Interestingly, although I felt the 2013 Carrie was fairly good, and the bullying portrayed as going MUCH farther, I wasn’t feeling it like I did the original, which I felt had a much more powerful effect. Plus, I enjoyed the original’s acting better…there was some tongue-in-cheek humor incorporated into the original movie that was completely lacking in the remake. IMO, it’s much trickier to create an effective combination of humor and tragedy/horror than it is to go for straight tragedy/horror. The characters were so much more memorable in the original. Lastly, I must mention Pino Donaggio’s beautiful soundtrack in the original, and how much it added to the mood. The remake’s soundtrack is generic and forgettable.
The House That Vanished, 1974… Rather pointless suspense about a London-model. It looks like the makers just strung some scenes together, hoping it all makes reasonable sense. -Like an undercover-cop keeping cageless pigeons in his flat, so nobody suspects he’s a cop. -The killer follows the model around everywhere, yet doesn’t know she’s not home when he breaks-in to kill her. That kinda stuff. I’d advise avoiding it.
Well, the house vanished, no wonder the killer guessed nobody’s was home …
Like I said in earlier post, I have a different opinion: I think the original worked better as a horror movie, but the characters - and their relationships - were more interesting in the remake. For this reason I found the 2013 Carrie to be one of the better remakes, it tried at least to do something different with the premise, instead of trying to copy the original movie.
Mamula (aka Nymph) (2014)
Serbian horror with Franco Nero in a (large) support role. Couple of American girls go on holiday to Montenegro to visit their Serbian male friend. They decide to visit abandoned old prison on a small forbidden island Mamula. But it seems something evil lurks beneath it, something with a pretty face and a tale and a song that no man can resist.
I was hopping this is going to be “so bad it’s good” tongue-in-cheek type of movie played for laughs, but it is actually not so bad. Unfortunately, it is not so good either. I was looking for a more ‘local’ feel, but everybody in the movie speaks English for the most time, so the movie feels more like typical American C grade horror. Nero swears on an old boat motor in fluid Serbian with his first line, but unfortunately that’s the last time we hear juicy Serbian swears. 
Story, although nobody expects it to be exactly Pulitzer type of material in this kind of movies, is undeveloped, mixing few ideas that never quite gel, and it seems young Serbians and Americans know nothing about legends of mermaids (“Why do only men hear her song?”).
Mamula, which sits on the border between Croatia and Montenegro, was really 19th century Austro-Hungarian version of Alcatraz and was used as prison in both world wars. The location, along with some very inviting shots of coast and beach resorts, is among most interesting things about this movie.
The Cabin in the Woods (2012)
92% at RT… Why do critics tend to overrate a movie just because it has half-fresh idea? Even that idea is not that clever or fresh, within first 15 minutes movie reveals all of its cards and you realize that it is going to be mixture of Scream and Funny Games. And those two films did their things better, Scream was funnier and scarier and unlike Cabin, Funny Games made you take its message seriously. Last 20 minutes with “horror army” are OK, but if you, like me, are not fan of CGI overload you will not be that impressed. Whole movie looks like a episode of Buffy (not surprised to find out those two were created by the same man).
I was mildly entertained by The Cabin in the Woods, mostly spotting out references, had a few quick laughs and was never scared…
I hated Cabin in the Woods, I was expecting something good because many of my film loving friends recommended it to me. The whole idea of the film is just so stupid and it’s not funny or scary.
Ah, Cabin in the Woods is alright. It’s a popcorn movie as opposed to a proper, serious horror (it’s nothing like Funny Games! ;D ) and, taken in that spirit, it’s an okay bit of fluff. You wouldn’t be able to settle down with the good lady wife to a fun evening of Audition and/or Martyrs but CitW, like Scream (I agree with that one), is intended as more of a mainstream thrill-ride. I’d love to see the more Lovecraftian elements of CitW explored more thoroughly by a truly scary horror one day, though.
I gave Cabin the Woods a 6,5/10 (which means Above Average) :
[size=12pt]Filmrecensies.net
Haven’t seen Funny Games as far as I know (I’m not a real expert on horror movies, only like to watch them occasionally), a good tip.
You’ve got the Austrian original from 1997 OR the pretty-much shot-for-shot American remake from 2007, both made by Michael Haneke. Take your pick, they’re equally grim. I owned both versions, I gave both away. Not that they’re not good movies - they’re both expertly crafted as you’d expect from Mr. Haneke - but neither was a film I wanted to revisit or could imagine ever revisiting again. A hard watch.
Funny Games is not a horror film, but a very unusual thriller. And as that not really a genre film.
Cabin is like Funny Games because it attempts to point the finger at the audience (SPOILER IN THIS BRACKETS: I expected that it will turn out to be that the “ancient ones” are us, the audience, and I’m still thinking that it is kind of metaphorical explanation).
But, unlike FG, it is somewhat halfhearted about it, so it fails to make the punch and make the audience take that message seriously…
Over last couple of days I’ve watched the Omen sequels. All suffers from predictability and lack of real chills and are no match for the original movie, but are OK if you catch them on TV with nothing better to do.
Omen II is like Final Destination movie, someone learns something about Damien, and from that moment we know he/she will pretty soon die in some crazy gory “accident”. Teenage Damien was not that creepy as the younger one and William Holden as replacement father figure for Gregory Peck was underused, so is Lance Henriksen and some side characters who were not developed at all. Good finale is the best thing of the movie, although some will see it coming.
In Omen III adult Damien played by Sam Neill is ruling the world not by evil mayhem, but by seemingly “good” deeds, controlling world economy and politics with his multicorporation. Maybe that’s subtle way how real evil really works, but because of it film lacked horror elements apart from adapting one of the most horrible bible episodes, that of firstborn killings. Here, finale doesn’t live to expectations.
Omen IV is a retold of the original story done in very simplistic way, but was not that bad and maybe had more chills than the II and III.
A horror movie directed by James Wan, one of the inventors of the infamous SAW franchise. After directing the first entry, Wan decided to leave the series and go his own way. None of the movies he made could hold a candle to his smash hit and critical reactions were mixed, until he hit bull’s eye again (at least financially) with this - all in all rather predictable - movie about a terrorized family (father, mother, five children, all daughters), a haunted house and a pair of paranormal investigators.
We’ve seen terrorized families and haunted houses before, and if you ask me, we’ve seen them too often, and the note that the whole thing is based on true accounts happening in Harrisville, Rhode Island doesn’t help (I’m more interested in good movies than movies based on so-called true events, especially in the case of horror), but Wan handles the material pretty well, deliberately building up his movie, punctuating it with suggestive hints and simple but effective shockers. He also has an above average cast; Lili Taylor is particularly good as the tormented mother.
Last few years I’ve developed a thing for Vera Farmiga, lovely.
I noticed that more people have a thing for her, I can see why, but personally I don’t fancy her
My issue with the Conjuring is that the Warrens, who provide no proof in real life, and are essentially charlatans, are given such a heroic, aggrandizing portrayal in what amounts to a vanity project of a movie bordering on propaganda.
Is the conjuring a decently made movie? Yes it is. But so was The Birth of a Nation!
Count the Conjuring among the dubious group of otherwise decent movies that are based on true events but only serve to distort the truth. (eg. Argo, Rescue Dawn, The Hurricane etc…)
I agree about Conjuring being made well, but I just didn’t think it lived up anywhere near to the hype surrounding it. It was obviously backed by a huge marketing campaign that generated all the buzz, not natural buzz and seems to me like everyone just ate it up…
I liked The Conjuring. I wasn’t swept up by the hype; I’m a little old for that and, besides, I didn’t see it until it had pretty-much come and gone again from the box office, almost twelve weeks after its release here. So the hype machine had long since rattled past me. It doesn’t offer the visceral thrills found in smaller, independent fare but these bigger, more polished films almost never do. It’s pretty effective for what it is though, I thought. Takes itself seriously, great cast, decent in-camera effects. And yeah, there’s definitely something about Vera Farmiga. Maybe not so much in this role specifically, but, yeah. I would. 
[url]http://letterboxd.com/lastcaress1972/film/the-conjuring/[/url]
[quote=“Col. Douglas Mortimer, post:897, topic:405”]My issue with the Conjuring is that the Warrens, who provide no proof in real life, and are essentially charlatans, are given such a heroic, aggrandizing portrayal in what amounts to a vanity project of a movie bordering on propaganda.
Is the conjuring a decently made movie? Yes it is. But so was The Birth of a Nation!
Count the Conjuring among the dubious group of otherwise decent movies that are based on true events but only serve to distort the truth. (eg. Argo, Rescue Dawn, The Hurricane etc…)[/quote]
Of course the Warrens are charlatans, that’s why I said this ‘based on true events’ thing didn’t help the movie.
Normally I don’t care too much about the ‘truth’ in case of a movie based on facts, a movie is a movie and reality is reality (but there might of course be special problems*). I don’t think that in the case of Argo, Lawrence of Arabia, Nixon (to mention only a few movies based on facts) film makers pretented to present the fact exactly as they were. Their movie was an imagination, a vision, a version, and I enjoyed watching it (and checking a few things afterwards). In the case of a horror movie like The Conjuring there’s of course that the whole thing is absolute nonsense, but that we’re supposed to take it seriously, and what’s more: that we’re supposed to take a couple of cynical charlatans seriously. I don’t mind nonsense, in a horror movie a vampire or an evil spirit haunting a family can be very effectful, but there’s no such thing as a vampire. A real-life doctor Von Helsing belongs in an asylum, or in jail.
That said, I thought The Conjuring was a fairly effective horror movie. I just forgot about the Warrens and enjoyed the nonsense.
- Such a special problem is of course caused by the image of the KKK in The Birth of the Nation. I don’t think I have to explain why.