Post by domino harvey » Sun Jul 12, 2015 11:46 am

An American Werewolf in London (John Landis 1981) I've already told of my childhood exposure to this film, but couldn't recall much beyond the usual special effects moments before revisiting. Landis clearly has a love of the genre (and he awkwardly shoehorns in some explicit references to the Universal films that inspired this), but the film is uneven and never quite gels its non-horror aspects with the rest. Sometime's the film's arch tone works, as when a gaggle of deceased victims merrily offers an homage to the Miracle of Morgan's Creek by rattling off ways the protagonist could off himself, but oftentimes it just leads to dead-ends. This would have worked better as a straight horror or a straight-up comedy, but the resulting mishmash is ultimately underwhelming, though there are still enough component parts that work present to make it worthwhile.

the Bird With the Crystal Plumage (Dario Argento 1970) Snappily made and executed, it's easy to see why this spawned dozens of imitators: it's got all the elements there for the genre, they work well, and the solution to the central mystery is both cockeyed and somewhat predictable (by process of elimination if nothing else) but arrived upon with a fun lightness in tone and structure.

Body Melt (Philip Brophy 1993) Australian nonsense about a chemical company who decides to do random testing of its products on innocent dwellers of a planned community, with gross-out results. The film's premise makes no sense, and the film is so poorly made that either significant chunks of the connective narrative tissue were cut in the editing process or they weren't there to begin with, but either way most of the film unfolds without much logic or explanation. But every ten minutes or so something gross happens, like a dying man chugging detergent in a convenience store or a pregnant woman's placenta dropping and becoming sentient, and I guess that's all the filmmakers figures viewers would care about. There is exactly one clever idea in this film: in a twist on the expected, two dumb horned-up teenagers come across a group of inbred backwoods hicks and instead of being standoffish or scared or superior, the teens, too stupid to even question why they look like mutants, immediately ingratiate themselves with the clan!

Innocent Blood (John Landis 1992) Landis returns to the horror comedy well with this unusual vampire versus the mob pic. It's telling that the word "vampire" is never uttered in the film, because Landis has some cheeky fun arbitrarily following and dismissing existing vampire lore (In: Bright light and garlic aversion; Out: Fangs and aversion to Mirrors and crucifixes). The movie is light and long, but I enjoyed its wandering narrative, peppered with creative bits of gore. The central premise is quite clever: a female vampire only targets victims who have it coming to them, so she decides to target some high profile mobsters, only to accidentally turn the Don (perfectly played by Robert Loggia) into a vampire himself. Loggia gets the joke central to his performance and embraces it wholly and fearlessly, and it's a great treat to just watch him chew scenery (and necks). I wouldn't say the film is a laff riot but there are two or three fantastic laugh out loud moments, including the best homage to Some Like It Hot's infamous final exchange I've ever seen. I also thought it was funny to see the negative NY Times review of this claim that the one place this film was guaranteed to not get a good reaction was in France (where the lead starred in La Femme Nikita), and then it turned up on the Cahiers du Cinema Top 10! Highly recommended (the R1 DVD is full-screen, but it's 100% just open matte, so it's safe to watch-- plus, if you viewed it in widescreen, you'd miss Landis' trademark "See you next Wednesday")

Night School (Ken Hughes 1981) Reenforces every negative misconception people hold about the slasher genre's treatment of women to such an extreme degree that it's kind of fascinating in its wrongheadedness. Without spoiling too much, suffice to say the killer's identity and reasoning is so astonishingly sexist that it left me literally agog in disbelief. Without spoiling enough, there's also a moment in this film where Rachel Ward gets smeared with Ocean Spray preserves while in the shower. I'm not being cute, she literally gets covered with smashed up cranberries during some bizarre sexual behavior that failed to be normalized by its inclusion in this picture.

Schizoid (David Paulsen 1980) Typically tasteless slasher exploiting psychoanalysis fears (a common trope in these films), with a mysterious assailant stalking and eradicating members of Klaus Kinski's group therapy clan. In an unusual casting coup, Christopher Lloyd even pops up as one of the creepy group members, who close-talks our heroine into panic more than once. This is a well-made and strongly edited slasher, clever in its fashion, and while it contains all the usual problems of the genre, this is surprisingly on the high end of things. The film makes a conscious effort to throw enough red herrings at the audience to keep it interesting, and that it was. Also, Frank Fontana shows up as a homicide detective who memorably opines, "We get at least forty Jane Does a week in here. Last week there were 32 and we thought the world had gone good."

Terror at Tenkiller (Michael Shamus Wiles 1986) / the Last Slumber Party (Stephen Tyler 1988) I saw these two slashers (released as a double feature by VCI) only a few months ago and already they've almost entirely vanished from my memory. Both were terrible, I recall that much. Terror at Tenkiller was at least shot in Oklahoma, which would mean a lot more if it didn't just take place mostly in the woods. The Last Slumber Party is a little better in that it has one sorta clever scene where the killer and the red herring are dressed exactly alike, and then when we realize, the red herring suddenly kills someone (!), only to then be offed by the primary killer!

the Texas Chainsaw Massacre: the Next Generation (Kim Henkel 1997) As far as I know I'm the only human being alive who prefers this film to the two Tobe Hooper films which preceded it, though I caught this on cable years ago and wasn't sure if my memories would live up to reality. So, after revisiting, I can say with confidence that this is a more interesting and better film. Like Hooper's films, the movie delights in abrasiveness, but here that quality of shrill noise and clamor takes on a disturbing and inescapable patois of glorious trash. That a scuzzy film like this stars Oscar winning future A-Listers Renee Zellweger and Matthew McConaughey makes it all the more surreal. This is an unrelentingly negative movie-- at one point Zellweger is trying to be defiantly brave in the face of overwhelming odds against her and McConaughey just starts spitting on her before grabbing a can of lighter fluid and setting her unconscious friend on fire in front of her. It's a perfect summation of this film, which is the living embodiment of that famous Godard summation: a film found in a garbage dump. There are no outward positive traits, and yet its consistency of tone, its ability to hold the vile nature of its execution sustainably for the non-stop last two-thirds of this film left me impressed once again. I can respect a film that doesn't half-ass its shocks and distasteful aspects but instead goes whole-hog head-first into total abandon. So, I guess what I'm saying is, I agree with the rest of the world that this film is trash. I just don't mean it derisively.

the Vampire Lovers (Roy Ward Baker 1970) Watched this on the recommendation of Mr Sausage and enjoyed it more than I thought I would. It's an interesting feature in that it straddles the more mild goings-on of Hammer films of the earlier decades with the turn towards increased sexual focus of Jean Rollin and Jess Franco et al soon to come this decade. I'm not sure I buy arguments that this isn't mostly just meant to titillate above all other aspects, but I don't think there's anything wrong with that either, and the film plays everything straight for good measure.

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Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Projec

#1361 Post by domino harvey » Sat Jul 18, 2015 1:44 am

Blood Sisters (Roberta Findlay 1987) Maybe I was just in the right mood, but I kinda liked this more or less standard issue slasher about a gaggle of sorority pledges who stay overnight in a haunted brothel (!), only to be pursued by both erotic ghosts and a flesh-and-blood killer! My favorite character was the girl who looked like Nellie McKay and is named Marnie so that every so often she could drop a specific Hitchcock reference (sometimes nonsensically-- when going to investigate a noise, she warns "Remember that scene in the Birds!" No, I guess I don't, Marnie). No one here will ever watch this but I will spoiler this part regardless
SpoilerShow
I thought the ending had a nice twist on the usual, with both "last girls" biting it, the first after she trusts the word of the psychopath.
"But you promised you wouldn't hurt me."
"Yeah, but I'm crazy!"
Brain Dead (Adam Simon 1989) Co-written by one of the Twilight Zone's best-known authors, this Roger Corman-produced mess about a series of intertwined realities (leading to maybe thirty-plus "And then I woke up" moments) at least has the novelty of its casting coup: Bill Pullman and Bill Paxton, together at last in the same film. Only Paul Gleason and Fred Ward sharing the screen in Miami Blues comes close to this particular feeling of alternate realities meeting at last. But, you could get the same enjoyment out of this by looking at a still or screencap from Brain Dead and never watching a single second of the film, and that course of action is what's recommended.

Dark Night of the Scarecrow (JD Feigelson 1981) Infamous TV movie earns its reputation by being effectively creepy in relaying how four vigilantes who mistakenly kill a mentally retarded local man are haunted and hunted by his spirit afterwards. Charles Durning is especially good here as the main heavy, a creepoid mailman who transfers his own impure thoughts concerning young girls onto the victim. The whole thing has a nice EC Comics feel to it, and that's the ultimate compliment that can be paid for a film like this. Recommended.

Death Spa (Michael Fischa 1989) High-concept slasher with a ghost (?) occupying the body of her gay brother, who then dresses like her and commits computer-aided acts of murder at a spa belonging to her widower. The only things I took away from this was that whoever filmed it loved traveling shots and that it must've been awful to watch this on VHS with all of the red filters in play. Otherwise, this movie offers a little something for no one.

Evil Laugh (Dominick Brascia 1987) Self-aware proto-Scream with the nerdy loser telling all of his fellow med students over and over that the house rental they're hanging out in is hosting a mass murderer. "This is how it always happens in horror movies," he whines at them, and he's mostly right of course. There's a few good gags to this effect, and the film has a surprising lightness of touch for a film in which all of our protagonists unknowingly eat one of their fellow victims. As you'll see if you scroll down, while I hit a milestone in my slasher viewings this round, Evil Laugh still proved that even after this many slasher films, I can still be taken aback by one of the strangest things I've ever seen in any movie, slasher, 80s, or otherwise. There's a few other memorably weird bits present too, such as the conceited stud uttering the line, "They call me Young Doctor Kildare" while fake-flirting with a male realtor, or a bizarre sex scene in which an extra hand appears in the midst of the lovemaking and starts grabbing the hunk's butt, to which he replies, "Wow, how did you know I was into butt stuff?"

One Dark Night (Tom McLoughlin 1983) Hazing victim Meg Tilly is made to stay the night in a mausoleum where a famed psychic vampire has been recently interred. Feeding off her fright, the dead man and some of his closest corpse pals rise from the dead to terrorize her and her soon-to-be corpse pals. This is a glacially paced grindhouse throwback, and yet it had a certain charm, especially once we get ten solid minutes of gross decaying corpses being thrown at screaming people at the end of the film. Not a good movie, exactly, but I wouldn't flip past it on USA Up All Night were I to somehow wake up in the early 90s.

Psycho II (Richard Franklin 1983) Opening with footage of the most memorable scene in the original Psycho, this sequel doesn't prompt much good will at the outset. But this tale of Norman Bates' return to the outside world and a series of murders he may or may not have committed gets so complicated and unlikely as it layers on twist after twist that at a certain point I could only admire its convoluted structure and sense of play. Especially when stacked up against the awful later sequels, this film's callbacks are at least novel and tease audiences with the expected instead of just quoting it (as evidenced by, say, the callback to Martin Balsam's infamous spill in the first film, here given two grim punchlines in short order). Vera Miles reprises her role as well (and admirably participates in the film's best gross-out special effect moment) and Meg Tilly is a welcome presence here as the dreamy young girl who inexplicably takes a shine to ex-murderer Bates (though not so inexplicably if you look at the online cast listing for the film in advance like I foolishly did-- thanks, internet!)

Two additional notes about Psycho II:
01 Norman Bates and I share the same brand loyalty when it comes to bread. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feel about that.
02 Psycho II is, according to my records, the 100th slasher film made in the 80s that I have seen since starting out on this viewing journey. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feel about that either, other than that obviously it calls for celebration:

Image

Psycho III (Anthony Perkins 1986) Perkins returns and steps behind the camera as well for an even more unnecessary sequel, this time involving Norman Bates befriending a runaway nun and employing Jeff Fahey's dirtbag to man the front desk. Here the references are just grabbed in full from the first film without wit, and the storyline of the pic is as ugly as Fahey's behavior. I didn't think a Psycho sequel could be much worse than this (and the second hundred 80s slashers tally is off to an inauspicious start), but then I watched...

Psycho IV: the Beginning (Mick Garris 1990 Norman Bates calls into a radio therapy program and informs the host that he's going to kill his wife, but not before he regales the host and her audience with stories from his youth. Flashbacks ensue. If you ever wanted to see Olivia Hussey as Norma Bates screech at a teenaged Norman (played by Henry Thomas, a long way down from ET and Cloak & Dagger) that his "Pee pee is only to be used for wee wee," then good news. Here the references are literally phoned in, and John Landis pulls a Landis by showing up in the radio station control booth for some reason. This is just the worst, and the grotesque things Bates' mother and her lover do to Kid Psycho can't even bother to be interesting. Though I've only seen the first season, at least Bates Motel embraces its stupidity. This movie's just stupid.

10 to Midnight (J Lee Thompson 1983) The Charles Bronson policier meets slasher movie no one was asking for. Bronson doggedly pursues a perverted killer who likes to strip himself naked and attack young women with knives. In case it's too subtle, Bronson literally says at one point, "Don't you get it, the knife is his penis!" I wish I was joking. This is a pretty sleazy movie, especially when Bronson turns Mark Fuhrman and plants evidence to frame a guilty man, only to do the right thing by admitting it, and then the finale is Bronson doing the legally-wrong thing again, after even more people are killed and his career is ruined. I'm not sure what lesson the film ends up imparting, other than teaching us all that apparently it's harder to break open the drawer to a small wooden side-table than it is to kill at least half a dozen young girls.

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Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Projec

#1362 Post by Lost Highway » Sat Jul 18, 2015 3:35 am

While Psycho III isn't as satisfying as the first sequel, I always rather liked how it weaves Vertigo into the fabric of Psycho. Apparently when the film wasn't deemed to deliver enough shocks the studio ordered re-shoots to add more killings and bring it more in line with 80s slasher films,
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Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Projec

#1363 Post by domino harvey » Sat Jul 18, 2015 8:55 pm

Did they also make Perkins insert those peculiar shots of a nude Jeff Fahey covering his privates with a small lilac-colored lamp while his pickup dances for him?

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Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Projec

#1364 Post by colinr0380 » Sun Jul 19, 2015 3:48 am

For some reason the only thing that ever sticks fully with me about Psycho III is that between the second and third fim Norman has bought a big ice container which the rooms can go and fill up on.

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Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Projec

#1365 Post by domino harvey » Wed Jul 22, 2015 1:41 am

Continuing to make good on my promise to myself to get through some of my unwatched backlog this summer:

the Cat O' Nine Tails (Dario Argento 1971) / Deep Red (Dario Argento 1975) Wrapping up the more well-known of Argento's Giallos, I enjoyed both of these, which played to the director's stylistic strengths while still indulging a bit too much into cheap shock moments that seemingly come out of nowhere (what, uh, was going on with that mechanical Alfred E Neuman in Deep Red, exactly?). Like a lot of murder mysteries, the economy of prominent remaining characters in Deep Red eventually reveals the solution a little sooner than the narrative does, but the Cat O' Nine Tails' reveal was more of a "Wait, who is that again?" moment!

Citizen X (Chris Gerolmo 1995) Fascinating fact-based HBO movie about the eight year hunt for a Russian serial killer. Lead detective Stephen Rea faces obstacles from the oppressive Communist party, who are more interested in rounding up homosexuals than pursuing any real leads. Disturbingly, the overseeing committee refuses to even acknowledge that the 50+ dead bodies are the work of a serial killer, since the concept of a lone mass murderer is a product of "decadent western culture." Donald Sutherland is the warm center of the film as a colonel who does his best to navigate the bureaucracy of the system and still get results. Recommended.

the Day After Halloween (Simon Wincer 1979) Mediocre Australian thriller about an amateur model who is pursued by at least three different stalkers by my count. The only reason anyone even remembers this is because American distros snatched it up, retitled it from Snapshot to capitalize on the success of John Carpenter's film, and then profited.

Death Ship (Alvin Rakoff 1980) A handful of shipwreck survivors are picked up by a seemingly abandoned but nonetheless haunted Nazi warship, and the ghosts of the Nazis (or the ship itself, the film's not too clear) enact some complicated ways of killing off the unlucky stowaways, helpfully one at a time and spaced out over the length of the film. It seems like Nazis would be practical and just kill everyone as soon as they boarded, but I guess that doesn't make for much of a movie. Not that this does either. There is some small enjoyment in seeing George Kennedy, dressed in Nazi regalia, hurling a blood-soaked nude woman over his head, but otherwise this is standard issue make up the rules as it goes along horror fare.

Ed and His Dead Mother (Jonathan Wacks 1992) One of those high concept horror films from the early 90s that I vaguely recalled with a slight tinge of "Did this really exist?" (see: My Boyfriend's Back, Meet the Applegates, et al), this ultra-arch tale of Steve Buscemi's momma's boy bringing his mother back from the dead coasts by on the charms achieved from playing its assorted absurdities as low-key as possible. The film is ably aided by Ned Beatty as Buscemi's uncle, who's barely exasperated responses to increasingly strange occurrences never fails to get a laugh in the film-- sample line regarding his sister's dietary needs as a zombie: "Yesterday it was bugs, today it's humans. What's it going to be tomorrow, horses?" John Glover, done up in fright white hair, also leaves a strong impression, as does the ridiculously good looking sexpot neighbor who, in the most incredulous plot device in film history, wantonly throws herself at Buscemi. The film is basically Dead Alive lite, made sans gore to secure a PG-13 (though there's more than enough sexual content here to still call that rating into question), but I enjoyed its droll comic touches all the same.

the Haunting (Robert Wise 1963) I put this off for a while, mainly because I can't stand Julie Harris, but Wise's film uses her weaknesses to the film's advantage, making her generally unstable and largely unsympathetic in her descent into madness at the hands of the titular occurrence. Claire Bloom, as the alternately cruel and bemusedly caring boho Theo, is amusing, and Russ Tamblyn plays the shitheel relative just waiting to make a profit to a tee. Nicely atmospheric and effective in its creepy tone and execution, it's easy to see why the film has such a strong reputation.

Hell of the Living Dead (Bruno Mattei 1980) I know I get what I deserve for willingly watching an Italian zombie movie, but lord this must be what the bottom of the barrel looks like! Characters/victims-in-waiting in zombie movies are not known for their intelligence, but the ones here are too stupid to still be alive before they encountered the zombies. After the first zombie attack they figure out to aim for the head, and then what do these idiots do every goddamn time for the rest of the film? Yes, they shoot at their chest or torso and then yell out, "Why won't they die!?" One of the fellow idiots even screams at his compatriots to shoot them in the head. They still don't. This movie is a special kind of bad, the worst kind: the annoyingly bad. I hated everyone in this movie, and by the time we got to an abandoned factory, I was only left with an elevator to root for. I felt a deeper connection to the lift than to any life ended here. I am positive 99 minutes of just filming the walls of the factory would have been a better film. But then where would the poorly repurposed Mondo-esque footage go?

the Nesting (Armand Weston 1981) Another haunted brothel pic, this one far less enjoyable than Blood Sisters. The spirits of murdered prostitutes use a visiting writer to enact revenge on the dirtbags who killed them years earlier. The massacre requiring such otherworld intervention is a particularly gross sequence, gratuitously indulging in the slaughter of innocents in slow-motion so as to prolong the agony as long as possible. Golly, what fun!!! Going through my unwatched troughs, I don't always remember what compelled me to buy a given disc in the first place, but not so here, as I distinctly recall being fooled yet again by one of those great trailer comps. When will I ever learn?

Rats: Night of Terror (Bruno Mattei 1984) Mad Max with rats.

Stephen King's Graveyard Shift (Ralph S Singleton 1990) Norma Rae with rats.

Welcome to Planet Earth AKA Alien Avengers (Lev L Spiro 1997) I probably saw every installment of Roger Corman Presents when it first aired on Showtime, but this is one of the few I remembered and in a surprise twist, it held up pretty well on revisit. A parody of slumming and Republican values towards the lower classes, this broad horror comedy concerns a family of aliens who take the form of ultra-whitebread suburbanites, entrap lowlifes into enacting crimes, and then kill them in return for fun. The film's largely buoyed by George Wendt and the mom from Major Dad as the genial "Aww shucks" alien couple, both of whom embrace the absurdity of the premise with abandon. Shanna Reed as June Cleaver with a cleaver is especially good, kicking heads off and getting a lot of mileage out of saying the most horrible things while still smiling and being chipper. The film's not exactly subtle (any movie where Wendt tears off one thug's leg and then beats him to death with it while chastising that "None of this would have ever happened if you had behaved like a gentleman!" isn't aiming for nuance), but I enjoyed it in the spirit of the best works of Paul Bartel or John Waters.

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Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Projec

#1366 Post by colinr0380 » Thu Jul 23, 2015 8:11 pm

colinr0380 wrote:The ABCs of Death 2 (Various, 2014)

K: This is the best segment in the film, a brilliantly abstract, enigmatic piece of alien invasion(?) in which a woman painting her toenails black hears a noise and goes out onto the balcony of her flat to see a strange object floating in the sky. This is full of strangely disturbing (the opposite tower block) yet beautiful imagery, often about juxtaposing fluids. It is directed by Kristina Buozyte and Bruno Samper and it is in the same vein as their previous feature Vanishing Waves, which I talked about more here. I actually like this short more than Vanishing Waves, due to the characterisation being left more enigmatic. Highly recommended. It also features a great 'alien broadcast' commentary track (similar to W in the previous set) in which an electronic whine almost drowns out a voice reading an uninteligable mantra-style poem.
This segment has just turned up on YouTube

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domino harvey
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Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Projec

#1367 Post by domino harvey » Thu Nov 05, 2015 12:08 pm

the Erotic Rites of Frankenstein (Jesus Franco 1973) I'm not a fan of Franco but this looked just strange enough on one of those great Video Nasties trailer comps for me to give it a shot. However, in the umpteenth case in this thread alone of Charlie Brown still trying to kick the football, the film itself pulls a Lucy and never improves on its weirdo trailer. For fans of silver spraypainted Frankenstein monsters and half-vulture women only.

Halloween: the Curse of Michael Myers (Joe Chappelle 1995)
domino harvey wrote: I suspect this mysterious character is explained in Halloween 6. I also suspect it's doubtful (but not impossible) that I'll ever prove that first-hand
#-o
Starring Paul Rudd's "serious" voice and a dying Donald Pleasence, this is the worst entry in what is already the least of the heavily-cycled slasher villain film series in terms of overall returns. Turns out a cult has adopted Michael Myers and is trying to get him to take part in an infant sacrifice? I don't know or get it, and no one else involved in making this movie does either.

Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (Steve Miner 1998) Jamie Lee Curtis is back, and so are a few hip young actors like Josh Hartnett and Michelle Williams. Janet Leigh is around too for a few minutes, mostly so marketing could say something about it. The film certainly doesn't utilize that or any of its other differing elements, though the resulting film is thankfully not as bad as most of the sequels in this series. Damning with faint praise, &c. The movie has one mediocre laff with Curtis' dispensing of typical horror tropes at the end, but even that felt familiar.

Halloween Resurrection (Rick Rosenthal 2002) Speaking of familiar, here we go again: turns out the ridiculous ending of the previous film in this series only serves to be upended by an even more ridiculous "explanation" as to how Michael Myers did not infact die despite suffering what could charitably be called a life-threatening injury. Once poor Jamie Lee Curtis is finally put out of her misery at the outset, things settle into the usual, as a buncha dumb college kids find themselves outfitted with cameras and set loose in the Myers House on Halloween for the entertainment of streaming internet viewers. Mildly interesting for how it captures the whole Big Brother et al fad, I guess, but I suspect other horror films did likewise around this time. Top-billed Busta Rhymes is alternately annoying and impish as the media impresario organizing the whole affair, and the rest of the cast is filled with no-names nobodies no one will miss once they go missing. All that said, this is the most tolerable Myers-centric Halloween sequel by virtue of it being merely mediocre. So, a fitting end to the original run of the series, I guess.

Tales That Witness Madness (Freddie Francis 1973) I know Mr Sausage is a fan but boy alive I hated every second of this, which to my eyes is easily the worst horror anthology I've ever seen. Not just of the 70s wave, but ever. A sad damnation, especially in a thread that's seen me write about uber-dreck like After Midnight, but an honest one. I could not believe how dumb these four stories were, and the only suspenseful or interesting thing relating to this film is that I almost watched this with my reluctant horror-watching girlfriend since I heard it was so good and figured it would probably be a safe bet. I can only imagine how hard I'd have to work to get her to watch a horror film again had she suffered through Joan Collins arguing with a sexy tree or a man excitingly riding a stationary bike. Excruciating in every way.

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Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Projec

#1368 Post by domino harvey » Mon Jan 25, 2016 12:21 pm

Recent viewings:

Blood and Black Lace (Mario Bava 1964) Nice to finally see this one given its importance on entire subgenres of film, but I found it too meanspirited in its brutalizations against the female victims— unexpectedly, the slew of Giallo ripoffs and homages tended to be gentler than the original, which is not the direction I expected after all my time spent in the slums of 80s slashers! I did love the opening credit sequence, though.

Heart of Midnight (Matthew Chapman 1988) I understand there’s a much longer version of this film that didn’t make it onto Kino’s recent Blu-ray release, but I’m not sure the significant problems with this material could be fixed with more of anything. Jennifer Jason Leigh inherits a sex club from her perverted uncle and discovers the place might be haunted. She’s also subjected to a long and awful rape sequence, and every man she encounters is a real piece of shit. Perhaps there is some feminist reading to be made of this, but I don’t think so— this is just a gross movie.

Killer Workout AKA Aerobicide (David A Prior 1986) Another somewhat underwhelming attempt at making a slasher set at a fitness club— with such a perfectly 80s setting and concept (an ugly woman attacks pretty people— perfect!), it’s hard to understand why no good attempt was ever made at this setting and material. Overall this one ranks somewhere in the middle as far as 80s slashers go, with some attempts made at legitimacy with its cop characters (though why good taste was ever an issue, I have no idea).

Motel Hell (Kevin Connor 1980) Though it could never live up to the images I had in my head as a child, reading about it from Roger Ebert’s positive three star review, this is about as fun a movie as I can imagine about friendly cannibal motel proprietors. When major plot points involve all major characters either unknowingly or voluntarily ingesting humans (who before culling are buried in the ground with their heads sticking out like Cabbage Patch dolls) and it still feels somewhat light-hearted, a deft touch has been executed.

Poltergeist (Tobe “Steven Spielberg” Hooper 1982) / Poltergeist II: the Other Side (Brian Gibson 1986) / Poltergeist III (Gary Sherman 1988) Revisiting these for the first time as an adult (though I never saw the second one), they haven’t aged well. The practical and visual effects are creaky and the layers of nonsense Spielberg— ahem, Hooper ladles on in the first film are hard to swallow. But I grew to appreciate the characterizations and charms of the first after sitting through the sequel, the Other Side, which is among the worst horror sequels of the 80s (and just think what a competitive category that is!). I don’t know who was clamoring for the backstory of those buried beneath Craig T Nelson and co’s house in the first film, but I doubt even they wanted to hear about a suicide cult. The third entry has already been aptly described by Colin elsewhere on this forum as an American version of all those illogical Italian horror films of the decade like Demons II et al, and in that spirit its marginally better than the second entry (though even further removed from the spirit of the original). As noted in the Hellraiser thread, the characters sure do love saying “Carol Anne,” and that and a lifelong aversion to mirrored highrises this film imparted on me as a child are my main takeaways.

Satan’s Blade (L Scott Castillo Jr 1984) I can’t in good conscience recommend this movie, but when you’ve seen as many slashers as I have, you really learn to appreciate one as scrappily charming as this cheapo mess. Shot in what appears to be someone’s apartment masquerading as a mountaintop resort (and redecorated for each “new” interior cabin), with great details like how no one ever opens the front door more than just enough for each character to slide in without the camera seeing what’s outside the door (presumably an apartment complex’s parking lot). The movie is fatalistic and didn’t get the memo about not killing the likable young woman who bravely makes it to the end, but I liked that it didn’t even follow the rules. The acting is atrocious/amazing, depending on where you stand on these kind of things. Look, if you already hate slashers, this won’t change your mind, but I kinda loved this, and I definitely got a perverse kick out of how this somehow merited an affordable yet deluxe Blu-ray release via Olive.

Slaughterhouse (Rick Roessler 1987) Wikipedia tells me one of the alternate titles for this is Pig Farm Massacre, which is somehow an even better slasher title than Slaughterhouse! Typical story of fiercely independent farmers killing their creditors and all the stupid teenagers who somehow make it onto their property. Unexceptional nth reiteration of the same tired tropes steadily winding their way out of popularity by this film’s release.

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Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Projec

#1369 Post by knives » Mon Jan 25, 2016 12:42 pm

There's been a lot of looking into this and Spielberg definitely had no hand in the direction of the original Poltergeist. Hooper simply has a similar eye to Spielberg when it comes to framing plus all of the genuinely Spielberg crew members just gives that impression. This isn't a The Thing situation.

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Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Projec

#1370 Post by Lost Highway » Mon Jan 25, 2016 12:46 pm

knives wrote:There's been a lot of looking into this and Spielberg definitely had no hand in the direction of the original Poltergeist. Hooper simply has a similar eye to Spielberg when it comes to framing plus all of the genuinely Spielberg crew members just gives that impression. This isn't a The Thing situation.
Seems like you haven't much looked into this.

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Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Projec

#1371 Post by knives » Mon Jan 25, 2016 12:51 pm

I have. The rumour is pretty exclusively held by fans of the film with Spielberg, Hooper, and nearly everyone else who worked on the film saying that Spielberg had no hand in direction. Hooper especially seems furious at the implication.

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Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Projec

#1372 Post by Lost Highway » Mon Jan 25, 2016 1:16 pm

knives wrote:I have. The rumour is pretty exclusively held by fans of the film with Spielberg, Hooper, and nearly everyone else who worked on the film saying that Spielberg had no hand in direction. Hooper especially seems furious at the implication.
Interviews with the cast seem to say otherwise:

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/34266" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.poltergeist.poltergeistiii.com/really.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Spielberg made sure Hooper would save face and gave him the credit, but even if you had no knowledge of the wranglings behind the camera, Poltergeist looks like everything Spielberg was doing at the time and like nothing Hooper has done before or since. It was Spielberg's first time producing another director's film and the experience taught him a lesson to delegate and to let others do their job. So a film like Gremlins may be Spielbergian, but it also distinctly feels like a Joe Dante film.

Hooper has never been a director with a distinctive voice or style and the authentic sense of horror which made The Texas Chainsaw Massacre a classic is as much down to a lack of resources as it is down to style. Once Hooper started to make bigger films he never developed beyond being proficient at best. The few big budget films he directed had no steady hand to guide them and they disastrously derailed.

I still love Poltergeist and revisit it every couple of years. I don't care that the effects look a little ropy now, I love that vintage ILM look. What I still enjoy most is the degree of attention the film pays to its characters and I think that still holds up. The parents in particular are such well drawn characters and modern studio horror films just don't have the patience for that anmore

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Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Projec

#1373 Post by colinr0380 » Tue Jan 26, 2016 5:45 am

Perhaps the best nod to Spielberg in the film is in that early scene the parents are watching Spencer Tracy in A Guy Named Joe on their TV, which Spielberg would remake as Always a number of years later!

I sort of see it in the same way as Joe Dante's Gremlins. You can almost feel Spielberg's stylistic influence in the suburban set up of the film, especially with Poltergeist coming out in the same year as Spielberg's ultimate paen to suburbia, E.T., but both Poltergeist and Gremlins subvert the wholesomeness by using average and anonymously interchangeable suburban developments and mass produced consumerist trappings as sources of the greatest horror.

In Gremlins it is all tied into the Christmas setting too, with that fantastically nightmarish struggle that the mother has with the gremlins in the lounge and kitchen almost mirroring the struggles that any housewife may be having in cooking the Christmas meal or putting the decorations up, eventually fighting back using all the latest modern utensils (thank goodness for the microwave, though it will be a pain to clean up afterwards!), but even then it can all seem overwhelming until another family member steps in to help! It sort of makes sense that the film climaxes in a supermarket, as if indulging in a bit of last minute late night Christmas shopping! Then the 'wise man' turns up at the end to take his gift away again!

Poltergeist has always interested me for the way that the 'real reason' for the family's problems, desecrating Native American burial grounds by building tracts of housing developments over the top of them, while present is pushed into the background by the real paranoid fear - that our nuclear family are totally TV addled, even to the shocking extent of falling asleep with the television still going! There is perhaps the suggestion that TV is the true insidious influence on the character's lives (indoctrinating with the national anthem before closedown and through adverts creating desires in the audience for the kind of lifestyle that gets systematically destroyed during the film itself), and maybe the characters are living in a kind of complacent bubble, unaware of the history of their area or whether it may come back to haunt them! (I suppose in 'normal life' this would take the form of buying a house on a flood plain or full of termites, or suchlike!)

I particularly like that the Native American burial ground aspect is continually sidelined during the first film. It takes the entire film, along with coffins and skeletons popping out of the ground all over the place, to finally act as the blunt answer to the character's pointedly unasked questions! I did really like that we get the continual use of graves or grave-like holes in the early section of the film though, with the plans for this family's particular swimming pool seemingly angering the spirits even more than the initial building of the houses did!

And I love the way the film deals with the death of the budgie in those early scenes, with the mother about to just flush it before Carol Anne walks in and insists on the full burial for it, with a cigar box coffin and all the Egyptian style spirit-placating trappings ("For when you're hungry...For when you're lonely....For when its bedtime"), with the darkly amusing immediate follow up shot of the bulldozer digging the pool also digging up the budgie's coffin too! There's little respect on show even for family pets, despite paying lip service to laying them to rest.

Then in the mid-section of the film it becomes all about getting Carol Anne back rather than understanding the meaning behind the poltergeist activity, even when the 'experts' are brought in. There is a slow dawning awareness there, and I particularly love the downstairs 'family camp out in the lounge, telling ghost stories' hushed conversation scene, but throughout the family just wants Carol Anne back, understanding or placating the ghosts be damned. As long as the poltergeists are not being a bother and have stopped kidnapping people, then who cares if they have festering grievances that still need to be addressed? That's perhaps why the film (beautifully) has two or three big faux-climaxes when it seems like the poltergeists have quietened and "this house...is clean" and still liveable in, until the final, actual climax shows in no uncertain terms that the Freelings cannot keep their house in the face of environmental events beyond their control.

But the Freelings don't seem to learn in the first film. It still seems as if they imagine that all of their family's problems (with each other too) can be simply funnelled down into getting rid of the TV (as amusingly shown in the final shot at the motel!). But that is still ignoring the bigger problem, even if it has at least been acknowledged as actually being there by that point! The Freelings at the end still seem hopeful that as long as they have all of their kids with them that they can then run from the horror without actually confronting it (I have my issues with Poltergeist II - mainly that it is taking cues from Spielberg in a slightly different Temple of Doom way in focusing on big and flashy phantasmagoric set pieces above anything else - but it sort of realises that the Freelings have to be forced into a confrontation and so prevents them from running at various points), leaving it up to the rest of the community and the manager of the estate to watch in horror as their housing bubble implodes in front of their eyes.

That clashing of older and abandoned versus modern and slightly callous culture, with the older death-obsessed culture coming back to torture and torment, is really what makes it more of a Tobe Hooper film in the end than a Spielberg one I think, despite being situated in a Spielberg-like suburbia.

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Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Projec

#1374 Post by Feego » Tue Mar 29, 2016 2:51 pm

Does anyone know of any good books on American independent horror films? I watched Lemora: A Child's Tale of the Supernatural the other night, which piqued my interest in the subject. It reminded me of Arrow's recent American Horror Project set, which has been met with decidedly less-than-enthusiastic responses here, but is a subject that nonetheless deserves greater attention. I would certainly like to learn more about the history of independent horror in the U.S., particularly more obscure titles beyond the major hits like Night of the Living Dead and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

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Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Projec

#1375 Post by Lost Highway » Tue Mar 29, 2016 3:16 pm

Feego wrote:Does anyone know of any good books on American independent horror films? I watched Lemora: A Child's Tale of the Supernatural the other night, which piqued my interest in the subject. It reminded me of Arrow's recent American Horror Project set, which has been met with decidedly less-than-enthusiastic responses here, but is a subject that nonetheless deserves greater attention. I would certainly like to learn more about the history of independent horror in the U.S., particularly more obscure titles beyond the major hits like Night of the Living Dead and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
Stephen Thrower's "Nightmare USA" is the ultimate tome on American independent horror film. He is an excellent writer on non-mainstream horror in US and European cinema and anything by him is worth searching out.

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