I still think he is just Javier Bardem pretending to have American accent.
I have just realized I had watched The Resident recently - not worth the time, pretty mediocre. I recommend Spanish movie Sleep Tight (Mientras duermes, witch by coincidence I had watched almost back to back with The Resident) as a much better (and frightening) take on a very similar subject.
And P.S.: Candyman is one of my all-time faves.
The Resident was one I shut off after 20 min, what I rarely do. I had at that point zero interest in what was happening, and the strong feeling that it would only be a waste of time.
[quote=âEl Topo, post:996, topic:405â]Well Hallowen is not a tradition in Portugal, as in the most of the Latin countries, (or it wasnât, before the all marketing stuff). So maybe a new and more extensive challenge can be made:
31 Days of Christmas
A monthly marathon with Xmas films ;D
Any ideas?[/quote]
Iâd do that. Some kids/family favourites (Muppets Christmas Carol), some old classics (Itâs a Wonderful Life), some awful stuff (Santa Claus Conquers the Martians), some action (Die Hard), some less kiddie-centric fare (Bad Santa, Rare Exports), some more New Year-based pictures for the end of the month (Party Party)⌠you could even throw in a TV special or two (The Office, The League of Gentlemen, Blackadderâs Christmas Carol etc.).
31 DAYS of HALLOWEEN - DAY 17
Today Iâm going with Sam Raimiâs return to the dark side, Drag Me to Hell (2009). Just as with Evil Dead II, itâs a great bit of fun ânâ gore.
Todayâs Family Frightener is Mary Shelleyâs Frankenstein (Branagh, 1994) with Robert De Niro as the monster. Brilliant.
Yeah!..I really liked that show, itâs too bad Starz channel cancelled the series. Both Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Danny Huston were great in it.
Anyways, hereâs one i saw the other night with Dean Morgan.
[b]The Possession (2012)
Ever since the Exorcist, not many films about exorcism have been any good, and this one wasnât anywhere near as good either. But nevertheless, this was pretty decent though, good acting, a few jump scares and somewhat entertaining.
Yes instead of Halloween you celebrate the anniversary of when you burnt the templar knights at the stake and made them all blind so they canât find there way back from hell and terrorize your village.
(Reading DVD box covers can really teach you alot about different countries :D)
31 DAYS of YOU-BURNT-THE-TEMPLAR-KNIGHTS-AT-THE-STAKE-AND-MADE-THEM-ALL-BLIND-SO-THEY-CANâT-FIND-THEIR-WAY-BACK-FROM-HELL-TO-TERRORIZE-YOUR-VILLAGE doesnât have the same ring to it, though. And I think Iâm going to struggle to find 31 YBtTKatSaMTABSTCFTWBFHtTYV-themed movies, either. 
31 DAYS of YOU-BURNT-THE-TEMPLAR-KNIGHTS-AT-THE-STAKE-AND-MADE-THEM-ALL-BLIND-SO-THEY⌠no, hang on: of HALLOWEEN - DAY 18
I shall be enjoying some claustrophobic cave-exploring shenanigans tonight in the form of the terrifying and brilliant The Descent (Marshall, 2005). The sequel was unnecessary and pinheaded but the original was bloody superb.
The Family Frightener today is Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse, Beetlejuice (Burton, 1988), the worldâs greatest bio-exorcist. Jump in the line, rock your body in time; OK! I believe you!
[quote=âCol. Douglas Mortimer, post:1005, topic:405â]Yes instead of Halloween you celebrate the anniversary of when you burnt the templar knights at the stake and made them all blind so they canât find there way back from hell and terrorize your village.
(Reading DVD box covers can really teach you alot about different countries :D)[/quote]
Well actually our regular tradition was the so called bread for God, when kids during the first of November (day of the deads, yap), ask for bread from house to house after the traditional travel to the cemitery to visit dead relative graves, that was our Halloween, these days sadly that doesnât happen anymore. And yes all good terror film material.
On another historical note, Portugal and Scotland, were the only countries where the order to destroy the Templar knights wasnât followed to the letter, yes the Templar order had its end, but not in the fire or by the sowrd, they just made a kind of facelift, and were transform into another order, but the knights and their possessions were mostly perserved. The reasons for that were very similar in both countries, but I leave that for anothe day, In any case here in Portugal we didnât like to follow orders from a French king.
[size=12pt]Intruders - 2011 - Juan Carlos Fresnadillo [/size]
[url]Photobucket | The safer way to store your photosThis is my first contribution for 31 days of Halloween (or bread for God).
I actually like terror films, more the ones with less gore, or not so based in gore, and characteristically based on creating a kind of eerie atmosphere.
So this Fresnadillo work isnât far from my preferences, itâs a nice well-made movie, nothing real spectacular, but an honest job.
Itâs not a very scary film (to me at least), but I did enjoyed the dual story taking place different times and places, the final twists even if not that much unpredictable were well made. I also liked the father daughter relation, and how a father will do everything to protect his daughter.
Particular good was the acting, Clive Owen now in his âBalzacianâ ladies favorite phase, show heâs indeed a good actor, the rest of the cast was also very good.
Maybe not a terror film, more a supernatural thriller, in the good tradition of Spanish horror films with ghosts (boogeyman) and kids, filmed in England.
Not much substance and hollowman wasnât really that scary, but even with these drawbacks, not a bad film the tension was well build most of the times.
[b]Emanuelleâs Revenge /b (Emanuelle e Françoise) - George Eastman is a real slime ball who drives Emanuelleâs sister to suicide, and Emanuelle decides to lock him up inside her wall. Directed by Joe DâAmato and written by Bruno Mattei - from what I understand this is the first film they worked together on. I guess this is also DâAmatoâs first Emanuelle entry. Its been a while since I watched anything from old Joe, and enjoyed this scuzzy little flic which Iâve been meaning to watch since ENNIOO mentioned it some time back. I wouldnât really call this a horror film, but everything from IMDB to Wikipedia lists Horror as the main genre, which lead me to pick it as party of Octoberâs viewings.
A highlight of the film is the scene on a spaghetti western set, where the producer lays out DâAmatoâs philosophy about making films:
Intruder (1989) - A small supermarket crew is kept overnight to slash prices, while someone is slashing them. Directed by Scott Spiegel and starring Sam Raimi, who Spiegel co-wrote Evil Dead II with. A decently impressive film for Spiegelâs first effort. Much of the film is very comedic, even still when things pick up towards the ends with several goofy scenes. A good amount of gore scenes also which are pretty impressive for this low budget film.
[b]The Killing of Satan /b - Extreme low budget Filipino horror-fantasty flic about a dude on a quest to rescue his child from Satan, battling the Prince of Magic and kin along the way. Basically impossible to take seriously, watched with the lady and we were both in stitches at points with fits of laughter. Movie jumps straight into things and doesnât really waste any time with story that no one cares about, which makes this a fun watch.
31 DAYS of HALLOWEEN - DAY 19
A spot of portmanteau horror tonight with V/H/S (2012). Six tales by different directors and with varying degrees of effectiveness. Iâll be watching the (superior) sequel on Day 23, which is apparently the day that a second sequel is released on VOD. If I can get a copy of that Iâll be making a late substitution somewhere and watching that, too.
Todayâs Family Frightener is The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror Episodes XIII-XVI (2002-2005).
Thanks for the information. I can see why the bread for God tradition doesnât happen anymore. Kids donât want any fucking bread, they want CANDY!!! lol
Its funny because in Hong Kong tradition, after going to oneâs funeral, the funeral gives out red envelopes (similar to the lucky money envelopes given out to children to during Chinese New Year), containing a small amount of currency, usually a dollar or two. Tradition is that those attending the funeral are supposed to use the money in the envelope to by candy before we go home as a way to âavoid getting cursedâ so to speak. But maybe after hearing your traditiion we should use the money to by bread instead lol. We are also to light a fire beneath our feet before we go back to our own homes and also we are not supposed to invite the family of the departed over to our home for 49 days because the family of the decease still carries the curse.
All superstitious bullshit of course, thats the tradition.
31 DAYS of HALLOWEEN - DAY 20
Going with The Conjuring (Wan, 2013) today. For a relatively âbigâ studio horror, I thought it was really pretty bloody good. Hasnât made me any more excited to see Annabelle (Leonetti, 2014), mind you. Iâm sure I will catch it at some point, but it doesnât look too impressive.
My Family Frightener today is the classic Dracula (Browning, 1931).
Film 17 for me was a western horror mash up, Gallowwalkers (Goth 2012).
Iâve seen worse but the endless Leone rip offs get tiresome pretty quick. Itâs one thing to be a fan, or even to do an homage, but just re-jigging iconic scenes from someone elseâs films comes across as lazy. Also, to be honest, despite the the odd bloody scene the story was all a bit slow and boring. In fact I found myself nodding off more than once. Not what youâre after in a horror film or a western. That said it is very nicely photographed. All in all it fits into the should have been better tray.
For film 18 I tried another relatively recent British thriller type of thing with Eden Lake (Watkins 2008). Watkins has only made two films apparently and Iâve watched both of them this month. Pretty good little thriller of the mongrel kids from a nasty village terrorise nice middle class couple category. Michael Fassbender before he became a mega star who turns up in everything and Kelly Reilly star in this and all in all I found it pretty gripping with a nice downbeat ending to cap it off. Not too shabby.
Eden Lake is one I enjoyed very much.
I liked EDEN LAKE too, especially Wayne Rooney as the working class kid/hooligan/mongrel/whatever.
31 DAYS of HALLOWEEN - DAY 21
Today Iâm going for lighter fare with the loud-but-goofy The Cabin in the Woods (Goddard, 2012). I absolutely ADORE the Lovecraft-centric premise to exactly whatâs âgoing onâ in this picture, it wouldâve made my century if theyâd made the movie with an appropriately dark tone as well but, oh well. Still a decent little date night movie.
Iâm looking forward to todayâs Family Frightener. Going to introduce my boy to the first movie I ever bought, a movie still among my favourites of all time: Near Dark (Bigelow, 1987). I hate 'em when they ainât been shaved.
Films 19 and 20 for me were starkly different affairs.
The former was Dead Snow (Wirkola 2009) a Nazi zombie comedy horror from Norway which hit just the right note with me. Funny but not a parody with lots of excellent over the top blood and guts all shot in the magnificent snowy scenery of Finnmark. I really liked this one. Possibly my favourite so far on this Halloween run.
The latter was Dr Orloff and the Invisible Man (Chevalier 1970) which was a piece of Eurocine trash with all the goings on you would expect from this fine French outfit. Gothic humbug with random tit breaks and an invisible man who turns out to be a gorilla it would appear. It also has a strange and discomforting rape scene where the attacker is not seen (well heâs invisible of course). Genuinely disturbing actually. On the plus side, Fernando Sancho is in it so not all bad.
Frankenstein (1931)
I think that this movie has many flaws that, despite it being iconic classic of the horror genre, canât be forgiven just because it was made over 80 years ago. Plot is not coherent (I donât care if it follows the book or not), several subplots were hinted at but went nowhere, middle part was rushed and where the hell was the music - this is the horror film, itâs all in the music! Nevertheless, ending made a strong impression, it managed to evoke feelings of guilt and sympathy for the creature in me.
Sinister (2012)
Watched it for the first time last night. Ethan Hawke does a good job as a writer of true crime who moves into a house whose previous occupants were hanged to death in the back yard. I wonât go into the whole story setup, and I found this movie had very good atmosphere, especially compared ro most current Hollywood fare. Like The Conjuring, it has a good âcreep factorâ, butâŚ
spoiler alert
âŚin my opinion, they messed up by showing the ghost children. Itâs not spooky at all to me to see kids in cheaply-done ghost face makeup and saying âssssshhhhhhhâ. When it began to show these ghost kids too much, cavorting around and behind Ethan Hawke, the film lost its spookiness for me. Some people find ghost children very creepy, but unless done right and very subtley, it just makes the movie cheesey. In a movie like this, usually the less you show, the better. And when something is shown, it should be very brief and/or subdued. So, although I would rate Sinister as well done in the first part, I feel it lost its steam during maybe the last one-third or so, and the ending for me was a disappointment.
[quote=âFilmlovr1, post:1019, topic:405â]spoiler alert
âŚin my opinion, they messed up by showing the ghost children. Itâs not spooky at all to me to see kids in cheaply-done ghost face makeup and saying âssssshhhhhhhâ. When it began to show these ghost kids too much, cavorting around and behind Ethan Hawke, the film lost its spookiness for me. Some people find ghost children very creepy, but unless done right and very subtley, it just makes the movie cheesey.[/quote]
I really like Sinister and I LOVE the âhome moviesâ (those creepy-as-f*ck song choices on the soundtrack! Brilliant) but I agree with you 100% re. the kids. That âcavorting around and behind Ethan Hawkeâ part didnât work for me either, and couldâve derailed the entire picture. I liked the ending, however.
