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

ok just watched The Woods mentioned upthread (thx streaming netflix) and that is def one of the best horror things ive seen in recent memory.

oh, cool. i'll have to check it out. have you seen may? that's good too.

collector was pathetic

Haven't seen anything super-recent. Mist was okay-ish, kinda hokey/kinda entertaining, like a better-than average Sci-Fi Channel monster movie for most of its running time, but the ending fucking sucked. Not because it was "nihilistic" or whatever, just because it was cheap, ridiculously overstated and lame. Should have ended with the Great Old One lurching by overhead as the Jeep ran out of gas. Maybe with the hero counting bullets, counting heads. But fuck everything that came after.

Couldn't make it through 30 Days of Night. Started out cool enough, but got boring fast.

The Woods is awesome.

Has anybody see Voice?

Is this the Korean film? I thought it was o-k but a letdown if considered as the 4th film in the 'Whispering Corridors' series. The 2nd - 'Memento Mori' - is the strongest. Incidentally the 5th film just came out but I'm a little hesitant.

Maybe I'll see 'The Woods' tonight.

2009, 'horror' movies

LMAO

yeah i still can't get over how good the woods was. looks beautiful, great performances, well written dialog, smart as hell. no idea why this movie is kind of a blip rather than well known.

I really dug may but never checked out the woods due to mixed reviews

director got fired off his last film, too

am about to watch Martyrs. Wish me luck!

THE STRANGERS is hands down the best I've seen this half of the decade. THE ORPHANAGE is terrible boring conventional bullshit.

THE ORPHANAGE is terrible boring conventional bullshit

+sugared +embossed +pretentious +not at all scary

Yeah, The Orphanage gets a lot of praise, but I'm not sure why. It's decent for an old-fashioned ghost story, but nothing special. Same goes for The Others and most of the post-Sixth-Sense "grown up ghost story" genre.

Jesus Camp still scares me.

paranormal activity was ok

not the scariest movie ever made? i want it to be the scariest movie ever made.

I haven't seen The Orphanage, but the ending sounds absolutely hilarious (and it's also the same ending as another certain famous early 70s horror film, and both of these setups seem really ridiculous).

Curious about The Woods. I liked May as a character piece, though I wasn't really fond of the shot that bookends the movie... but I'm not really into this stuff for the gore or jump scare factor.

paranormal is not that great. download it and see it at home. more of a living room thing than a theatre experience.

Seconding (thirding?) this. I liked it a lot, but watching it at home on laptop was much more effective than seeing it in a theater. It's basically a feature length YouTube video.

I really dug may but never checked out the woods due to mixed reviews

director got fired off his last film, too

― 鬼の手 (Edward III), Monday, October 26, 2009 1:49 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this dude is never going to go anywhere if he keeps making his movies so hard to google

ok, about to watch martyrs, will report back in about 1:45

oof. that was rough.

will add more thoughts once i have time to digest it, but i can say that that is some bleak, bleak shit right there.

French movies sort of own this thread, huh.

THE ORPHANAGE is hands down the best I've seen this half of the decade. THE STRANGERS is terrible boring conventional bullshit.

wow the last 30 minutes of martyrs are just so brutal. i dont think id really put it in the horror category (as weird as that seems considering, well, everything about it) - idk what to call it. it isnt scary per se (uh certainly disquieting dont get me wrong).

really having trouble working my way around it. really good though.

was talking w/a friend of mine about these sort of characteristics of new foreign (to me) horror films. there is def a totally different thing going on depending on whether yer talking about france/UK/spain/aussie, but all of them are simultaneously blooming, whereas the american stuff is sort of flailing around and retreading, and the asian extreme stuff seems to be caught in a rut.

god i hate the term asian extreme but at least its a placeholder (and works better than j-horror).

asian X-TREME

The Strangers is effective but forgettable and completely contentless.

Got The Woods waiting on my hard drive, hadn't heard of it before this thread, but I'm quite excited about it now. Also, Bruce Campbell!

oof. that was rough.

― PHEAR MY POORAPULT (jjjusten), Thursday, October 29, 2009 2:29 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark

yep.

wow the last 30 minutes of martyrs are just so brutal. i dont think id really put it in the horror category (as weird as that seems considering, well, everything about it) - idk what to call it. it isnt scary per se (uh certainly disquieting dont get me wrong).

First 2/3 def. has enough (fucking freaky as shit) traditional macabre elements to qualify it as trad horror imo. Last bit is def on its own arthouse thing, tho. Absolutely loved this btw.

okay so I just read about Inside and um... yikes

there is a reason I don't watch these but tbh I love reading about them

there is def a totally different thing going on depending on whether yer talking about france/UK/spain/aussie, but all of them are simultaneously blooming

Any recommendations? I've already added Inside and Martyr to my queue, but haven't seen any mention of specific Aussie or Spanish movies yet.

aussie: wolf creek obv.

for aussie/NZ stuff you should prob start with Wolf Creek

spanish - maybe rec? i have to think about this one a little more tbh

xpost hah yep

lots of peeps rep for "the nun" on the spanish side, but i havent seen it so

there is a reason I don't watch these but tbh I love reading about them

― ADVANCED CHORD CHANGES (HI DERE), Thursday, October 29, 2009 11:46 AM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

OTM

Here is generally how it breaks down for me:

Brilliant, worthy of canonization: The Descent, The Devil's Rejects, Martyrs

Almost there (great, but terminally flawed): Strangers (first half is the most awesome, scariest shit - second half, not so much); Haute Tension (that fucking twist - ugh); The Mist (Marcia Aspie Harden)

Highly Watchable: Drag Me to Hell (maybe this deserves top rating - on the fence about this), Hostels 1+2, The Hills Have Eyes (this & Dawn of the Dead are the only remakes worth watching), Dead Snow (boring as shit until the zombie freakout occurs; is hence thoroughly entertaining), Trick R' Treat, 28 Weeks Later, Slither

In a class of its own: Inland Empire

Shitbox: Saw movies, most remakes, most horror films (sad but true)

Have not seen: Paranormal Activity, Inside (will have seen both by weeks end), Rec, The Children, Home Movie, The Orphanage, Voice, Deadgirl, The Woods, Les Revanants

Inside is way better than I'll ever be willing to give it credit for.

inside is one of those movies that's totally riveting but you watch the entire time with O_O that expression on your face. i think the thing with the cop at the end was especially O_O

Drag Me to Hell (maybe this deserves top rating - on the fence about this) - I'd grant Grindhouse this same status (both features + trailers)

Highly Watchable - also, add to this: Hatchet, a thoroughly entertaining bit of self-aware slasher-camp

Hard Candy, with Ellen Page, is more of psychologicall thriller than horror, but I liked it a whole lot. Basically a two-character movie.

When done well, which sadly is not often, horror is my favorite genre. From the above recs I added Martyrs, Woods, Wolf Creek, Them, Deadgirl and The Strangers to my Netflix queue.

I enjoyed The Mist (it's better in B&W if you have a choice). Agree the ending would have been better if left after running out of gas/seeing the monster thingy walk by, etc.

Drag Me to Hell was OK (not scary at all, though). The CGI was at times cartoonish. But it doesn't take it self to seriously either. Don't think I'd recommend it to someone who's not already a big Raimi fan.

I only saw The Descent once a few years back. I thought it was great, and one of the scarier movies I've seen. I didn't find the CGI monsters to be that bad.

Trick R Treat was a solid movie. Again, not really scary, but it was entertaining and well made. It captured Halloween well (if that makes any sense).

As far as older films go, I saw David Cronenberg's The Brood last week. Some of the acting in that movie is subpar, but there were scenes that creeped me out, so if you haven't saw it yet, I'd recommend it (especially for Cronenberg fans). Not sure how popular this film was when it came out.

Was Scanner's good?

I guess Dead Snow isn't out yet in the States as a DVD. But will check that one out as well.

Patrick McGoohan RIP is excellent in Scanners. Also there is head exploding.

One last thing: I can't believe Land of the Dead got positive reviews. Pretty much one big waste of time (and I'm a huge fan of Romero's). Diary of the Dead was better, but not really that good either. There's a new one out (or soon to be out anyway) called Island of the Dead. I don't have high expectations but I'll probably end up checking it out on Netflix.

I watched Drag Me to Hell only yesterday. About as scary and as clunky as a fairground ghost train, but it gets by on sheer enthusiasm and a likable performance from the lead. Forgettable though.

All this Mist love mystifies me. No atmosphere to it at all, just dead.

The Brood is maybe Cronenberg's best, outside of The Fly.

LOL I finally watched Devil's Rejects last night expecting i dunno what and it was mostly a comedy right? With some awesome tunage that gave me renewed respect for Rob Zombie's collection of 70s LPs. Terry Reid!