ok lets all shit our pants to something new: post 2005 horror film thread

I'm not sure there is one yet! Too soon.

There's loads of youtube talk on it from insiders and outsiders.

Here's the Over Your Dead Body trailer I mentioned upthread.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPUObt-zPrM

Hey! We watched "Borgman" (on the advice of this thread, I think) and LOVED it. There's a movie you just can't get a handle on. Tone is perfect throughout.

Has anyone else watched "Exte: Hair Extensions"? J-horror about hair extensions that behave in the manner of The Thing or The Blob. It sounds ridiculous, and is a bit, but really some fantastic stuff in there, and some very creative effects. Highly recommended.

It's not bad. Some funny stuff in it, mad ending. Not Sono's best but fun.

The Conjuring was about as good as those kinds of movies get. Looked great, some really nice shots/setups, good with the jump-scares, decent acting. All that being said, I find Catholic movies deeply silly, the conception of evil is so nonsensical and unexamined.

It was the cheesy tv movie sentimentality the bothered me more than anything.

eh that doesn't bother me. It's the requirement that you buy into Catholic mysticism/liturgy for it to have any kind of resonance that makes me roll my eyes at it (tbh I have a similar problem with the grandaddy of all these kinds of movies, the Exorcist). The references to the Salem Witch Trials, to things Satanists believe, to needing a Priest to yell latin to make bad things go away, it's all so deeply silly to my non-Christian sensibility.

I never know what you're supposed to do if you're Jewish and you face some threat based in Catholic doctrine. Are you just hosed?

Hey, you don't know the devil, the devil doesn't know you, it's all good brah

Well this stuff bleeds into so many horror films that aren't particularly Christian, especially vampire film tropes.
It still persists to a surprising degree. Even in that celebrity comedy This Is The End (can't recall if that's the right name) I was kind of surprised that it was a clearly Christian version of afterlife/apocalypse.

In some contexts I'm fine with treating religion in horror stories as just a fantasy mythology.
I think Borderlands did a very good job of portraying sympathetic Catholics who were also sceptics.

Pretty sure THE POSSESSION was a Jewish exorcism movie. Plenty enough demons to go around.

If The Possession is anything to go by, if you're Jewish, you get possessed by your own evil spirits. Maybe the Catholic demons and Jewish evil spirits have an information sharing setup, like how if you file a complaint for Title VII employment discrimination with your state human rights agency, they send it over to the EEOC for processing.

XPOST

Even in that celebrity comedy This Is The End (can't recall if that's the right name) I was kind of surprised that it was a clearly Christian version of afterlife/apocalypse.

I *loved* this movie and totally lol'd at all the Jewish actors not giving a second thought to accepting the Xtian apocalypse

lol carl

I never know what you're supposed to do if you're Jewish and you face some threat based in Catholic doctrine. Are you just hosed?

would watch a movie where this happens and Jew makes a Golem to defend himself

"you're who...? Satan? Never heard of you. Take it up with my big clay monster here."

I would also watch that movie. Somebody make that movie so I can watch it.

In the Posession though it's goyim getting possessed by the dybbuk. Until matisyahu comes to the rescue.

(Half decent movie, about as worth watching but dumb as The Conjuring and with at least one riff much scarier than anything in The Conjuring.)

I know I've said this several times before in other horror threads but I think The Exorcist handles this tendency much more gracefully than is the norm. Religion doesn't ultimately prove to be a much more effective framework to use in tackling the problem than medicine did, and I posit that it's possible that everyone in the movie/audience is operating under a misapprehension of what the entity's true nature is (i.e. maybe just a malevolent force and not a demon per se).

I don't think I've seen this Posession movie, is it worth watching

xp

don't get me wrong I like the Exorcist and think it's a good movie, I just don't find the central premise scary. It does have enough other stuff going on - the priest with the lapsed faith, the pubescents=monsters metaphor, excellent shots/staging - to keep me engaged.

Oh, I don't know. The Possession is like The Conjuring and all other movies of that ilk: well shot, well acted, some good jumps, ultimately all blurring into the same pretty-good movie from the 2010s.

haha okay pass

the pubescents=monsters metaphor

I was getting a bit confused with the whole Possession/The Possession thing for a moment there.

Lol yeah definite equal sign with a slash through it there

It would help if there weren't, like, 47 movies named Possession. Do an IMDB search, screenwriters/producers.

Dracula Vs. Golem movie, make it happen.

Liked how Cabin in the Woods introduced a pre-Judeo-Christian pagan apocalypse. Not enough pagan apocalypse going around.

I think a lot of my problem with these Catholic-centric movies is not necessarily the backgrounded theology/mysticism itself but that the movies usually take it as a given that the institution itself of the Catholic Church is literally constantly waging a universal battle against evil, that this is its very nature. which is only the sort of thing the most credulous true believers accept.

like in the Conjuring, it's explicitly spelled out that not just *anybody* can yell latin at a demon, it has to be a properly ordained priest, an official representative of the church.

Yeah, I think even lots of Catholics would find the idea of the pope and his army battling evil spirits quite silly.

it's not so much the conception of the pope punching Satan in the mouth or whatever that bothers me as it is this assumed, completely ahistorical view of the church. yup, nothin but good folks working there for the past 2000 years - no murderers, rapists, lechers, sadists, greedy bastards involved there nope not a one. as long as all they all had some magic latin and crosses the Devil was runnin scared!

I wanna see more movies where they bring in the priests to deal with the supernatural crisis and they just fail completely.

Like.... the Exorcist?

haha yeah that is one of the better twists in the Exorcist

xp

More movies. More.

I don't know, maybe I'm watching the wrong (for which read right) films or just making up endings in my head after the fact, but I can't think of any where priests/religious types *do* win.

Maybe I just don't watch very many "priesty man kill demon" horrors?

When did a horror film ever portray the whole history of the Catholic church as always good?

There's a good Manly Wade Wellman story about a travelling folk singer fighting a singing demon but it really shitted all over the story when he summoned George Washington to beat the demon. It was appealingly odd, but why did it have to be a guy like Washington?

When did a horror film ever portray the whole history of the Catholic church as always good?

the portrayal is implied in films like the Conjuring and the Exorcist. the Devil's the ultimate evil, what can possibly fight the Devil? why, the Catholic Church of course!

it's the implied faith in the Church as an ahistorical institution, a counterweight to evil whose power is in its liturgy and rituals

Just watched the original Amityville Horror for the first time the other night. Everyone affiliated with the church was rendered completely ineffectual pretty much right off the bat and they took the brunt of the supernatural punishment.

the lawsuits around Amityville Horror are pretty fascinating/lolzy

this is making me want to dig into some Satanic panic research-type books

Not enough pagan apocalypse going around.
pagans don't need the apocalypse to be scary -- they're scary enough as is ;)

strongly recommend debbie nathan's book about the satanic panic

Ghostbusters is pretty non-denominational demon, too, right?

The best bit in the first Paranormal Activity movie is when they call in the first spiritual housecleaner, who walks into the house and is immediately basically, wow, this is so above my paygrade I need to leave right now, good luck with your demon.

It's true, pre-EXORCIST there used to be tons of impending pagan apocalypse of the HOUSE OF THE DEVIL sort. Lots of Hammer films featured various pentagrams upon which corseted bosoms would heave and ornamental knives would slash and demons would (almost) erupt.

That Paranormal Activity thing reminds me of Dan Akroyd as a Ghostbuster in Casper