Recent horror watches

[Splatterscribe]

I need to revist Ghost of Mars. I remember liking it when I saw it (big Ice Cube fan) but don't think I've caught it in several years....   

Add me to the list of those who love this movie.  I always liked that the society is a matriarchy, but it goes entirely without comment. 

What I think does it for me is that it's essentially Big trouble in Little China , but with horror and Sci-Fi as the target genres rather than martial arts. Also, the final shot of the two heroes walking down the corridor is a direct visual reference to the ending of Carpenters first real action film, Assault on Precinct 13. Goofy as Ghosts of Mars may be at times, it's pure Carpenter doing things his way.  So the entertainment value is through the roof.

gotta love F13 part 8. Jason takes over a cruise ship, I MEAN Manhattan. And that kill in part 6 is pretty freakin sweet.

I first saw the ad for this during Saturday Night Live.  I think I actually said out loud  "Damn, that's the funniest thing they've done on this show for years".  Then someone told me, no, it was a real sequel.  Which is even funnier.

My first experience with this film in any capacity was turning on the tv one day in 1989 and happening upon  this trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5fc43O3ynE&feature=related

 After seeing this,  I remember thinking something similar to what you thought, BK "Wait..is that a joke,because it  looked a lot like an actual trailer." Then the program the commercial was airing during came back on, it was an afternoon movie (and not a comedy)  and I realized I had just seen a real preview.

Despite the entirely ludicrous sewer-based finale of this flick (Are you suffering from the heartbreak of Crystal Lake Massacre?  Jason got you down? Then the new New York Sewer Industrial Waste Flush is  just what the doctor ordered! it's easy to use: Simply drop the undead slasher pursuing you into the toxic flood and watch it wash the adulthood away! DISCLAIMER: The New York Sewer Industrial Waste Flush is ineffective against killer dolls, cenobites or  angrily immolated child murderers) ,  I have a soft spot for Jason take Manhattan because it's the coda to the Paramount years.  Don't get me wrong- I enjoyed the New Line entries (Jason Goes to Hell is fun, Jason X gets better every time I see it just because its batshit insane- the dry ice kill near the beginning helped a lot  too- and and Freddy Vs Jason was, well, Freddy Vs Jason.A lot of fun not to be taken at all seriously  ), but there was a specific style and feel to the eight  Paramount features that was never quite fully recaptured after they sold the rights. 

[GiveMeGore]

Jason part 8 is awesome. Just like all of them.

[Splatterscribe]

Revisited Apt Pupil today. Possibly the most under appreciated and awesome Stephen King adaptation put to film. I've read the novella in Different Seasons and, honestly, I think the movie has a better ending.  It's a shame about Brad Renfro's death . Based on this movie alone he was a superb actor. And the pre Lord of the Rings Ian McKellan stole the film as the aging Nazi. If you've never seen this eerily effective psychological thriller, I highly recommend it. Superb movie.

[Lord J]

I saw Cabin in the Woods last weekend. Aside from a few minor issues that I was MORE. Than happy to forgive by the end of the film, it was awesome!

[Splatterscribe]

I saw Cabin in the Woods last weekend. Aside from a few minor issues that I was MORE. Than happy to forgive by the end of the film, it was awesome!

  I liked the film too, but I'm not so quick to forgive its sins. It wasn't nearly as original as it's being heralded as and that ending was atrociously executed.  The concept of horror fiction manifesting as reality to the extent that it could conceivably bring about the destruction of humankind based on the of the desires of the audience  was also the core premise behind  John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness almost twenty years ago (not to mention Wes Craven's New Nightmare) . The difference here is that Whedon played it more for satire instead of as a straight horror film, which is actually really ironic because-  in one ten minute sequence that closes out In the Mouth of Madness, where Sam Neill walks inside of a theater and watches the film adaptation of the title novel  - Carpenter's film  managed to score more darkly comic satirical points then all of Cabin by having said movie within a movie be revealed via clips to be the actual movie we've been watching for the last ninety minutes,while also managing to end on a much more accomplished nihilistic note.   That's how you work meta-fiction...and Carpenter managed to make the thing scary to boot, an area where Cabin was altogether lacking.

Heres what I think happened -  Cabin in the Woods was a good movie. Not particularly frightening but one hell of a fun, witty ride nonetheless.  But because of a dearth in high quality, original horror cinema as of late, reaction to it was blown way, way out of proportion and it was given more credit than it really earned. I don't think the ending had any of the cleverness people are reading into it..I thought it was a tacked  on cop out written by someone who had no idea how in the hell to wrap up their otherwise entertaining if  non scary flick. I do like the film and it was very clever in many regards, but it isn't the game changing rewrite of the horror standard people have made it out to be.


 

[Lord J]

I guess that was one of the minor benefits from having a computer that was out of commission for a number of months... I missed a lot of horror hype. I only read one review prior to seeing the movie & generally avoided or just plain missed most pre-release news saying yay or nay. From the premise or synopsis I had remembered, I wasn't expecting anything either scary or even serious for all that matter.

So I guess at the end of the day, I had to tip my hat to what I thought was a clever setup & an favorably over-the-top finale to a movie that I had expected to only be a comedic-horror ode to the b-movies of yesteryear. (basically, I thought the movie was going to be like Hatchet, and was pleased to realize that it wasn't)

[GiveMeGore]

Mothers Day (2012)

Caught this badboy yesterday afternoon. Pretty decent little flick. Simple home invasion film. Starts right up....and never really slows down till the end. The story is nothing new. They threw in a bunch of small story lines to keep you watching but like I said, it's nothing you havent seen before. Pretty gory. But nothing compared to some of the other foreign home invasion efforts such as "Inside".

Check it out..... guarantee you won't be too disappointed. Supposedly it's a loose remake of the film with the same title..... never saw it though so I can't really elaborate....

[GiveMeGore]

Natures Grave. Caught this snooze fest over the weekend. A struggling couple decides to venture off into nature in hopes to work things out in their relationship (I think, that's the premise anyways) and nature starts fucking with them.

Really slow burn of a movie.....  but the cinematography with beautiful Austalian backdrops (I think it was Australia anyways) made for some pleasant shots. Really good ending but that's about as much praise as I can give. One creepy element worth mentioning. There's this huge Manatee that appears to be dead, that keeps on creeping closer and closer to the couple from the shore line. Till one morning he wakes up face to face with the thing. Pretty cool.

OH yeah....and it stars the mofo who playe Jesus in the Passion of the Christ. Poor bastard went from that to fucking Natures Grave. Haha.

*pretty funny story. The next morning after catching Nature Grave late night..... I went to the store, came out.....started to drive away and noticed a fucking bird was just chillin on my windshield, starring me in the eyes. Literally....I'm driving (in a parking lot, slowly, mind you) and the bird has no interest in flying away. After about 10-15 seconds, it finally decides he's had enough of my car. But after watching a movie in which the premise was animals in nature fucking with people, I couldnt help but laugh hysterically after that.

[BadKitty]

Natures Grave. Caught this snooze fest over the weekend. A struggling couple decides to venture off into nature in hopes to work things out in their relationship (I think, that's the premise anyways) and nature starts fucking with them.

Really slow burn of a movie.....  but the cinematography with beautiful Austalian backdrops (I think it was Australia anyways) made for some pleasant shots. Really good ending but that's about as much praise as I can give. One creepy element worth mentioning. There's this huge Manatee that appears to be dead, that keeps on creeping closer and closer to the couple from the shore line. Till one morning he wakes up face to face with the thing. Pretty cool.

OH yeah....and it stars the mofo who playe Jesus in the Passion of the Christ. Poor bastard went from that to fucking Natures Grave. Haha.

*pretty funny story. The next morning after catching Nature Grave late night..... I went to the store, came out.....started to drive away and noticed a fucking bird was just chillin on my windshield, starring me in the eyes. Literally....I'm driving (in a parking lot, slowly, mind you) and the bird has no interest in flying away. After about 10-15 seconds, it finally decides he's had enough of my car. But after watching a movie in which the premise was animals in nature fucking with people, I couldnt help but laugh hysterically after that.

I caught this a little while ago. I more or less agree - a few creepy elements, but overall not sure it was worth the time.  Jim Caviezel was a pretty convincing douchebag, tho. 

I also saw some gob of crap called Bleeding House, which I watched only because Vinnie Jones was in it.  O holy hell, I started washing the windows just to have something to occupy my mind while it was on.  Some bad Vin Diesel wannabe has to defeat the vampire king, who was his brother Vinnie.  Vinnie Jones needs to never, never, never try any form of American accent ever again - but at least his bad accent was entertaining.

[GiveMeGore]

Whens the last time anyone has seen Event Horizon? I caught this the other day for the first time in ages.....  pretty fucking cool little flick if I don't say so myself. I'm not a sci-fi guy by any stretch of the imagination, but I think Event Horizon blended the sci-fi stuff beautifully with horror elements. Other than the futuristic mumbo-jumbo-esk verbiage in the dialog here and there, I can't really come up with any other complaints. Sam Neill is always a good time too..... 

It actually kind of got me excited for Prometheus in a weird way. Consequently, put me in the mood to re-watch Alien as well.....   

[WL Paynecraft]

Bought it a couple weeks ago.  Outstanding.  One of my favorites.  There are a couple legitimately creepy moments in this movie.  VERY rare for a space movie.  I'm not a big "space movie" fan at all, but this works for me.

[BadKitty]

Bought it a couple weeks ago.  Outstanding.  One of my favorites.  There are a couple legitimately creepy moments in this movie.  VERY rare for a space movie.  I'm not a big "space movie" fan at all, but this works for me.

Love it.  I tend to catch it about once a year.  It is sort of the ultimate haunted house movie (space being the best response to "why don't you just effing leave?").  And (almost) no one does stupid horror movie crap like discover all their friends missing and then proceed to search by themselves, walking into dark rooms and calling "Billy?"  (I see characters doing that and I always want to call back "Jason?")  Nope.  Shit goes whiffy and the immediate response is "buddy system, and we're leaving."  Doesn't matter. 

My biggest gripe is that it rips off Kubrik's Shining so blatantly.  I mean, if you're gonna rip something off, you can do a hell of a lot worse, but still ... pretty distinctive, so it's not like no one's gonna notice.  overall, the stuff they elect to reference is pretty damn good - Don't Look now also springs to mind.  But it ain't subtle.

[Splatterscribe]

It's actually more like Sci-Fi/Horror, but  I finally got around to watching (uninterrupted) the granddaddy of the giant bug movies , 1954's classic Them!, about a colony of giant ants(mutated by the radiation resulting from early atomic bomb testing) which threaten humankind's dominance of earth.

Though the F/X are technically "dated' by today's standards, there's nothing cheesy about this one..this is a really, really good flick., suspenseful and well paced, with solid performances (including an appearance by James Arness , who would also play the titular monster in the original version of The Thing (from another world) ) and a surprising amount of violence for a film released at such a notoriously prudish time in our culture..there's no mystery surrounding the amount of damage the giant ants can do to a body in this flick.
 Considering how generally low tech the monsters in movies of that era tend to look, the giant mechanical ants they created are unexpectedly well designed . If any of you like the classic fifties genre flicks and have never seen this one, I highly recommend it.
 

[BadKitty]

OK, I saw Dark Shadows this week.

But I'm not sure what I think of it.  Except that Michelle Pfeiffer, who usually annoys me, totally rocks. 

The look of the movie is more subtle than Burton usually does, which I also liked.

But I'm not sure I liked the tone this one took, or Depp. Or what they did with Ava Green's character, though I did like her performance. 

[GiveMeGore]

Piranha 3DD (Piranha 2...I guess?)     anyways.....movie sucked salty ball sack. Caught this late night with a buddy of mine, hoping it would come anywhere near as cool as the Aja remake. Nope. Fucking god awful. We chucked a couple of times at lines here and there   "Oh dear Fuck"  had us rolling for a minute. Couple of decent gore scenes....but not really anything noteworthy. Little T&A...   just fucking stupid from start to finish. Pissed my comcast bill will be 7 dollars higher cuz of this shitshow of a mistake. I already told my buddy he owes me a 6 pack next time he strolls through or else I'm slapping his momma (he convinced me to order it)