Horror Films

The Loved Ones (2009)

Something different from down under. And something very grisly. Has flaws, but one of the more recent must-sees for any horror fan.

P2 (2007)

Yet another a-girl-chased-by-psycho feature, but very competent one. Rachel Nichols fit the role of overworked, good looking (but not oversexed) 30ish girl just fine, and I haven’t noticed her character making too many illogical decisions (which is standard in these kind of movies). I also liked how they kept postponing the start of real action until it lulled us into feeling that maybe nothing terrible is going to happen after all. And then it started. I also liked the clever way to add some gore in a movie (because most of it was limited to only two characters). And parking lots can be creepy.

Watched these four yesterday:

So that’s four “Oversized Monsters” points, plus a further “From Space” point for Cloverfield.

I watched these eight films over Saturday and Sunday:

So that’s eight more “Oversized Monsters” points plus an additional “In Space/From Space” point for Gamera 2: Attack of Legion.

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I loved these Kaiju mini-reviews of yours, made me wanna watch all of them!

There’s no sign of this new Shin Gojira in Croatia’s theaters, hopefully it will find its way…

Impressive. I have absolutely no idea how you manage to watch four movies in a day. I understand that the hours are there but the logistics seems impossible when you are married with children :slight_smile: I’m in the same boat so how the hell ??

Well, there are little cheats here and there. For instance, whilst on a multi-film binge the last film of the day will always come up to bed with us, so it cuts into our bedtime rather than our daytime and if we fall asleep, we fall asleep. Also, I don’t own either Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack or Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla (I’ve ordered the latter from Amazon but, annoyingly, it hasn’t arrived yet) so I watched those on my laptop whilst doing things I would’ve been doing on the laptop anyway (noodling on this forum, writing the pieces for BRWC etc.). For the other films, I stick them on but if real life intervenes we just get on with it. I still put the monthly shopping away on Friday (usually the wife and I would go get the shopping together but in a concession to my Kaiju films she went and got it herself), I made the evening meal for four of us on Friday and Saturday (wife made Sunday’s), and we had friends over both Friday AND Saturday night as we often do. I can’t expect the world to stop while I watch movies for eight hours straight. If I’ve seen the movie plenty of times beforehand I can get on with other things while I’m watching it. I only need to sit still and concentrate solely on the movie if I’ve never seen it before.

And sometimes of course, you’re right: It simply can’t be done, even on those challenges where I’m only watching one movie per day like SpagvemberFest. Last November I think I managed to watch 29 out of the thirty movies I’d planned to. But I still enjoy the concept of attempting these things even if, ultimately, I can’t do it and end up only watching ten out of thirty or whatever. At some stage I fancy watching every Pixar movie from Toy Story to Finding Dory over a fixed period; one a night until they’re done, probably. I might try watching every QT movie over a single weekend, too.

I suppose I could set myself little movie challenges with no time limit on the back end in order to alleviate the pressure but, where’s the fun?* Also, those things can tend to peter out, like our own @Phil_H’s Carry On movie challenge. A guy on another forum I frequent resolved to watch every movie he hadn’t already seen on the IMDb’s Top 100 at that time. I said I’d join him for the 20-odd movies I hadn’t seen but, because he was doing it on an “as and when” basis, he only watched three films before giving up on it.

Thank-you, sir! I think Kaiju is just one of those genres you want to watch as soon as anyone starts discussing them (if you’re into Kaiju pics,of course). I haven’t caught Shin Godzilla yet either, I’m looking forward to doing so immensely.

Anyway, horror films: Yesterday, I watched Stomping Ground (Reisser, 2014), yet another tepid “Bigfoot” film in which a Chicago native agrees to go with his girlfriend to her North Carolina homeland and, further, to go with her and her ex-boyfriend (!) out into the woods to hunt for Sasquatch. Tbh, it was more of a light relationship drama framed inside an expedition to find Bigfoot, and it worked better as a drama anyway. Maybe the Bigfoot stuff should’ve been jettisoned altogether. It wasn’t a bad movie but it wasn’t anything I’ll likely watch ever again. I don’t think it’ll gain me any points on our current scoring system either, since neither “Bigfoot” or “Lost in the Woods” are represented.

*Of course, many would say "where’s the fun in any sort of movie ‘challenge’? Why frame our movie viewing time as an extended ordeal? I’d rather enjoy my films one at a time, when I’ve plenty of time to devote to it," and that’s fair enough, too.

Ah you of course got a wife with the same bizarre taste in movies :slight_smile: That certainly helps. I’m not that lucky unfortunately so the ‘weird’ movies (and that includes spaghetti westerns) I’m going to watch I’m going to watch alone and that means in the middle of the night mostly so I’m lucky if I can stay consious for one of those a day. Do watch a bunch of ‘regular’ movies with my wife of course. Contemporary horror movies, comedies that kind of thing and of course different tv series.

Watching a movie while doing something else is kind of cheating but that’s your business :slight_smile:

My guide for what to watch over Halloween:

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No sure what to watch yet. I haven’t seen The Frighteners, so maybe …

Haven’t checked what TV Channels have on offer. At least one halloween, I guess

I’m hoping to go with Trick 'r Treat (Dougherty, 2007), Tales of Halloween (Various, 2015) and, if possible, Halloween III: Season of the Witch (Wallace, 1982) tomorrow night, and then either Halloween (Carpenter, 1978) or Halloween (Zombie, 2007) on Monday night.

Didn’t watch any of the films I’d planned to. I’m determined to watch Halloween III tonight, along with Dawn of the Dead (Romero, 1978) and last night’s episode of The Walking Dead (last night’s Westworld will have to wait until tomorrow). Saturday, because we had guests over and I let them pick, we ended up with The Purge: Anarchy (DeMonaco, 2014) and the first three episodes of the new season of Black Mirror. Does any of that count? Sort of?

Halloween III - Season of the Witch

I watched it because others will be watching it tonight and also because it one of the Halloween entries I had not yet watched (IV is another one, maybe I’ll watch that later tonight)

Well, this is NOT the third installment in the Halloween saga, or is it? It was produced by John Carpenter and Debra Hill and directed by Tommy Lee Wallace, the editor of Halloween. But there’s no Michael Myers and the story is unrelated to the other Halloween movies (as far as I know them). Instead it tells a story about a plan to kill millions of kids on Halloween night with the help of Halloween masks. The madman in question, is a toymaker, while the person trying to stop the evildoer is a doctor, the Dr. Van Helsing of service, so to speak.

Not a bad film per se, there are even a few good scenes (and masks), plus a jingle that’ll stay with you for days, but in the end it’s too far-fetched to be scary. The final scene is quite nice: Our doctor tries to warn the televison stations not to broadcast the commercial that will cause the fatal damage: he screams and screams and screams, but the person on the other end won’t listen …

Would you, by the way?

My understanding is that it was John Carpenter’s desire at that time for the Halloween franchise to become an annual anthology series of films unrelated by anything other than the theme of Halloween, but the poor initial response to Halloween III pretty much put paid to that plan. Personally, I feel that if Halloween III had been the second movie in the sequence instead of the third, the idea would’ve taken hold.

I did some research in the meantime, and yes, that was apparently the case. But honestly, I stopped the movie after ten minutes or so to check the synopsis on Imdb (I had read it before) because I was afraid that i had selected the wrong movie. Was this a Halloween movie? I mean: a Halloween Halloween movie?

But, as said, it’s not too bad. Actually it’s quite alright, only not scary enough.

HALLOWEEN 4: The Return of Michael Myers

What would Halloween be without its most famous son? Not too much, actually. After the dissappointing box-office results of III, Season of the witch - not featuring Michael Myers - they decided to go back to the start, and start all over again. So the masked murderer is back and Dr. Loomis keeps telling us that he is NOT human, but pure evil. Carperter and Hill were involved initially but they withdrew later.

Michael is now after his niece, 7-year-old Jamie, the daughter of Laurie Strode (who’s supposed to have died in an accident but would later return in the series). Jamie is protected by her 17-year old foster sister, Rachel, who’s having a date on Halloween night , but is forced to spent the night with Jamie while her best friend Kelly is trying to steal her boyfriend away from her … and so forth.

Nothing new under the moon here, but this fourth entry is well-made and good-looking. There are a few graphic killings, but overall it’s remarkably restrained. When the director and producer saw a rough cut, they thought the violence was too soft and two extra scenes (the thumb-in-theforehead and the neck-twisting scene) were shot to raise the shock value. I wasn’t blown away by some of the performances: Donald Pleasance has done his Worried Doctor trick too often and Ellen Cornell is a weak substitute for Jamie Lee. However, Danielle Harris is a great frightenend kid and Kathleen Kinmont shows some great tits & ass as Kelly.

Always wished the Halloween films would have taken different directions after Halloween 3. You guessed it, my favourite film of the franchise, as it so reminds of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers.

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The film reminded me of a movie I had seen long ago (at least two decades), but i could put my finger on it. I guess it was that invasion, yes.

If you have not watched “Exit Humanity” then you are missing out on the best zombie western! It was done with a lot of care, and is very underrated. Aside from that, I stuck mostly to British horror this year, especially Hammer and Amicus.

Yup, decent film. I stuck my thoughts down on this one a few years ago:

Last Caress…

Hope you’re right about ‘Exit Humanity’, because I’ve just ordered a copy!

By the way, I read your review, re: the film…very well done!

P.S. I watched ‘Tales of Halloween’ …and, on the whole, enjoyed it immensely…great opening theme by Lalo Schifrin… (then again, does Lalo Schifrin do other than excel?)