Horror Movies

[Bear 1817]

Under the Shadow - How frightening and terrifying can a PG-13 film be, you ask? Well, this films shows us that it can scare even the toughest shitless. This Iranian horror film blends drama and horror into a terrifying experience. It's rather slow-burning, it's simple and it's low-budget, but it's so very effective in its simplicity. It's as intelligent as it is scary, and I can appreciate that. That's a plus. The atmosphere, the cinematography, the way the film changes throughout. Brilliant! Top this with a breathtaking performance by Narges Rashidi and you've got yourself a real treat.

 

In some ways it reminds me of The Babadook, but it's got as much in common with both Repulsion and Pan's Labyrinth.

 

There is also plenty of symbolism and social commentary going on throughout the film, and some of it might feel like it's forced upon you, but it's well-done and doesn't get in the way of anything.

 

Say what you want about films like It Follows, You’re Next, Berberian Sound Studio, The House Of The Devil, The Babadook, Kill List, The Witch, A Field in England, Martyrs, Amer, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, The Strange Colour of Your Body's Tears and so on, but all these films, even The House Of The Devil which feels like an authentic late 70's-early 80's horror films, has brought something new and fresh to the horror genre in the 21's century. You don't have to like them, but that's the truth. And Under the Shadow is one more of those. Fresh, unique and amazing.

 

Hands down!

 

[Tokage 5930]

Watched a bunch of classic horror these past few days.

 

Maniac (original version) Shotgun to the head scene and the ending scene both made the movie for me. Sleazy and gritty atmosphere to the max. Sweet as fuck soundtrack too. Should look into the remake w/ Frodo as well, I've heard it's worthwhile.

The New York Ripper Killer speaking with a duck voice goes around NYC murdering woman in various brutal ways. Lucio Fulci movie, you should know what to expect. Quite enjoyable giallo sleaze, some nice visual bits, visceral gore and lots of attractive girls. No reinvention of the wheel here, but what it does, it does well. 

Inferno Sequel to Suspiria. I feel like Suspiria overall had a stronger eerie atmosphere, and I also feel like Suspiria was a lot more coherent/cohesive overall (and that's saying something, considering that movie's dreamlike nature...). Still, I REALLY enjoyed this one as well. The visual style's still just so deliciously over the top and stylized, I love it. Soundtrack's great as usual as well. Particularly enjoyed the scene with the rats and the hotdog vendor running across water, very eerie nightmare quality to it.

[Takadanobabaalien 3607]

I just watched Takashi Miike's "Audition" and I loved it.

Do anyone here have any recommendation for other movies he's done?

 

(With exception for Koroshiya Ichi/ichi the killer). 

[Bear 1817]

Visitor Q is really good if you'd like to watch something quite fucked up.

 

His remake of 13 Assassins is very good, but the original is way better.

 

Gozu and Foduh are both masterpieces.

Full Metal Yakuza is great.

 

Three Extremes are excellent.

 

Both Crows Zero filmes are great, but a bit too boyband-esque for my taste. Always wish that they was a bit tougher around the edges with less pretty boys.

 

And that's all I bother now on my phone.

 

He's got some remakes to his name and while some, like 13 Assassins, are very good, the originals are in all cases way, way better. Always watch the originals first.

 

 

Will come back later. Magnificent, unique director who's really managed to find his own style.

 

[Bear 1817]

Since I'm home I'll throw in a few more recommendations for Takashi Miike:

 

The Happiness of the Katakuris

Really weird mixture of horror, comedy and musical. Surreal, odd and weird remake of Kim Jee-woon's cult classic The Quiet Family. This is actually one of the best remakes ever, just so it's said. It's different from the original, but at the same time very familiar (if you've seen the original).

 

Dead or Alive: Hanzaisha

Ultra-violent, bizarre, wild and fucking crazy. Yeah, watch this gem of a film!

 

The Bird People in China

While not my favourite film, this is probably the man's best films as far as script, dialogue, characters and direction goes. It's quite the opposite of what he's known for, but it shows that he's got some serious skills.

 

Deadly Outlaw: Rekka

One of his many yakuza films, and a great one as well. It's a very typical Miike film. Over the top and wild. The entire soundtrack to this film is Satori by Flower Travellin' Band, which is cool as the album is a proper masterpiece.

 

Shinjuku Triad Society, Rainy Dog and Ley Lines (also known as Black Triad trilogy)

Some very early Miike crime films. Classics!

 

Graveyard of Honor

Great remake of Kinji Fukasaku's 1975 film of the same name. If you've not seen the original I would recommend getting into that one first, but this is a great remake of a classic yakyza film.

 

Sukiyaki Western Django

A film you'll most likely hate or love. Doesn't seem to be anything inbetween in Miike's western, which combines plenty elements of Sergio Leone's Dollars trilogy and Akura Kurosawa's Yojimbo. It's in English (or, engrish if you want), and that's something that bothers a lot of people as the majority of actors seems to concentrate more on pronnouncation than acting. I like it a lot, and the engrish just adds to the fun.

 

Young Thugs: Nostalgia

Brutal violence, comedy. Yeah, a very Miike-esque film from the late 90's.

 

Young Thugs: Innocent Blood

I believe I have seen this film been called "a violent comedy" and a "cinematic bloodbath", which is spot on.

 

Yakuza Apocalypse

Absurdity level 10,5. Vampire yakuzas, a guy dressed up as a frog. A love/hate type of film.

 

Agitator

Yakuza! Great film.

 

But as you can see, there's a lot to choose from. From around 95-04 (or something) he seemed to be obsessed with yakuza tales. Often very bleak, gritty and brutal, but a lot of them are quite different from eachother nonetheless.

 

He's a great director with his own thing going on. But the further back you go, the darker, grittier and more fucked up it gets in many ways. His characters, plot and overall look used to be a lot less slick and polished. There's something so very perverse about the way he shows and present his violence on screen, and I absolutely love and adore it .

 

If I had to recommend a few to begin with:

 

Fudoh: The New Generation

Gozu

The Happiness of the Katakuris

Dead or Alive: Hanzaisha

The Bird People in China

Shinjuku Triad Society

Visitor Q

 

Not necessary because these are my favourites (even though some of these are his best), but because they all are great films, but they show some very different sides about him.

[Tokage 5930]

Today I watched Before I Wake. The director apparently doesn't really consider it to be a 'proper' horror film, and neither do I. It's more of a fantasy/drama with some mild sprinkles of """spooky""" scattered throughout. I also have to admit that I honestly thought it was kind of rubbish. For starters, it was somewhat too sentimental for my tastes, and moreover there were a bit too many holes. Also, the female protagonist didn't deserve the 'happy' end she got imo considering her actions earlier on

[plastic_rainbow 2162]

 

this doesn't look bad at all, i'm pretty excited~

[Bear 1817]

 

 

I can't wait to see this film. Supposedly a big, fat homage to 60's horror and I am hearing rumors that it nails absolutely everything from direction og cinematography to acting, atmosphere, set and costumes. It sounds great and I have faith that this can match the very best of post-80's horror films, and I expect it to be up there with The House of the Devil and The Call of Cthulhu. Can't fucking wait!

[Tokage 5930]

Finally got around to watching the original Fright Night yesterday. Up 'til now I'd only seen the remake back when it first came out. I feel like in this particular case the original and remake are both definitely worth watching, and neither is necessarily worse than the other. The original's a good bit of typical '80s fun, and you just can't beat that particular atmosphere. It makes me nostalgic for an era I wasn't even alive in lol

[Bear 1817]

I'm not big on the Fright Night remake. Decent for sure, but it just feels so unnecessary. It doesn't offer enough freshness for me, despite some great performances.

 

 

I brought this back from my mom:

 

 

 

The quality of the release looks a bit cheap and the quality of the prints ain't the best, but this is a fun pack. Features everything from shit like Atom Age Vampire, Creature from the Haunted Sea, The Screaming Skull, Swamp Women, Bloodlust and The Beast of Yucca Flats to super classic films like Metropoilis, Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens, Night of the Living Dead, The Phantom of the Opera, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Carnival of Souls and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. So you've got a bit of everything in here, but the majority of these films are, if not good, at least really fucking entertaining.

 

 

http://www.imdb.com/list/ls000810176/?start=1&view=detail&sort=user_rating:desc&defaults=1

I wonder if this is that list. It looks that way.

 

 

Mill Creek got a lot of interesting releases, from horror to sci-fi to martial arts to crime to fantasy to westerns and whatnot. I really want a lot of these because they're full of cult, classics, cheese and crap. But the quality of the prints is poor, the non-english films are dubbed and so on.

 

Take their martial arts releases Iron Fist Frenzy, Way of the 5 Finger Death Strike, The Great Impersonators, Kickin' It Shaolin Style and Flying Fists of Kung Fu. These boxes are filled with obscure and hard to find gems of both good and awful films, but they are, to my knowledge, dubbed. That's a big problem. Same as with the Wu-Tang Collections. It's dubbed and they look like they're transferred from old, shitty VHS tapes that's watched to death.

[Tokage 5930]

FINALLY got around to watching Train to Busan a couple of days ago. Considering how tired I kind of am of the whole zombie genre at this point, I was actually quite pleasantly surprised by the movie. Sure, it doesn't do anything super-revolutionary, but it's definitely a very, very solid movie. I was genuinely surprised by how tolerable the child actress was too, kid actors usually have a pretty strong potential to be absolutely obnoxious imo. Most of the characters, while not very fleshed out (still enough to at least give you some impression of them, though, so they're not entirely 'flat as a board') were still likeable (or 'love-to-hateable' in case of the old guy). You can pretty much guess who'll live and who'll die halfway through the movie, but even still, there were some very cool and tense moments sprinkled throughout. 

On that note, anyone here seen the live action adaptation of the manga I Am A Hero? How does it compare to this one? The manga itself is pretty god tier in my opinion, but idk much about the movie

[Licio123 181]

I liked both. Train to Busan is more serious, while I Am a Hero is pure B-movie goodness.

[Bear 1817]

Decided to watch every 50 films in the Horror Classics box chronologically since I've already seen, if not all, the majority of the films anyway. So the sub-par quality of some of these don't really matter.

 

 

Carnival of Souls

The box set kicks off with an absolute beast of a film. Carnival of Souls is Herk Harvey's only feature film as a director, and he produced, co-wrote, directed and acted this masterpiece which looks, sounds and feels like a billion bucks. It was not a success on its release and did not gain much attention at all, but its since then gained status as a cult classic and the film is more often than not feature on lists of scariest films, and it's inspired people like George A. Romero, David Lynch, Roman Polanski and James Wan among others.

 

But hey, I mentioned that it looks, sounds and feels like a million bucks, so let's just start with the budget: 33 000. 33fuckingK. Compare that to Night of the Living Dead's 114 000, The Innocents' 43 0000, The Haunting's 1 400 000, Cat People's 134 000 or Peeping Tom's 135 000. In other words, this is as low-budget as it gets. Made from close to nothing compared to other films of the era. But it surely does feel like a big-budget film. But the problem was never it feeling like a low-budget, but it being slightly more artistic and slow-burning than other horror films of the era. It's closer to an Ingmar Bergman film than classic horror films. It's just different.

 

The film is beautifully shot in B&W. The cinematography is simple but effective, and the entire film is almost free of any special-effects whatsoever, and instead relying 100% on creating atmosphere via cinematography, acting and more than anything, an organ score that sounds like the soundtrack to a 1920's horror film. The film is eerie as fuck, very surreal and dreamlike, and that's basically what makes this so god damned great.

 

If you're into atmospheric horror films, then this is for you. But you do need a bit of patience, because it is kinda slow. But it's never boring. Masterpiece!

 

9/10

[Bear 1817]

Atom Age Vampire

The second film is Atom Age Vampire, a film that is on the opposide side of the scale compared to Carnival of Souls. Atom Age Vampire has a beautiful poster and a really cool title, but the problem is that the film has nothing to do with vampires whatsoever. It's just a poor translation of it's italian title, which would translate to Seddok, the Heir of Satan if done right.

 

Anyway, Atom Age Vampire, directed by Anton Giulio Majano, is a complete shitfest from start to end. The script is poor, the direction awful and the acting worse. Oh, did I mention the godawful editing? Or dubbing? Well, let's see it from another way and point out the good parts in this film, because that is a lot easier: the special-effects looks cool and whenever the monster grabs a woman it looks kinda cool. And Susanne Loret who's beautiful. And that's it.

 

In other words, this is a bad film, but it's not bad enough to be considered so-bad-it's-good. It's just bad. Really bad. So why the fuck do I like it? I don't know, to be honest. I really shouldn't, but as with the majority of pre-1980's horror films, I just find it entertaining. There's something about these old films that please me no matter how bad they are. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone, but this 60's euro-sleazy, trash, whatever, does in fact please me.

 

6/10

[Bear 1817]

Creature from the Haunted Sea

A film with a great title and a beautiful poster. This just gotta be good, we all thought., right? Well, it fucking isn't. Creature from the Haunted Sea is a cheap flick partially produced and directed by Roger Corman, a personal favourite of mine.  And when I say he's a personal favourite I mean it. He's got so much shit on his filmography, but he's also got some absolute stunning and classic films to his name, and the way he ran his business is impressive as fuck, and the way he gave new faces a fair chance, only to make money himself of course, is easy to adore.

 

But like I said, he's got a crapload of crap in his filmography, and Creature from the Haunted Sea is one of those. A real shitfest. Creature from the Haunted Sea was shot back-on-back in  Puerto Rico with two other Roger Corman-produced flicks, The Last Woman on Earth and Battle of Blood Island, from a script that had previously been filmed as Naked Paradise and Beast from Haunted Cave, just slightly rewritten. Roger Corman had some unused scenes left from The Last Woman on Earth and just decided to make a new film based on those. Simple as that.

 

Creature from the Haunted Sea is an attempt at making a horror comedy, spoofing the masterpieces that is Creature from the Black Lagoon and The Lady from Shanghai, as well as standard spy and gangster flicks. The film is all over the place. The horror is lacking, the comedy is pure fucking shit, and the entire film is, as already stated, a shitfest from begining to end. The quality of the pictures itself is poor and the sound is godfuckingawful.

 

But again, like with Atom Age Vampire, there is something about it that I just can't seem to dislike. Or, there is something that actually pleases me, but I can't tell what.

 

Complete shitfest only for the weird.

 

6/10

 

And the monster looks like the cookie monster, and at least that's a plus. As cheap and dumb as the monster looks, I gotta admit I really like the look of it.

 

Edited April 21, 2017 by Bear

[Bear 1817]

Nightmare Castle

Up until the release of this, Mario Caiano, the director of the film, had only made some sword-and-sandal and western films. Nightmare Castle sees him move into the big world of horror and plays alone like a tribute to other gothic horror films of the time. Black Sunday and Castle of Blood are two of the films which comes to mind, and like this, they also star the excellent Barbara Steele. But this time she plays a dual role, which is nice as it just gives us more of her beautiful face and incredible presence on screen.

 

Nightmare Castle is a real underrated film. It's poorly written, but Barbara Steele, Paul Muller, Helga Liné and Marino Masé are doing a real good job, and the atmosphere is really good, and it is these things that pretty much saves the film. Or, they don't save the film, they make the film what it is. Along with Ennio Morricone's brilliant soundtrack.

 

If you're new to the subgenre of gothic horror it's not the first film I'd tell you to watch, but if you are familiar with the genre I'd recommend this a lot.

 

8/10

[Bear 1817]

Black Dragons

This is, like many of the other films of this "classic horror" box, not a classic, and it's not a horror film either. Elements of horror there is, but it is mainly a standard thriller.

 

The entire film is a mess. Poorly directed and awfully scripted, but Bela Lugosi and Clayton Moore gives us some grand performances as usual. But the film isn't very good, but it's short clocking in at 65 minutes and the pacing is fairly good throughout the entire film. And there's something about the plot that is quite thrilling, actually.

 

Bad but alright!

 

6/10

[Tokage 5930]

Watched a couple the last few days.

 

The Neon Demon: Alright, I'll admit it does look really good and all, but where's the fucking plot? There's at least the vague sense that the movie's trying to build up to something in the beginning, but then somewhere halfway through it all just unravels and ends up feeling more like a collection of random events strung together. Also, how is this a horror movie or a thriller in any way exactly? It doesn't feel like anything TRULY horrifying happens until like the last quarter of the movie. I guess the movie's main message is supposed to be something like 'the fashion industry is inhuman and it will chew people up and spit them out without a second glance' or something like that? Wow, truly revolutionary and profound, never heard that opinion before in this day and age :^) 

I'll still give it a 6/10, mostly because I'm always easily swayed by stylish visuals, but.. eh.

Oh, one more thing: the dialogue feels like it was written by somebody who's never actually had a conversation with a real person before

 

End of the Line: Crazy Christian cultists start massacring people in order to 'save' them. Movie follows a bunch of people trying to survive the attack in an underground subway system. Has some pretty okay gore and special effects work. Waste of some pretty cool creature designs though, terribly underused. I felt like there's sort of a shift in tone in the movie between like the first 20 or 30 minutes and the rest of it, and apparently other people who've reviewed it also seem to feel the same. Personally, I was actually almost feeling the first part, but things start to fall apart rapidly as the movie goes on. One of my main gripes w/ the movie is that it pulls the LOL LOUD NOISE SPOOKY JUMPSCARE shtick just a bit too often for my tastes. Moreover, some of the acting is... questionable, to say the least. It also kind of annoys me that it FEELS like the movie is setting up potentially interesting characters (ie the reluctant middle-aged cultist) and then ends up not really doing anything with them at all... Also, I found the finale to be utterly ridiculous. I guess this is an okay way to pass the time when you're REALLY bored, but at the same time, I feel like I could've spent that time much better... I guess its like a 4.5 / 10 or something

 

We Are What We Are (2013): Apparently this is supposed to be a remake of a Mexican movie, although quite a few details have supposedly been changed. Since I haven't actually seen the original, I can't pass any judgement on whether or not this remake is any good by comparison. Still, taken on its own, I REALLY enjoyed it. Not exactly 'horror' in the conventional sense, I feel it's more somewhere between a thriller and drama. Movie's about a reclusive family living in a small town somewhere in the US, trying to cope with the death of the family matriarch and carrying on with the family traditions. Unfortunately, those traditions involve.. cannibalism. Trouble's approaching both from within the family and from the outside, as the daughters become reluctant to continue the family traditions (much to their increasingly deranged father's dismay) and a persistent storm has started to uncover the plot of land where the family's victims are buried. Overall, where the movie really shines in my opinion is the acting. Almost all of the actors (except the little boy, because lol child actors) perform REALLY well. Also, there's this constant slow-burning, all-encompassing gloomy atmosphere that starts with the torrential downpour in the beginning and doesn't really let up. 

7/10

Edited April 23, 2017 by Tokage

[Jigsaw9 6783]

The Void - FUCK. YES. Imagine a grim mashup of Prince of Darkness and Fulci's The Beyond sprinkled with some Lovecrafticism and body horror. Awesome stuff.

[Tokage 5930]

Been going through the Argento movies that have been sittin' on my HDD lately over the weekend:

 

The Bird With The Crystal Plumage - 6/10

Four Flies on Grey Velvet - 6.5/10

Opera - 7/10

 

All three were enjoyable. Tbh tho, I've never actually watched any Argento film I haven't enjoyed on at least some level so far, but then again, I haven't really explored his post-'80s output  at all, so there's that. I've heard he gets worse and worse as time goes on, but idk.

Opera was probably my favorite out of these three. The aesthetics, the kills, the soundtrack, the setting and the finale all made it a great experience overall. Sure, there's the token shoddy acting/dubbing from time to time, but I've kind of gotten used to that stuff at this point lmao.

I accidentally spoiled the ending for The Bird With The Crystal Plumage for myself before I actually even got around to watching the film, and I feel like that kind of took away from the whole experience. Still a good movie though, just not as good as some of Argento's later stuff imo.

As for Four Flies on Grey Velvet...  I fucking hate that creepy mask the killer's wearing in some scenes, yikes. Great soundtrack, as usual (that seems to be pretty consistent as far as Argento's work goes lol)

 

Cat O'Nine Tails is the only movie out of Argento's 'classic' giallo era I still have yet to watch, I'll try to get around to it ASAP. Not sure if I'll give his later material a go, though.

[Bear 1817]

Wow, those scores are shockingly low. The Bird With The Crystal Plumage are one of the best giallos ever if you ask me, and I'll give it 10/10 any day of the week. Absolute perfection. Love the shit out of Four Flies on Grey Velvet and Opera as well.

 

As far as post-Opera Argento goes I'd say that The Church, Two Evil Eyes, Trauma and The Stendhal Syndrome are worth a watch or two, and maybe the two episodes he did for Masters of Horror, but these are mostly for die hard fans of Argento.

 

And Cat O'Nine Tails is a proper underrated gem. Stunning film.

Edited April 30, 2017 by Bear

[Jigsaw9 6783]

I can vouch for The Church too, it's a pretty good movie from what I remember.

[Bear 1817]

Not sure why I mentioned The Church to be honest. It's not an Argento film. Great film nontheless, with hints of Bava, John Carpenter, Argento and more. Some clear Prince of Darkness influences.

[Licio123 181]

3 hours ago, Jigsaw9 said:

The Void - FUCK. YES. Imagine a grim mashup of Prince of Darkness and Fulci's The Beyond sprinkled with some Lovecrafticism and body horror. Awesome stuff.

 

This is great! It reminded me of Silent Hill, too.

[Bear 1817]

The Invisible Ghost

This is the second of Bela Lugosi's infamous "Monogram Nine" which saw Bela Lugosi appear in no less than 9 Sam Katzman produced films between 41-44. This was the first of them, but the second in the horror pack, with the first being Black Dragons.

 

Anyway, The Invisible Ghost stars a magnificent Bela Lugosi in a film with a plot as ridiculous as its absurd. But it works fairly well. Its weird, murky, bizarre and ghostly atmosphere really does the job here. And that's all it has for itself to be honest. Because the plot is poor and the execution worse, but the setting, which has a classic Old Dark House feeling to it, and the atmosphere created by Bela Lugosi, the setting, the way the film is shot and so on, is really nice.

 

Worth a watch for sure.

 

7/10