Horror Movies

[Tokage 5930]

I'm going to second in shilling Deep Red, Inferno, Tenebre, Phenomena and Opera at least. I haven't seen The Cat o' Nine Tails, Two Evil Eyes, Trauma or The Stendhal Syndrome yet, but they're on my watch list. Despite their status as genre classics, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage and Four Flies on Grey Velvet didn't do as much for me as those other ones.. Between those two I definitely liked the latter more, though. 

 

Recent watches:

Body Bags, horror anthology featuring 2 shorts directed by John Carpenter and 1 by Tobe Hooper. I personally feel like the first two segments (the Carpenter ones) were the best. The first is just a tense thrill ride set overnight at a gas station, and the second one is a hilarious story about a vain man's fear of going bald. The final segment felt just a tad TOO predictable, and even despite some of the nice gore effects and a solid performance by Mark Hamill it's my least favorite of the three. The frame bit featuring John Carpenter himself as the horror host is gold, by the way

 

Berberian Sound Studio, I see this listed as a horror film in several locations, but to me it just feels like 'British nerd gets bullied by Foreigners: The Movie'. David Lynch's influence is palpable here, as well as the creator's love for the italo-horror scene. Great soundtrack and some VERY great visuals, but I found the movie to be lacking in terms of an actual story. 

[plastic_rainbow 2162]

Thanks for the recs bear and tokage. I watched Phenomena the other day and enjoyed it. It may not be as visually pleasing as Suspiria, but it still had it's own special air. They were also some pretty awesome grotesque scenes, especially towards the end when shit got crazy. that pool of maggots and rotten bodies tho holy crap

Great film overall. It was fun to see what might have influenced the Clock Tower snes game too, particularly the aspect of a serial killer chasing young girls and a hidden double personality from the female lead. For some reason though, the version I was watching missed a few spots in their English dub, but I guess they didn't think it was important and decided to leave it undubbed....

 

I'll check the rest of Dario Argento's films later~

Edited July 15, 2017 by plastic_rainbow

[Bear 1817]

44 minutes ago, plastic_rainbow said:

For some reason though, the version I was watching missed a few spots in their English dub, but I guess they didn't think it was important and decided to leave it undubbed....

 

This is very normal for an italian western/horror/exploitation film from the 60's through 80's. The reason being that they hired people of different nationality. Like Phenomena, the cast consists of actors of american, british, belgian, italian and probably other nationality. So no matter if you watch them in english or american, it'll be dubbed and the sound will not match the mouths a lot of the time.

 

So take Suspiria. There were, as far as I know, not recorded any sound during the shots, or at least not properly, and the actors spoke in their own languages. Jessica Harper in English, Stefania Casini in Italian, Udo Kier spoke German and so on. Which makes the dubbing work extremely difficult.

 

Or take The Good, the Bad and The ugly. Clint Eastwood,Lee Van Cleef and Eli Wallach spoke English during shots, while Aldo Giuffre, Mario Brega and Luigi Pistilli spoke italian. So this is another film where the sound won't match the mouths. However, in the english dub of the film we do get the voice of Eastwood, Van Cleef and Wallach, while the italian cast is subbed, and vice-versa in the italian version of the film.

 

Now, that's the film history lesson for today. Hope you enjoyed and learnt something new.

 

 

I'm not sure if I said this already, but the most similar film to Suspiria you'll find is Inferno. Visually it's perhaps a bit more colourful, and it doesn't have the same story. But the overall tone, especially visually, is similar and of course beautiful.

 

But if we're only talking visual style and with a slightly dreamy feeling to it, films like Crimson Peak, The Strange Colour of Your Body's Tears, Amer and Kwaidan might also fit your interest here. All very different both from eachother and Suspiria, but they do have stunning visual style and very dream-like atmosphere.

 

Crimson Peak is a visually stunning romantic gothic horror film which is as much a romantic film as anything else. Good, but disappointing. Visually stunning and with some of that dreamy-feeling to it, tho not as nightmarish as Suspiria or Inferno.

 

The Strange Colour of Your Body's Tears and Amer are what we refer to as neo-giallos. Both films are directed by Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani which I personally consider two of the most unique and interesting directors of the 21st century. These films are almost exclusively aesthetic and about the visual style and atmosphere, but they're amazing IMO. They're very messy and fucked up tho, and not for everyone. Very much nightmarish too.

 

Kwaidan is one of the best Japanese films of all time, a four part anthology film based around ghost stories. Four amazing stories that is as well-told as they are beautiful looking and superbly directed. Visually stunning and with some of that dreamy-feeling to it, tho not as nightmarish as Suspiria or Inferno.

 

But let's be honest here: Suspiria is a one-of-a-kind type of film, both narratively and visuallly. There's simply nothing quite like it.

 

 

Edit: the film below, Berberian Sound Studio, might also be one to check out for the feeling and atmosphere alone.

Edited July 15, 2017 by Bear

[Bear 1817]

On 7.7.2017 at 9:06 AM, Tokage said:

Berberian Sound Studio, I see this listed as a horror film in several locations, but to me it just feels like 'British nerd gets bullied by Foreigners: The Movie'. David Lynch's influence is palpable here, as well as the creator's love for the italo-horror scene. Great soundtrack and some VERY great visuals, but I found the movie to be lacking in terms of an actual story. 

 

I love this film, and I think it's very overlooked. I think it is a very wicked, weird and creepy film with an odd atmosphere and a nightmarish feeling to it. A film as much about hearing as seeing. Very interesting, very entertaining. Loved it!

[Bear 1817]

 

 

Another huge name of cinema, and one of the biggest and most important names as far as horror goes, is gone. George A. Romero, an absolute legend.

 

Do yourself a favor and watch Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Martin, Knightriders and Creepshow if you haven't already.

[Bear 1817]

Nightmares in Red, White and Blue: The Evolution of the American Horror Film - Rewatched this as I was eating food last night, and this is still as good as it was years ago. It's not perfect and it's way too short, as it cover everything from the early 1900's to the first decade of the 2000's in 90 minutes. A documentary like this should've been 10+ hours long tbh, because you have to skip so much history when going this fast through it. But it does do a good job in covering the genre, even though it mainly focus on the bigger names of the genre as far as both films and directors goes. But it is what it is, and while it doesn't offer anything new to a horror nerd like me and barely scratches the surface of american horror cinema, it might offer a lot to you. Totally recommended!

 

Among the people interviewed is John Carpenter, George A. Romero, Joe Dante, Brian Yuzna, Roger Corman and more. And as always, watching and hearing George A. Romenro and Roger Corman interviewed is always a pleasure, and they are woth the 90 minutes alone.

 

 

[Bear 1817]

Universal Horror - A 90 minute long documentary about the glory days of Universal Studios and their Universal Monsters. It's a very good documentary that'll provide lots of fun and interesting info for people who aren't too familiar with the back stories and such, but if you are a horror maniac like myself you won't find much new info here. But it is a good documentary with lots of interesting and fun info/interviews. It is also superbly produced and crafted.

 

I've seen quite a lot of criticism towards the documentary, but you should just ignore all that as all they complain about is how it involves non-Universal films too. However, a lot of the non-Universal films are included to show clear inspiration from other films and scenes, such as the european (GERMAN!) silent horror era, and other companies in the US who produced similar films in many ways. But it's a great one!

 

Vincent Price's Dracula - An hour of Vincent Price hosting and narrating a documentary about Vlad Tepes/The Impaler/Dracula? Yeah, please! First off, he's got such an amazing voice and his way of telling things is incredible. Second off, he manage to make this documentary a bit campy, and he really uses himself for all its worth. He was once the master of campy horror, and he takes that with him into this documentary.

 

You can break the film into three parts:

 

1. One which is all about facts and who Vlad Tepes/the Impaler/Dracula is.

2. The fictionized version of him, where he known as a vampire called Nosferatu/Dracula, and how the idea of that character came through.

3. And a look at rituals, superstitions and stuff from, what was back then in 1985, modern day Transylvanian villages.

 

Are you interested in Vlad Tepes? Watch this!

Interested in Dracula? Watch this!

A fan of Vincent Price? Watch this!

 

And as one who is interested in both the first and a huge, huge fanboy of Vincent Price, this was a real pleasure for me. Loved it!

[Bear 1817]

Started watching the documentary series Eurotika! yesterday. Eurotika! is a 12 episode long documentary series about European exploitation cinema, with focus on horror, cult, sleaze, sex and trash. 3 episodes in, and this is no less than phenomenal. The episodes are less than 30 minutes long, but they di well in covering certain subject within the limited time they get, even though ever single episode so far could've been 1-2 hours longer. But so far it's been superb!

 

Episode 1, Vampires and Virgins

The first episode is dedicated to Jean Rollin, a French director known for his love for beautiful females, naked bodies and vampires. His films are often off-beat, poetic, slow-burning, erotic, dream-like and surreal, and more about imagery and atmosphere rather than anything the resembles a plot. It features interviews with Jean Rollin himself, Brigitte Lahaie, Catherine Castel and more. Jean Rollin comes off as really honest and down to earth.

 

Check out Requiem For a Vampire, The Nude Vampire and Fascination to get a taste of his work. This stuff will bore most of you to tears, but it's an unique experience for sure and it should be experienced. Can't think of anything like these films at all.

 

 

Episode 2, The Diabolical Mr. Franco

The second episode is all about Spanish cult director Jesús Franco and some of his work. Features interviews with Jesús Franco himself, as well as Brigitte Lahaie, Michel Lemoine, Caroline Munro and more. You don't get to cover much about his films in less than 30 minutes as he's got more than 200 films to his name, and that is only as a director. He's also credited as an writer for over 170 films and composer of soundtrack for over 70 films. A busy man, in other words. But you'll find lots of nice info and stuff here.

 

I recommend checking out Vampyros Lesbos, The Diabolical Dr. Z and The Awful Dr. Orloff to get a taste of his works. Low-budget, cheap films, but I love 'em. Especially Vampyros Lesbos is a complete cult classic with it's atmosphere and brilliant soundtrack.

 

Episode 3, Blood and Black Lace: A Short History of the Italian Horror Film

This one isn't about one specific director, but about the Italian horror films of the 60's through 80's, with its focus being mainly on Mario Bava, Dario Argento, and Lucio Fulci for obvious reasons. I think ther miss big time in the way they talk about Lucio Fulci as nothing but a shock director, but other than that it's a real nice one.

[Bear 1817]

Episode 5, From Barcelona... to Tunbridge Wells

From Barcelona... takes a look at Spanish director José Ramón Larraz, a man known best for his erotic horror films. It's a nice look at him and his work, and the interviews are very interesting. Some very funny moments too, where he and a friend and co-director can't seem to decide on who wanted the films to be bloody and who wanted them to be erotic. Kinda blame eachother.

 

Check out the masterpiece that is Vampyres, and also Symptoms, Black Candles/Hot Fantasies and Edge of the Axe. Four very different type of films, all great of course.

 

 

[Bear 1817]

My Name Is Bruce - IO realized it had been 10 years since this gem came, and decided I had to re-watch it. My Name Is Bruce is cult hero and b-film legend Bruce Campbell's own tribute to himself tbh. He's embracing his status and using it for all it's worth in the film, and that's much of the reason why it's so damn good. It's got a strong 80's horror-comedy feeling to it, and it's campy as fuck. But that's all nothing but a pleasure to me, and the films is as smug and silly as it's fun and charming.

 

Bruce Campbell should not only be a fucking president, he should be THE world ruler.

 

[Bear 1817]

Another legend gone in form of Tobe Hooper. He was never the most consistent director around, but he's got plenty of great films to his name.

 

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

Eaten Alive

Salem's Lot

The Funhouse

Poltergeist

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2

Tales from the Crypt episode Dead Wait 

Body Bags

 

All these are amazing, with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Salem's Lot being my favourites, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 being one of the most underrated films in history of film. Such a great film, but as it's way different from the first one people simply writes it off as trash. Sad but true. It's a film everyone should give a fair chance. It's a great film and as a sequel it makes very much sense as well, one just have to open up a bit about the whole TCSM universe.

[Bear 1817]

 Manos: The Hands of Fate - Or, as it is also known: "the worst fucking film ever!". Is it actually the worst film ever, though? Well, it's hard to say. But it is among the very worst and can be found at the bottom among films such as Monster a-Go Go, Plan 9 from Outer Space, The Beast of Yucca Flats, The Creeping Terror, The Horror of Party Beach and so on. So yeah, it's really fucking bad. But as it is, I just happen to love films like these. I can't get enough of them. As bad as they are, they just hit me in the right spot. They got plenty charm and are absolutely hilarious. Complete trash and I love it!

 

 

[Bear 1817]

Anyone familiar with Ted Nicolaou's Subspecies franchise? Looks fucking stellar! I seriously need to take a look at these films. Especially the two first looks superb, but as they're form the 90's I remain a bit skeptical. But my main skepticism for 90's horror are mostly in form of what the special effects look like. Too many potential good movies ruined by awful CGI during that decade. But if it's all/mostly practical it should be neat.

[Tokage 5930]

Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 fucking rips, I love the aesthetic and vibe of the whole film. Very maximalist and over the top, especially compared to the relatively gritty and raw original, but I still think it's great.

[Jigsaw9 6783]

It - Go watch this. Now.

[Bear 1817]

Psycho Cop - Far from original and there's some massive similarities between this and Maniac Cop which came a year earlier, but this leans a bit more towards comedy while Maniac Cop leans more towards crime. And guess what, this was actually a real surprising and enjoyable film. As a slasher it's a fairly standard film, but the setting is real nice and cheesy, and nice and Robert R. Shafer just makes this film as he is completely awesome throughout the film. Can't act for shit, but he's just really cool.

 

Overlooked, underrated and awesome!

[Bear 1817]

A new Saw coming this year. Why are no-one surprised? lålz. @Jigsaw9without the 9. So just Jigsaw. Don't have high expectations to this, but I'll watch it for sure. Just because it's Saw, even though the majority of films are either poor or just decent.

[Bear 1817]

The Void was so good that the first thing I did when the end credits were over was to rewatch it. What a fucking film! As a huge fan of the Astron-6 team my expectations were ridiculously high for the film, but it went way above all of my expectations. It's not original, but it captures a Lovecraftian feeling and atmosphere rarely seen in film these days with brilliant atmosphere throughout, and monster designs and special effects worth dying for. This is perfection as far as Lovecraftian horror goes.

 

The film was 80's through and through, and a really nice mix of The Thing, From Beyond, Hellraiser, The Beyond og Assault on Precinct 13, Lovecraftian horror in general og Silent Hill.

 

I'm left with much of the same feeling I was left with after watching films like The Thing, From Beyond and Hellraiser for the first time. It won't take me many days before I rewatch this masterpiece.

[platy 3018]

Watched It this weekend. 

In my opinion it was more of a dark comedy than horror, but it's still full of jump scares, but don't be discouraged. They're actually very clever and creepy in how they're done, rather than just cheap overdone shit other horror movies pull all the time. 

The acting is so good for child actors and Pennywise is my favourite villain of the year (or decade? Lol). The only thing is, I wish they had more time to explore some issues that were only hinted at which would help develop some characters. But regardless, what an awesome movie. 10/10

[Bear 1817]

The Devil's Candy - Sean Byrne impressed the world with The Loved Ones , six years later he's back with another horror film. This time around he offers a pretty unique and original horror film with surprisingly well-made and thought through characters, an interesting plot and with a very cool soundtrack. The film has a strong 80's vibe to it and is clearly inspired by the satanic panic era of that time, which is something I always found nice.

 

Not only does the soundtrack consist of lots of metal, but both father and her daughter are metal fans, wear lots of metal t-shirts (Slayer, Metallica, Motorhead) and the daughter's bedroom is full of metal and punk posters. And not just the usual and big ones. Melvins, Ghost, Bikini Kill are among the posters.

 

The soundtrack offers lots of standard tracks from bands such as Metallica, Slayer, Pantera og Cavalera Conspiracy, but the highlight is the use of Sunn O))). Which completely caught me off guard. Got mad chills every single time Sunn O))) came on. Massive!

 

 

[Bear 1817]

Beyond the Gates - With a budget of only 300k, Jackson Stewart is able to create a film that both awakes the 80's nostalgia and gives us something that feels very fresh in 2017. Beyond the Gates plays like a homage to Italian horror of the 80's with great 80's aesthetics, and especially Lucio Fulci's Gates of Hell trilogy (City of the Living Dead, The Beyond, The House by the Cemetery), but without just copying the films. But if I were to truly give you a picture of how the film is, I'd say it's the horror version of 1995's Jumanji, a mix of Jumanji and the Gates of Hell trilogy. Or something along those lines.

 

The whole idea and concept of the film is sweet as fuck, especially for someone who still truly loves VHS films. But with a budget that small, it does have certain flaws. The biggest complaint that I've got is that the game and games isn't developed enough, and isn't given enough time. 10 more minutes divided on the games would've helped made it just so much better.

 

Some really sweet special effects too, guys, and Barbara Crampton (Re-Animator, From Beyond, We Are Still Here) is still fantastic.

 

But I really, really liked it, and ended up with a score of 8,5/10.

 

 

Btw, I checked this out based on the combination of the title and sweet movie posters:

 

[Bear 1817]

Baskin - Baskin, what the hell is that, you say? Baskin is the feature-lenght debut of Turkish director Can Evrenol who only had a series of short films to his name, one of them a short called Baskin which this is based upon.

 

I'm not gonna say too much about the film, because it's incredibly hard to do so. It's a very unique film. It's got brilliant surrealistic and dreamy atmosphere, is stylish as fuck and got lovely special effects, and a really wicked story. Well, everything about this film is WICKED. I've seen a lot of people compare this to Nicolas Winding Refn and David Lynch, but the best way to describe this film is by saying it plays along as if it was directed by none other than the godfather of gore himself (the second one, that is) , Lucio Fulci, but on a mad amount on acid, with help from Clive Barker and Dario Argento, also on some acid. This was a wicked, crazy and surreal trip down to hell. Magnificent!

 

I will have to re-watch this sometime during the week. Probably on saturday, after a few beers. Looking forward to it!

 

9,5/10

 

Edited September 19, 2017 by Bear

[Jigsaw9 6783]

^ Awesome movie indeed! Also, thank you for mentioning The Devil's Candy. I downloaded it ages ago but completely forgot about it. Just watched it yesterday, and it was pretty solid. I especially liked the metal elements in the story / characters / soundtrack, nice touch. Also pretty cool/weird when there's a creepy scene and suddenly you realize you understand what Attila is murmuring in Hungarian, lol.

[Bear 1817]

Yeah, it was good. I really like how the dad, the main metalhead, is portrayed in the film. Got long hair, loves metal, got tattoo's and wants to paint something that's not fucking butterflies, but at the end of the day he's just a man who's trying to do what he loves at the same time as he does his best as a father, a very, very loving one as well. Then all these questions comes up. But he's not portrayed as the metalhead stereotype, but rather as how metalheads for most part is. Was very well done.

[Bear 1817]

Antibirth - Another film I checked out because of the poster, and another film that provided a good amount of fun. The film is pretty slow and starts off as a great drama based on the white trash characters Lou (Natasha Lyonne) and Sadie (Chloë Sevigny) wich both is as well-written as they are well-acted, before it slowly start moving towards more gruesome territory. More specifically body-horror which is the opposite of mainstream horror that gets shown in the cinemas and on TV over here. It's bizarre and full of weirdness, and It sure did keep me interested for its entire playtime. Not exceptional, but real fun nonetheless.

 

That ending. Holy fucking cow!