Horror Movies

[Bear 1817]

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[Bear 1817]

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[Tokage 5930]

Girlfriend and I  tried to do the whole '1 horror movie a day' thing throughout October again this year. Only managed to get to around 28 movies in the end, but considering last year's attempt ended after exactly 2 (two), that's still an improvement.

 

These are the ones we watched (in random order):

 

Beyond the Darkness

Dollman vs Demonic Toys

Mystics in Bali

Burial Ground: Nights of Terror

Chopping Mall (rewatch)

Slugs (rewatch)

Leprechaun

Madhouse (the 1981 one)

The Dead Zone

Carnosaur

Killer Workout

Body Melt (rewatch)

The Stuff (rewatch)

Friday the 13th

Friday the 13th IV

Friday the 13th V

Friday the 13th VI

Friday the 13th VII

Friday the 13th VIII

Freddy vs Jason

Bride of Chucky

The Abominable Dr. Phibes

Basket Case 2

Basket Case 3

The Eye (the 2002 original)

Sleepaway Camp II

Necronomicon: Book of the Dead (rewatch)

Night of the Living Dead (Tom Savini remake)

 

There was no real set plan made in advance to select which movies we'd watch, I just decided to go with whatever I happened to already have lying around. In general, I can say that I enjoyed most of these in some way, as objectively clunky as some of these movies may have been. Many of them at least partially redeemed themselves either through good use of practical effects, a neat soundtrack or just straight up balls to the wall cheese (Burial Ground is legit one of the most absolutely ridiculous zombie films I've seen so far). The ones I ended up rewatching were movies I'd last seen nearly a decade ago, so I figured I'd give them another shot to see how they held up (spoiler: they held up pretty well).

After this semi-marathon through the majority of the Friday the 13th series (skipped parts 2 and 3 cuz I'd seen them relatively recently) I have to say I don't really get why part 8 is so hated. It's definitely a step down in comparison to the previous ones, and the whole 'lol we only actually get to Manhattan in the last 30 mins' thing was lame, but I still feel like Friday 5 and, hell, even the original, were simply less entertaining to me personally. 

The Basket Case sequels turned out to be way more fun than I initially anticipated. It's definitely a massive shift in tone in comparison to the original, but this kind of maximalist, over the top approach worked quite well for us. Same goes for Bride of Chucky, I can totally see why it didn't gel well with people, but I ended up appreciating this kind of more comedic approach considering Child's Play 3 didn't really work for me at all. 

I really liked The Dead Zone, but I legit do not see why it's labeled as a horror movie at all.

[Jigsaw9 6783]

10 hours ago, Tokage said:

Burial Ground is legit one of the most absolutely ridiculous zombie films I've seen so far

Shoutout to Burial Ground, totally mad (and underrated) zombie fun! 

 

Nice list btw. I wish I'd thought of something like this too, but alas, I totally forgot this year, lol. On a related note I had that 'Halloween movie night' with my friends and we did end up watching Terrifier. It was appreciated by at least one more person, so I call that a success.  

[Bear 1817]

Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror is just great in all of its awfulness. Awful in every way, still it has one of the most memorable scenes in all of cinema. That scene is just fucking nuts. 

[Bear 1817]

Since I missed out on my yearly October horror marathon, I decided I'd just do a 24 days of Christmas horror marathon or whatever instead. The goal is to watch a Christmas horror movie every single day up until Christmas. And as with Halloween, which I don't celebrate, I don't celebrate Christmas either. It's just another excuse to watch a lot of horror movies (and certain episodes of TV-series, as long as it's horror or dark, dark fantasy)

 

A Christmas Horror Story - An anthology film that consists of four short movies, as well as a story about an alcoholic radio DJ to keep it all together.

 

Unlike traditional anthology movies where each segment is told from A to Z before the next one starts, this jumpt back and forth between the four stories. And tbh, I wasn't too fond of the overlapping segments. Wish they'd just do one after another instead.

 

First story about the kids breaking into the school weren't all that. Not awful, but nothing special either. It's based around atmosphere, but with the segments being broken into loads of smaller ones and jumping back and forth the atmosphere isn't really there at all.

 

Second story is better about a police officer who takes his wife and kid out to chop down a tree for Christmas. This one is pretty funny, even though the story itself is a bit uneven.

 

Third story about the family who goes to the dad's aunt is really good. Just all around really cool. Krampus is the fucking man! The world needs more Krampus stories and movies.

 

Fourth story about Santa is the coolest. Just total batshit crazy story with a fucking badass Santa. By far the best segment.

 

You Better Watch Out aka Christmas Evil - A neat, forgotten gem of a slasher film. Atypical, psychological slasher with a surprisingly well-crafted story and loads of unique twist and turns in form of how it's shot, edited, written and how the cinematography and music is done. It's actually got a lot of depth and character, and unlike most slashers (which I fucking love btw!) you can actually analyze this and dig forth lots of good points and social commentary and such. Impressive stuff, although far from the funniest slasher ever.

 

Silent Night, Deadly Night aka Night of the Dark Full Moon - Proto-slasher from 1972, but filmed in 1970. While not very known, it's pretty good and it clearly was an influence on the slasher genre. This is basically a slasher though. It's slow, weird, poorly made in most ways and weirdly surreal, but the eerie atmosphere is incredible and makes up for all its flaws. It's set during Christmas, but it's not as Christmasy as the other movies.

[Bear 1817]

Tales from the Darkside season 3, Seasons of Belief - So first off, I've never really had the chance to get into Tales from the Darkside. I've seen a lot, but not everything and not chronologically. So Tales from the Darkside came first, and in that sense Tales from the Crypt is a bit of a rip-off. And yes, there were a lot series like this before these two, but these are a lot more similar to each other (pulpy horror with lots of cheese and black comedy) which is why I compare them.

One of the main differences is that Tales from the Crypt looks and feels way more expensive, and I am sure the budget was a lot higher too. So production values for most part.

 

Anyway, this is a Christmas episode set to Christmas Eve about a family where the kids are bored, and the parents decide to tell a story. It's really well-made and fun, even though the two child actors are so-so. But the atmosphere is great, the humour is great and so on. Only problem I have is the casting of the dad, or that he was the dad. He does fantastic, but the actor, E.G. Marshall, was something like 75 years old while the chick who plays his wife was 35 years old. Massive difference, and you can tell. He should've been the granddad or something instead. But other than that I don't have much to complain about. Overall really good and dark.

 

Inside No. 9 season 3, The Devil of Christmas - This is an anthology series I've never watched, but I read that it was good in the TV-series thread and realized it had a Christmas horror episode so it was just perfect. It's a very, very 70's episode which truly does look and feel like a 70's show, so they managed to capture that for real. The episode is cheesy and corny as fuck, about a film within the episode where the director of that film provide commentary (he is not the director of the episode) and it's really cool and fun. But at the core it's dark and twisted as fuck. I really liked this episode too!

[Jigsaw9 6783]

Went over to my friend yesterday and watched The Evil of Frankenstein. Classic Hammer horror, can't go wrong with it. To continue the streak, I saw The Revenge of Frankenstein today afternoon. Not as great  and entertaining as "The Evil..." imo, but still very cool. Might as well watch the rest of 'em now too, heh (I'd only ever seen the first one before this weekend).

 

Oh, and earlier last week we watched Slenderman with some pals. Terrible choice, but we knew what we were getting into. It was okay for a half-drunk watch while making fun of it. Not straight-up horror but we also watched I Still See You which was a cool premise disguised as a mediocre flick. Still better than Slenderman, I guess that's something...?

Edited December 10, 2018 by Jigsaw9

[Bear 1817]

X-Files, season 6: How the Ghosts Stole Christmas - A monster of the week-type of story, so I didn't need to re watch the entire series to re-watch this. It's not exceptional at all, but it's really fun for what it is. But it could've been a lot deeper and dug a bit more into the characters. But it's very enjoyable nonetheless. 

 

Alfred Hitchcock Presents, season 1: Back for Christmas - Very basic 50's mystery, but it's not bad at all. It's very cool, although we didn't really get a reason for what happened, and I believe it should've been. But it was very cool. Need to dig into this series sooner or later.

 

Silent Night, Deadly Night - Classic, mid-80's slasher that's pretty fun and pretty wild. Really dark too. Very much recommended for fans of cheap, cheesy slashers.

 

The Dorm That Dripped Blood - Cheap, cheesy and bad slasher from the early 80's, but very watchable and fun despite the majority of elements that makes this film (directing, acting, writing, cinematography and so on) is pretty awful. But I recommend this, despite it being far from as fun as Silent Night, Deadly Night.

 

Krampus - Both this and the classic Halloween flick Trick 'r Treat shows Michael Dougherty's amazing potential. He's just amazing, and Krampus is one of the 5 best Christmas movies ever. Fantastic atmosphere throughout. A modern classic!

[Bear 1817]

Don't Open Till Christmas - Edmund Purdom was a fantastic actor despite being rather unknown to most people, but he only ended up directing one film and there's a reason for that. This is a cheap exploitation slasher and there's not really any good to it, but I still enjoyed it quite a lot. For cheap thrills, laughs and general enjoyment of exploitation. Fun for what it is.

 

A Cadaver Christmas - A modern, low-budget Christmas zombie horror comedy. It's far from perfect, but I really enjoyed it nonetheless. As silly and dumb as it's fun.

 

Sint - Dutch Christmas horror movie about Sinterklaas, however he isn't too nice in this film. Despite some major flaws, such as some massive problems with the CGI (that horse running on the roof was at times cool as fuck, but out of sudden it turned into a major CGI mess for no reason whatsoever), but the story is cool, the special effects and gore are really nice with Sinterklaas looking exceptional and feeling both threatening and mean. Underrated and overlooked gem tbh.

Directed by Dick Maas who made cult classics such as De lift and Amsterdamned.

 

Rare Exports - Like Krampus this is a modern horror classic, and also one of the 5 best Christmas movie ever, no matter the genre. There's not really a single flaw throughout the film. It's got atmosphere, it's got characters, it's got a proper plot, it's got the effect, it's got cinematography, it's got cinematography. This is a proper good film like. Balancing perfectly between Carpenter-esque atmosphere and hilarious wit. Fantastic!

[Bear 1817]

All the Creatures Were Stirring - Anthology horror that is uneven as fuck. Kinda seemed like they had several good ideas, but didn't have enough money so they spent the majority of the budget on the one they thought would be best and just used leftovers for the rest.

 

All the Stockings Were Hung centers around a Christmas party at the office gone wrong. Basically a lame rip off of Saw, Cube and such.  Pretty meh.

Dash Away All were fantastic. Beautifully shot, well-acted and written and by far the best one in the movie.

All Through the House is another lackluster film. It's got one funny joke, but all around it's just not all that.

Arose Such a Clatter is the shortest of the films only clocking in at 7 minutes, and it's another meh.

In a Twinkling is clever, but lacks the talent to make it stand out. Good ideas and such though, but as all the budget went into Dash Away All they couldn't do much different.

 

 

 

 

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, season 1 episode 11: A Midwinter's Tale - A bit of a cheat maybe, but it's a stand-alone, monster of the week type of story so it works. The entire season was really good, and so was this. Great atmosphere, beautiful visual style and a good story. Wish it was a bit longer, but it was really good nonetheless.

 

 

Scary Little Fuckers - A short film clocking in on no more than 23 minutes, and it wears its inspirations on its sleeve. Gremlins, Gremlins, Gremlins, Gremlins and Gremlins were clearly an inspiration for the film. But it's a bit sleezier and dirtier, with a dirty, old dad who'd love to fuck his 15 year old song's friend, who gives his 14 year old son condoms for Christmas and so on. A bit cheap-looking at times, but all in all loads of fun. I was surprised at how fun it was.

 

Dead End - Low-budget horror movie that, at the time of its release, was a smash hit and with good reason. It's very simple and straight-forward, but extremely effective, much due to a strong cast lead on by Ray Wise and Lin Shaye. Absolutely worth your time!

 

Calvaire - Belgian arthouse horror that's slow, weird and mesmerizing. Not sure how much of a fan I was, I'm not sure if I understood it, but I did enjoy it to some degree. I think I would've enjoyed it more if I had known what it was. Wasn't really in the mood for this type of a film upon watching it. Weird movie. Interesting.

 

Noch pered Rozhdestvom - Christmas Eve - Russian fantasy/comedy from 1913. I thought it was supposed to be more on the horror side of things, but it really wasn't. Was more comedy than anything else. At times, especially in the scenes involving the demon or witches with the broom stick, it's actually no less than brilliant. But the mid-part of the film didn't do much for me. I wish it was more about the demon and the witches, because they nailed those things. 

 

 

[Bear 1817]

Twilight Zone, season 2 episode 11: The Night of the Meek - There's not much horror to be found here, but it's more of a fantasy-drama with quite an uplifting message and feeling to it. Dark and sad at times, sure, but the positivity of the episode trumps that. Got that nice, false Christmas spirit to it that everyone for some weird fucking reason think is a good thing. Good episode, tho.

 

Tales from the Darkside, season 2 episode 12: Monsters in My Room - A sweet little horror Christmas story about a kid whose step dad is a rather naughty man. Really good episode! Can't wait to dig into the rest of the show soon enough.

 

Wolf Cabin - Low-budget Finish short horror movie clocking in on about 40 minutes. Could've been decent, but the director chooses some incredibly cheap solutions to the problems and awful characterizations. Was looking forward to this, but was very, very disappointed. Makes the dumbest slashers of the 80's seem like movies that'll make your IQ incredibly high. That's how stupid this was, and not in a good way either. 

[Bear 1817]

A Blade in the Dark - Lamberto Bava was approached and asked to make a mini-series, and so he did, but the mini-series was deemed to violent for Italian TV and so he cut it and released it as A Blade in the Dark. A Blade in the Dark is a tightly written giallo with lots of atmosphere, a great soundtrack, an interesting and good plot and some top, top notch suspense. A must see for fans of giallos.

 

I've said it before and I'll gladly say it again, Lamberto Bava would never reach the heights of his father,  Mario Bava, but he was still a fantastic director and is proper underrated like. Cannot believe he isn't more appreciated among horror and exploitation fans. Like how can you enjoy horror and giallo and not love the shit out of A Blade in the Dark, Macabre, Demons, Demons 2, Delirium and Until Death (as well as other of his made for TV-movies), or love action and exploitation and not love Blastfighter? Sorry, but that makes no sense whatsoever. 

[Bear 1817]

Ended my 24 days of Christmas horror with Gremlins and Black Christmas, two of the best movies in their own genres. One is charming, fun, heartwarming and incredibly atmospheric while the other is dark, cold and atmospheric. Two brilliant films. Simple as that!

 

 

You Might Be the Killer - We've had meta-horror movies in bucket loads over the past decade or so, and this is another addition to the meta movies. Is it any good? Hell fucking yeah! It's a meta-slasher and it does things hella lot different from every other meta-slasher I've seen. Self-aware, but not too self-aware. It got plenty jokes, but it never ends up relying on the jokes. This is, to the core, a horror movie with comedy thrown in here and there. And at times, I found myself laugh out loud. So, it's cheap and you can easily see that Brett Simmons and his crew isn't the best at their jobs. The lighting is seriously off at times and so on, but I can see past that as most other things are top notch. Really fun! Do watch!

 

Dead Heat - As far as 80's action movies goes, this is up there with Big Trouble in Little China in form of weirdness. It's a really odd mix of genres, it's all over the place and way over the top. But it's so cool, so fun and so charming. One of the huge, hidden jewels of the 80's. And like I said, a weird mix. Buddy cop action-comedy mixed with horror and sci-fi. How fucking weird is that? It's really weird, it's really fun and it's damn fucking awesome. Must watch for fans of cheese.

[Bear 1817]

Cold Ground - Really cool and clever found footage horror about a bunch of journalists hiking through the woods up the mountain with a couple of tour guides and an investigator. It's not original, but it's really cleverly made and it sets up the atmosphere in a brilliant way. Slow-burn, but well worth it at the end. Great film!

 

Halloween - Let me just start off by saying how much I hate this film. We got an original Halloween, a remake named Halloween and now a sequel to the original film called Halloween? What the actual fuck? The stupidity of film makers and producers, man.

 

Anyway, I didn't expect much from this but this was actually really good. Yes, there's plot holes and people make stupid decisions, but hey it's a slasher so what do you expect? Great atmosphere, Michael Myers was awesome and shit was fairly brutal. Yeah, really liked this film.

[Bear 1817]

Critters  - Critters is often dismissed as just a Gremlins rip off, but it truly isn't. It's so much more than that. There's plenty of similarities, but the humor and entire tone of the film is entirely different. Horror comedy with blasting one-liners, a great cast and beyond superb special effects. There's nothing to not like here. Fantastic and sadly underrated film.

 

Bird Box - Another home run for Netflix! It's not original, and it is NOT a rip off of A Quiet Place. It's a great, atmospheric post-apocalyptic horror film with lots of mysticism thrown in and they don't force every little bit of info down your throat. Lovely setting, beautiful cinematography and massive amounts of suspense. Great film!

 

Not seen A Quiet Place yet tho. Will soon enough.

[Bear 1817]

Fair Game - Ozploitation rape and revenge action. No actual rape involved, but it's about a woman who's getting terrorized by three male rednecks, so it's close enough. It's trashy exploitation, but like a lot of these classic 70's and 80's Ozploitation films it's got an awesome setting and is filmed in a really cool way. Filled with loads of tension and suspense. I do wish it was even more violent, gory and bloody, but I can overlook that as everything else is near mint. Great film!

 

A Tarantino-favourite this, as far as I can remember from the more than brilliant documentary "Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation!".

[Bear 1817]

The Day of the Triffids - Classic 60's sci-fi horror which contains much of the same atmosphere and suspense as other 50's and 60's sci-fi horror movies like The Last Man on Earth, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, War of the Worlds, Invaders from Mars and so on. I've never read the book it is adapted from, but apparently it's not a very faithful adaption. But that's fine, because this is an awesome movie filled with a superb cast, cool story, great monsters and special effects and a great atmosphere with lots of tension and suspense. Superb film!

[Bear 1817]

Brutal Relax - Another short movie by the people behind the great short film Fist of Jesus. Like Fist of Jesus this is only 15 minutes long, but it does manage a lot in those 15 minutes. It's 15 minutes of laugh out loud moments, silliness and brutal trash. It's not deep or complex, it's super simple and straight-forward action-horror-comedy. And I did laugh out loud, with the absolute best part a part you'd never see in a big Hollywood production. That was a perfect moment!

 

If you like Army of Darkness, Bad Taste, Brain Dead and similar films, then this is highly recommended.

 

Gonna watch a few of their other shorts when I get home. They've truly got a big potential.

 

The Earth Rejects Him - Dark and twisted 20 minutes Lovecraftian tale that's actually pretty good, but I wasn't too fond of the super digital look of this one. It just didn't look gritty enough. But I did like it and the concept is really cool.

 

The Window Into Time - Another 15 minutes Lovecraftian tale of twisted darkness and weirdness. Again, not too fond of the super digital look, but the story and execution is really good and cool. Totally recommended!

[Bear 1817]

Can't get enough of Lovecraft at the moment, so I am just watching whatever I can find.

 

Masters of Horror season 1, Dreams in the Witch-House - Not Stuart Gordon's best Lovecraft adaption, but a very cool adaption nonetheless. Great and freaky atmosphere and some really nice Dario Argento-esque visuals. Very cool.

 

Click - Eh. Didn't get any Lovecraftian feeling fromt his at all, and I don't think it was very good either. The kids does a good job, tho. Glad it lasted for only 15 minutes.

 

Haselwurm - Another 15 minute long short, and again I'm not feeling it. Got one absolutely BRILLIANT scene, but other than that it didn't give me much. Not bad tho.

 

The Shadow Out of Time - Pretty cool film, but it suffers from an incredibly low budget. And that's easy to see. The green-screen work isn't too good, and seeing our main guy in front of different pictures doesn't work too well. But it's still got a cool and very Lovecraftian atmosphere.

 

Brico Killer - Another short by Adrián Cardona, one of the guys behind Brutal Relax. Not nearly as good, but still a fun way to spend 20 minutes. Violent and brutal. Fun.

 

[Bear 1817]

Anna and the Apocalypse - What do you get when you mix a horror comedy with zombies, really likable characters, a solid-as-fuck plot, great special effects and and lots of blood and gore with High School Musical? You get Anna and the Apocalypse, a High School Musical-type of film for adult and older teens. Poppy musical numbers pops up every now and then, and it has that type of a feeling. But it's really fun and charming with likable characters and stuff. Highly recommended!

 

 

Ella Hunt as Anna is brilliant btw. What a performance from the youngster.

 

Hagazussa - Hagazussa is no less than the graduation film of director Lukas Feigelfeld, a young austrian director who only had some short films to his name before this. Which let me tell you is really fucking impressive.

 

Hagazussa is a bit of a unique film tbh. If you take one part The Witch and one part Valhalla Rising, dip it into some thick fucking syrup and drop some crazy amounts of LSD on top of it and you're getting close to what this film as like. Slow as fuck and really damn trippy.

 

There's not much dialogue, it's filled with long, beautiful nature shots and a truly impressive soundtrack by MMMD.

 

This ain't for everyone. I'd say maybe 1 out of a 100 can find something to enjoy here. But if you're into slow, atmospheric pieces and ain't much in need of lots of dialogue, quick cuts, action and a strong narrative film then this is for you. Truly excellent, unique and special.

[Tokage 5930]

Los Parecidos / The Similars (2015) - This was a pretty nice one. Very strong old school sci-fi vibes. It really does feel like an adaptation of something from a pulp magazine. The setting is classic, a bunch of people end up stuck together in a particular location  due to a storm and more and more weird shit starts happening to them. The actual nature of the weirdness is what makes things unique. While the concept is vaguely similar in some aspects to material by Philip K. Dick, it's not something you see done very often in modern horror. It's no 10 outta 10, but it's fun! Recommended for people who dig stuff like The Twilight Zone 

[Jigsaw9 6783]

1 hour ago, Tokage said:

Los Parecidos / The Similars (2015) 

I watched this a few months ago, great flick! Didn't expect much, but it really impressed me.

 

Lately I saw two horror movies with some friends, with some interesting results. While I expected the Indonesian Satan's Slaves (Pengabdi Setan) to be amazing, it was strangely baffling and ridiculous for the most part. Not in a good way. It had its moments but ultimately we either found ourselves being bored or laughing at stuff that was supposed to be serious (there was particularly one hilarious 'scare' but I suspect the filmmakers intentionally made it funny, that was a good one).

 

The other one we watched afterwards was Incident in a Ghostland made by the writer/director of the infamous Martyrs but I didn't have any high expectations... and sure enough, it turned out to be a pretty awesome flick! Excellent tension and visuals, an intriguing story and some neat twists and turns. Also, I only realized at the end that Myléne Farmer starred in this, haha. All in all, very solid horror (not as shocking or cathartic  as Martyrs but still a good one).

[Bear 1817]

Where did you guys see Los Parecidos? Been looking forward to this since its release in 2016, and for about 2 years I searched for it almost daily but I didn't find it so I kinda forgot all about it.

 

Kinda expect a 9 or 10/10 type of film.

[Bear 1817]

On 1/22/2019 at 4:48 PM, Jigsaw9 said:

I watched this a few months ago, great flick! Didn't expect much, but it really impressed me.

 

Lately I saw two horror movies with some friends, with some interesting results. While I expected the Indonesian Satan's Slaves (Pengabdi Setan) to be amazing, it was strangely baffling and ridiculous for the most part. Not in a good way. It had its moments but ultimately we either found ourselves being bored or laughing at stuff that was supposed to be serious (there was particularly one hilarious 'scare' but I suspect the filmmakers intentionally made it funny, that was a good one).

 

Looking forward to this tbh. You seen the original one? It's said to be a prequel, but everyone I know have called it a loose remake of the 1982 classic Pengabdi setan which I highly recommend. Pengabdi setan again is an unofficial loose remake of Phantasm.

 

Always up for Indonesian horror. They should produce more because the quality's extremely high for most part.

Edited January 24, 2019 by Bear