Is this the horror thread now?

Good, I'll come back to it.

The third Paranormal Activity was pretty effective, nifty camera work.

Kow wrote:

I really liked the Witch - moody, strange and open to interpretation.

Brilliant fillum.

Raiziel wrote:

Jacob's ladder. The main inspiration to the silent hill games.

One of my favourite films of all time.

Brilliant addendum to Jacob's ladder/Silent Hill2. Beware for spoilers though as the main themes and endings are examined and explained in detail.

5 Oct Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary

I'd been really wanting not to completely slate anything on this list. That's why I'm writing this having slept on the film twice and starting to watch it again thinking I must've not given it a chance, or missed something. So in the interests of fairness I'm going to lay my potential biases out first

"I don't like musicals" - Well despite myself, when I think about it, it seems I actually do. Give me Fred and Ginger, Gene Kelly, hell even La-La-Fucking-Land are all decent spectacles, and time spent that I don't beg to be returned to me

"I don't like ballet" - I don't know if I don't like ballet, because this utter norbert decides to keep framing the torsos of people while they dance, what's the point in that?

"I don't understand dance" - If you want to hide your shit in a secretive code then it's quite clearly pretentious fuckwittery and doesn't deserve an audience

This is just complete twaddle, it gave me nothing, and actually served to anger me to the point that I gave the second act onwards short shrift, which was silly of me, as Dracula is very pretty, and they actually do some decent dancing at that point, for a short while, then back to framing torsos. Imagine how shit Singing In The Rain would look if it was a head and shoulder shot the whole way through. Too little, too late for me though

I think they saw that French movie that got the oscar and thought they'll have some of that, mark missed by a long way. I'm giving one point to Dracula for being very pretty, and two points to Renfield, for attempting to wank himself out of the movie and onto the cutting room floor [3]

In case you didn't believe me about Renfield, here he is clearly hoping to get edited out by the BBFC or similar



timecode seems intermittent on here, so go to 3:45

cockbeard wrote:

Growing up on 80's slashers you know that horror movies are all about punishing promiscuous teens, seems the director knew this as well given his first film was called "Myth of the American Sleepover", which sounds like it might as well have been "Slumberparty Massacre". Anyway in some strange town which seems to have no adults, a curse appears which threw me a curve ball by not only punishing sexual activity, but then also encouraging it, removing the moral imperative that 80s baddies his behind.

More than encouraging, compelling. It avoids the usual choice of either morally judging sexual freedom or celebrating it, and instead presents it as a burden. Or in terms of the horror aspect of the film, a relentless tension.

Under the Shadow

I love a ghost story, and this was a cracking one. Admittedly the location also helps, but you don't need much background to pick up the thread. If the location does intrigue you though then you should really go and read Persepolis, a truly wonderful book

So we're in the middle of the Iran/Iraq war, Iran has now removed the Shah for the Ayatollah and a promising medical career is dashed before it's begun simply because the doctor is a woman. Given the shite in the media it's easy to forget than only a generation ago Iran was a very forward thinking nation, had enjoyed the swinging sixties and all that went with that. Now suddenly plunged into the dark ages, as a cleric says late in the movie "A woman should be more scared of exposing herself than anything else, be ashamed"!!?? Oh really fella? the city is under rocket attack, my husband has been conscripted, and a demon is trying to steal my daughter, but yeah you're right, my hair's uncovered, that's the problem here

So I guess I gave the plot up there, and like any ghost story there doesn't need to be a lot more. The best of all of these take place in the "half-time", the dozy moments between sleep and wake, the millisecond your eyes take a last glance before taking in whatever you turned your head towards, and with all the distractions of war, parenthood, and society there's a lot of that "half-time" to be found. Some of my favourite films are foreign language, maybe it focuses the mind a little more, makes you more inclined to keep eyes on the screen, and that's where you want them for this film as it shows you everything and tells you very little. Even one piece of exposition about a dumb child (which admittedly probably couldn't easily have been done another way) led into another thoroughly creepy moment

This list is actually delivering a little now, I see some treats ahead and I'm so very glad this film has been introduced to me. Is it a feminist's cry about the lie sold about having it all? Quite possibly, but that's something worth shouting about. It's almost all shot in one room with two actors, but doesn't rely on claustrophobia, and manages to have some lovely shots in it, as well as actually scaring you, well me at least [9]

I thought Get Out was quite unexceptional. An okay film, I just never got fawning adoration it seemed to receive.

I watched Ghost Stories last night, which I think is superb.

Get Out is a very political film that identified the subtle horror of modern, so I don't think it's any surprise it was well received. Cocko in here showing the lads how we do horror at least.

I'm only joking, before you all get in a tizz. But Horror is great, especially when it mixes sociology and politics in well, which is what these two films do.

I also remember a TV mini series in the Quatermass canon with John Mills playing the lead. Whilst it was sci fi it was creepy as it was based around a phenomenon of large gatherings of young people at stone circles disappearing. Had a creepy exposition later on explaining it. Prob late 70s - early 80s.

Loving your thoughts in this thread, cocko.

The Host

Excited to watch this again, not seen it in years but remember fawning over it somewhat. It's not often you see America cast as the bad guy, and still surprising that Korean films do it again and again, though not often as blatantly as here. That said Korea has created some bloody amazing movies and this is right up there amongst it's best output. So I'm clearly biased, but also correct

I bloody love this film, a monster movie that's not afraid to show you the monster. And that theme runs throughout, no subtext, just text and loads of it, fuck 'Murica, fuck authority, believe in yourself even if you are an octopus nibbling waster. Just a beautiful movie, go watch it. I'm fawning again because I'm an idiot [10]

edit: also Welcome to Dongmakgol is worth your time if in a Korean mood. thinking now the morning after watching it again, I wrote the above in notepad, The Host seems even more relevant today than it did 12 years ago, especially given the state of the "free world"

I don't believe I have ever watched Carrie all the way through in one sitting. No reason - has just worked out that way.

The split screen sections raised eyebrows in the day.

Brilliant film. Also the reason I'm not allowed to watch horror films in the house unless the family are out. Wife freaked out while she was watching American Horror Story because of something that happened with my daughter when she was very young (can't remember what), so she stopped watching that. Then she was out one night, I was watching The Badabook with a mate and my daughter started vomiting over the baby monitor at the same time as the kid in the film. I made the mistake of going for 'lol you'll never guess what happened' as soon as Mrs. Geeza got home, and that was that for horrors in the house. I've got to respect the nonsense really, so I only get to watch my favourite genre when they're away in the caravan.

My mates mum is a strict catholic and she banned copies of The Omen and The Exorcist from the house as she feared they would invite the devil in. They didn’t, just our mate Chris. At the time he was a bit naughty though

The Antichris.