Horror Movie a Day: October 2011

[JimJ]

Movie #12: Psycho (original)

Another classic. Norman Bates is one of the best horror villains ever. Anthony Perkins's performance is so good, can't believe he didn't get any nominations for it. 5/5

[dignan]

I've been keeping up on the watching, but not on the posting, so, playing catch-up here:

Day 9: Jason Goes To Hell:  The Final* Friday
Day 10: Jason X
Day 11: Freddy vs. Jason
Day 12: Friday The 13th (2009)

* Not Final

My brain may have melted in the process of watching all of these movies. 

[Compound]

Watching Evil Dead right now. Dear lord. Bruce Campbell looks like he's 12 in this.  (And I'd forgotten his Moe Howard haircut in this.)

[SJP]

Watching Evil Dead right now. Dear lord. Bruce Campbell looks like he's 12 in this.  (And I'd forgotten his Moe Howard haircut in this.)

Well, come on.  Where do you think the term "Fake Shemp" came from?

I don't think I really need to review Return of the Living Dead...probably most of you have at least heard about it, if not watched it two or three times already...but I had forgotten how many people bite it in this.  I even toned it down from the police blockade scene.

And I have to say, Tarman is one of the greatest zombie designs ever created.  He may not have been the most effective zombie, but he's damn memorable...especially when you were five and skull faces freaked the crap out of you.

[D.B. Barnes]

#11 - Ted Bundy

This movie is riddled with inaccuracies and saddled with poor execution. However, the guy playing Bundy is pretty great; the best I've seen. He really conveys the Jeckyl and Hyde aspects of Bundy's psyche. If it hadn't been for his performance, I probably would've turned it off. The movie has a host of problems, but the lead really carries it.

GRADE: C-


# 12 - Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer

I'd never seen this. Wow. This film is so gritty, I think there's sand in my monitor now. It's gritty, and grimy. It's gritty and grimy. Murder in serial killer movies seems so much more brutal than in standard horror flicks, even when the deaths aren't near as gory. There are some pretty good acting performances turned in here as well. This movie left me feeling pretty horrible. I have to admit, I'm sort of fascinated with serial killers and the genre appeals to that fascination. It has a lot to do with trying to process the fact that this shit really happened. I can't wrap my mind around how people are capable of doing these things. It just doesn't compute for me and I think that's why it interests me as much as it does.

GRADE: B


I feel like I need to take a shower. I might lay off the serial killer flicks for a while. 

[JimJ]

Movie # 13: Black Water

Really surprised at how good this was.  This is an Australian killer crocodile movie.  It's a lot like Open Water, only replace the ocean with the swamp and the sharks with a big, pissed off croc.  The basic plot is there are three tourists, two of which are a couple and the other is the girl's younger sister.  They go out into the swamp on a boat, with a guide.  The boat gets flipped by said croc, the guide dies and the tourists take shelter in a tree.  From then on it's various attempts at escaping the situation they've found themselves in.  The thing that's absolutely necessary in a movie with a plot like this is to make you care for the characters, otherwise there can be no tension or suspense.  The movie really succeeds here.  All three main cast members do a great job in their roles (the two girls moreso than the guy) and they really did make me give a damn about what happens to them, which made for a very suspenseful film.  Another thing I liked was the look of the crocodile.  No lame looking CGI croc here, it's the real deal.  From what I understand of what I've read online about the movie, a lot of it was done with footage of real crocs which were then added to the shots of the actors via CG.  It's very well done and looks great.  If I had a complaint it's that the behavior of the croc rang a little false at times, like when he surfaces to stare them down a couple of times.  He seemed a little too intelligent at times.  Still, I'm not a croc expert by any means and maybe they really do act like that when stalking prey.  If not, it's still a minor complaint.  I thought the film was very good for a small budget flick with an unknown cast.  It's on Netflix instant and if you're fan of stuff like Open Water I highly recommend this one. 4/5

[Compound]

I don't think I really need to review Return of the Living Dead...probably most of you have at least heard about it, if not watched it two or three times already...but I had forgotten how many people bite it in this.  I even toned it down from the police blockade scene.

Are you going to count the entire city of Louisville? (741,000)

And back to Bruce, I had forgotten it was that blatant, hair wise.

[Relaxing Dragon]

Movie # 13: Black Water

Interesting how much you liked that one, I found it to be rather dull. But then, I'm the sort who prefers the likes of Rogue (which is excellent, by the way) when it comes to kiler-croc movies.

Alright, time to finally roll these out:

The Hole. I quite enjoyed this one, even more so than I thought I would. A proper horror flick for the younger crowd, one that isn't dumbed down or condescending about things, and actually manages to be quite spooky at times (and outright creepy at others. Lousy clowns). Has some rather imaginative sequences, especially towards the end when things start to get a little Wonderland-y. Good frights, laughs, and atmosphere, this film is sorta everything Don't Be Afraid of the Dark should've been (And I liked Don't Be Afraid of the Dark). Perfect for the tween crowd, and there's not a lot of good horror movies you can say that about.

Amusement. Ever wondered what a torture porn film would be like if they stripped out the plot and the characters (in before smartass "Aren't they all like that?" response)? Look no further. In fact, you don't even need to look here, as there's not much to see. There's hints of a plot here and there, but it mostly seems to be a serious of extremely-loosely connected set pieces, as made by folks who found a guy with a laugh that ranges from creepy to annoying and decided to make a movie about it. And while the production designs aren't too shabby, it's all too empty and generally bland to really be worthwhile. Pass this one by.

The Perfect Host. A bank robber is out on the run after his latest heist, and decides to lay low in a nice suburban house. Though it turns out the somewhat wimpy homeowner inside is not one to be trifled with, especially when he's got a dinner party to throw. This is a movie that is saved by the acting; Clayne Crawford gives an excellent performance as a man on the run who's deeper than he seems (bit of a cliche part, but hey, he makes it work) and David Hyde Pierce is pitch perfect as the modestly-insane party thrower. Seriously, every scene with him doing his hosting thing is a joy to watch. The trouble for this movie comes when it decides to continue on with the whole bank robbery/on the run plot outside the party scenario, and it suffers for it. Basically it's a movie that doesn't know when to stop, and overstays its welcome in the end. Still, I'd at least recommend it for a watch, if only for those great performances.

Dr. Mordrid. Strange, campy movie from the 80s that has remarkably high production values than you might expect. Which might be where the budget went, since they seemed to speed through the second half of this and then just end at about 70 minutes. Still not half bad, and also features a stop-motion battle between dinosaur skeletons at the end. Can't go wrong with something like that.

The Hole
Scariest Bit: The creepy little girl, whenever she shows up, tends to be a bit of a shocker, as they are wont to be. I'm going with the little homicidal clown doll, though. Sometimes it gets too Gremlin-y to be scary (to me at least), but when he's just hanging out, crawling around up the stares, tossing bottles at kids, and giving that creepy little stare of his... brrr.
Death Count: None. Not that kind of horror movie.

Amusement
Most Noteworthy Bit: The flashback with the kids and their little peepboxes wasn't half bad. The creepy kid's box was effectively creepy, and the effects inside really sold it. Still, like the rest of the film, it was a scene that felt ultimately meaningless. Given that this was probably the most plot-important scene in the movie, that's really saying something.
Death Count: 5

The Perfect Host
Favorite Bit: I loved all the party scenes in general, but when it starts to really crowded is when things really pick up. The synchronized dance between Pierce and his "guests" was just perfect for the moment, and the shots of Crawford's reaction makes it all the sweeter.
Death Count: 0, apparently.

Dr. Mordrid.
Favorite Bit: As mentioned above, the stop-motion fight was pretty sweet (very cool how those were always popping up back then, even in little films like this). The overall creativeness of the movie made it all pretty enjoyable, of course (well, that and the hamminess/campiness of it all).
Death Count: 5

[JimJ]

Movie # 13: Black Water

Interesting how much you liked that one, I found it to be rather dull. But then, I'm the sort who prefers the likes of Rogue (which is excellent, by the way) when it comes to kiler-croc movies.

Hadn't heard about Rogue until I did some googling on Black Water and seems like it came out the same year, so the two get compared a lot. Don't know if I'll get around to watching it this month or not, but I'll check it out eventually. I liked Wolf's Creek which was done by the same director.

[SJP]

Are you going to count the entire city of Louisville? (741,000)

Nope.  I deliberately did not, because I figured that would be cheating a bit (sort of like counting how many zombies fell over during the propane tank explosion in the 2004 Dawn of the Dead).  Plus, they mention there was less than 4,000 casualties, anyway.

Anywho, I'm actually really glad I put in the "watch a movie from every decade" thing, because I've ended up seeing a bunch of films I've been putting off for a long time.  Today's was Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956).  It's amazing how little of the '50s sci-fi cheese factor is in this movie; it's not violent or gory or unpleasant in almost any way,  but it doesn't need to be; it's paced very well and very effective.

I did watch the version with the 'wraparound,' which was apparently added by the studio at the last minute and is the official theatrical version; I will say that the movie without it would definitely be a lot more frightening, and that final shot a great capper.  Nevertheless, it's a fine, fine film.

[gojikranz]

watched species 3 tonight.  surprisingly better than i was expecting. but over long and hte story kinda lost me about 45 minutes in.  still some good goopy bits and nudey bits.

[Relaxing Dragon]

Well, my wacky schedule (mixed with a small biking accident) forced me to miss Thursday. Curse you October for falling right in the prime time of midterm/big essay season!

Still, made a midnight show, so I've got a jump start on Friday, and should be able to get one or two more in this evening to finally start catching up (I'm a full three behind right now).

The Thing (2011). This was, well... sigh. Just... sigh. I'm actually feeling a little too bitter about it right now, I need to sleep on it, get a little perspective. I'll be typing up a full, possibly nit-picky review tomorrow.

[Johnny Unusual]

Getting over a cold, but I mostly kept with it!

Day 1: Maniac  Yeah, the one from rifftrax.  If you haven't seen it... it's really weird and really bad.  That's all I can say.
Day 2: Little Shop of Horrors  The original.  Surprisingly good, although as a Roger Corman film it has a lot of problems.  Jack Nicholson makes his first film appearance as a Jack Nicholson impersonator.
Day 3: Moon of the Wolf/The House on Haunted Hill:  Moon of the Wolf is pretty forgettable werewolf fare, but the House on Haunted Hill is pretty fun.  Vincent Price is always a treat.
Day 4: Ghostbusters:  Bill Murray might be the most charismatic man in the world.
Day 5: Creature from the Haunted Sea  Wow, this is quite possibly the worst Roger Corman movie of all time.  Seriously!  It's... it's just really hard to watch.
Day 6: Hot Fuzz  Not a horror movie, but it does have a lot of gore.  So there's that, I guess.
Day 7-10: Spent Thanksgiving weekend trying to recuperate.
Day 11: Tormented    TOM STEWART KILLED ME! TOM STEWART KILLED ME! TOM STEWART KILLED ME!  One of the better films that MST3k did.  Not to say that it's good, but it has a certain charm and competence for a Bert I Gordon movie.
Day 12: Snowbeast/Night of the Living Dead  Night of the Living Dead is still a great movie, although marred by some bad acting (though there's some good acting too by Duane Jones) and some slow spots.  Snowbeast is a weird one.  It's kind of dull, but it's essentially a Jaws movie with a Bigfoot instead of Jaws.  There's even a scene where they cut open a bear to find out weather it's the one who killed the film's victims.  It's pretty odd.  Could make for a great riff down the line.
Day 13: Dementia 13: Stylish but ultimately empty horror thriller and an early work by Francis Ford Coppola.   Cool to look at but the story didn't do too much for me.
Day 14: Galaxy Invader/Phantom from 10,000 Leagues/Attack of the Monsters  A forgettable trio of films.  Attack of the Monsters is Gamera Vs Guiron with slightly less ridiculous dubbing (which makes it a bit harder to watch).

[Relaxing Dragon]

My slightly long-winded review of the new The Thing, as reposted from somewhere else. I wrote this before I read any other reviews, to try and keep it all me and my fanboyish mind:

Alright, with three midterms, two essays, and one collision with a car on my bike behind me, it's time to finally break radio silence and get a journal going. And what better way to start than by a review with a movie that I've been waiting to see for quite some time and left with me with a fair amount to say.

Quick recap of the plot for the uninitiated: It is 1982, several days prior to the events in the 1982 version of The Thing. At a Norwegian research base in Antarctica, a very remarkable discovery has been made: a massive flying saucer, buried under 100,000 years of snow and ice; a frozen occupant of the ship is found close nearby. After flying in an American paleontologist to help excavate the body and bring it back to base, all hell breaks loose when the creature isn't as dead as it seems. And with its release comes an even more dangerous problem: this thing can imitate other lifeforms perfectly. The clock's ticking as the humans try to figure out a way to see who's who they say they are, before the creature finds a way to escape the base and infect the entire planet...

This is not an easy review for me to right, as I am extremely biased about this movie. I love the original The Thing. I say that a lot and I'm sure many folks feel the same way about it, but I don't think I can emphasize enough exactly how much I love it. In the Church of Movies that I worship at, The Thing is one of the high priests. I could devote horrors to discussing and dissecting it, as well as explaining and defending every moment of screen time. When I die, I plan to be cremated with a poster of the film, so as to enter the great beyond with something truly meaningful to me (this isn't a joke; this is going in the will). In short, I'm a fanboy, hardcore through and through.

And speaking from that perspective, the new movie is a grave disappointment.

Abandoning any real concept of subtly and atmosphere, the new film moves along at a very brisk pace (well, after a dull and uninteresting first act). It moves from set piece to set piece, usually with very little conversation and with a whole lot of fire, explosions, and an aggressive, fast-moving alien beast. There's slightly more characters in this than in the original, though you'd be hard-pressed to remember who more than three of them were by the end. They are all flat and bland, more names to be randomly picked off than anyone to really care about. Which gets awkward, as more than once the movie has everyone act mournful when someone kicks it, while you sit there trying desperately to remember what the guy's name was. And that's without even getting to the effects, which I'll get to below. All in all it's more an action movie with horror elements than a sci-fi horror film (though the sci-fi does take a bigger role by the end of the film, albeit in a needless, somewhat-shoehorned way), and it feels like an adaptation of Resident Evil 5 as set in Antarctica (get used to that comparison, I'll be making it a lot. And yes, I know Code Veronica X actually took place in Antarctica, but RE5 fits better).

I could continue at length, especially in regards to nitpicking. But, I want to try and look at this from another angle, since I don't think I'm doing right like I am above. Because honestly, the film doesn't seem to be trying to be like the Carpenter version in style, it's trying to do its own thing. In a weird way you have to give it credit for taking that route, for not just aping the the style of the original and hoping to get by. It is an action/horror film and it runs with that, and while that makes for something that doesn't have many scares beyond that of the jump variety (and there are oh so many of those, and even the ones that weren't spoiled by the trailers are pretty predictable), it still makes for a (dare I say it) entertaining and bloody watch.

The trouble from the above thesis comes from the fact that the movie, at the same time it's doing its own thing, continually insists on trying to imitate (sorry) the original. Set pieces and scenes are copied over to here, often with much less effect. An example is the famous blood test sequence; while the film does come up with a novel new rule to Thing transformations that I found pretty interesting, its method of telling who's who is, shall we say, considerably less compelling than the hot-wire-in-the-blood-sample idea (though this movie treats it with the same gravity, sometimes laughably so). At one point an exact shot and incident from the original is mirrored, probably intended as a tribute but coming off as just derivative. Going back to the characters for a moment as well, with no real feeling or weight to them, you can't really get any investment when they start to argue between each other (and it actually feels a little forced when they do start to argue about stuff).

And, of course, there's the fact that this is a prequel. This is something that they do run with well enough, but in the end still has a large feeling of needlessness about it. The fact that this is a Norwegian base, for instance? Well, almost everyone on it speaks also speaks English anyway (save, of course and by somewhat contrived coincidence the final survivors for the opening of the next movie), which just sorta negates the whole language barrier thing between them and the (pretty superfluous) Americans. Moments of people arguing in the other language do come up, but they are so brief and are ended by something outside the argument occurring, they are ultimately inconsequential. Plus, every now and again they need to introduce something that will make its way to the original, to keep that thread of continuity going. I found many of these to be awkwardly handled, put in almost as if someone was going through a checklist of necessary points to hit ("Alright, we've got the axe in the door, double-faced-thingy-thing, and the grenades. Someone toss in the suicide, tack on that helicopter and the dog, and we're set to call lunch."). I admit they put them all in well enough to fit the story, but it all still feels very inorganic.

And speaking of inorganic, I need to talk about the effects. Something I never get tired of hyping up are the practical effects work from the original film, which to this day remains the best instances of F/X I have ever seen in a motion picture (and I've seen a lot of motion pictures). One thing that really helped them was their being practical; it made them feel so much more solid, so much more real. Here, despite earlier reports to the contrary, almost all the effects are digital (save for the occasional body mold, and they do little more than lie on an operating table), and they show it. The effects range from decent enough to questionable, and all the massive attacks end up looking and feeling like video game cutscenes. I will give the creators credit for making some rather innovative and interesting designs for the things (though perhaps not unique, as I could swear I'd seen a couple of them in Resident Evil 5. Well, I guess these ones were less tentacles and more teeth, which is always good), as well as giving them some very crazy ways of revealing themselves to the humans around them. All faults aside, this is a pretty decent body horror film, something that (as I've sadly pointed out before) is all too rare these days.

Of course, looking at these creatures, you being to wonder just how they work with the original Thing creature. The creature in this movie is aggressive, fast-changing, and noisy. It shoots out huge tentacles, to stab people it leaps up through ceilings, and it stalks folks through the halls of the base in full freak-out transformed mode. It becomes a true movie monster, and the scenes of people wondering who is human and who isn't aren't actually as common as you might think. Contrast this to the original beast, which did its best to stay out of sight, and when it was revealed, it was only really threatening if you happened to be standing an inch away from it. This point I could actually probably defend; the thing of this movie is, ultimately, the thing of the next movie. Here it discovered that the full-frontal-assault method doesn't play out too well, and opts instead to go for the stealthy route. It's something that actually does work, although it makes me wonder if this is just a workable explanation, and I'm thinking about this more than the screenwriters were.

I really could carry on with this, and launch into paragraph after paragraph of nitpicks and "But compare this to the original...", but I really won't Because, and this may seem hard to believe after all I've said above, this movie really isn't half bad. I definitely wouldn't call it great, and I think it's a stretch to call it good, but it is still, as I mentioned above, entertaining and watchable. My problem seems to be that I'm too hung up on the original; the companion I watched this with last night quite enjoyed the movie, and he isn't the sort to have memorized the original like I have (apparently, as parts of it were seriously running through my mind last night). I get the somewhat uneasy feeling that if this were an independent thing, or even something based off a different property (like that Resident Evil again. Or just cross this movie with Pandorum and you've got the perfect Dead Space movie)), I would be reacting much more favorably to it. After all, I am a horror fan, and I've forgiven other movies for a lot more, even when they had a lot less to offer.

So, what do I think of this movie? Well, I've gotta stick with disappointing. Not terrible, not an abomination, just disappointing. It didn't give me enough to love, and every time it started to try, it just threw something in that reminded me of the original, and I fell back into a bitter, cynical pool of thought. Most folks should still give it a shot, you just need to know what you're getting into before you go in. It's a fast-paced action-packed horror-ish movie, with some interesting enough ideas scattered about the flat acting and dodgy CGI. It is a footnote for the original, but it's still a wide-release, R-rated, bloody and gory (not super gory, though; you'll find no good Piranha 3D bits here, for better or for worse) movie, and we simply don't get enough of those these days. Just keep that mind nice and open, loosen the love grip on the original for two hours, and give it a shot.

Or just sit in and rewatch Russell and company do their thing. That works too.

[D.B. Barnes]

#13 - Frozen

What a piece of shit. 6.3 stars on IMDB?!? Am I missing a joke or something?I should've gone with my first instinct and turned it the hell off. The premise had some promise, but the acting and story execution is so lame, it ruins any chance this movie had to be decent. Oh my god, the acting! Simply atrocious. The characters are so unlikeable that you find yourselves rooting for the wolves. This movie doesn't even deserve what I've written about it.

GRADE: D-