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

Also, a bit miffed at all the reviews who characterize these college kids as dummies. They're all actually pretty smart - Thor as an econ wiz was worth a chuckle, and I actually liked when the other hunk put on his smart glasses to look at something - but their behavior is directed contrary to said smarts. They're literally made to behave like dummies

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, April 13, 2012 8:02 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

[mild spoilers ahead, so...]

yeah, i thought the film handled this very well. not only are the kids forced into their roles, they're textually framed as "horror movie types" from the very beginning: the introductory shot of the panty-clad protagonist as seen voyeuristic 80s-style makes this comically clear. to say nothing of the opening sequence that foregrounds the film's twofold reality. those scenes put such huge quotation marks around the presence of the kids in the movie (and the movie as a whole, tbh) that i had no problem accepting the first act's more contrived and familiar aspects. by the time we got to mordecai the harbinger and the straight-up evil dead cabin, it was clear that the cliches were pretty much the entire point.

while watching, i liked how up-front the film was in letting us in on its first-level secrets, but in retrospect, i might have appreciated a bit more restraint. by the time we got to the reversals and expansions about halfway through, there wasn't much mystery left, which drained the subsequent absurdity exhibition of its power to really surprise me. overall, i liked it a lot, but a bit of the air did fizzle out in the ott final act.

Disagree, but not vehemently. Leaving the reveal til the end would have been mindblowing, but left the entire first half pretty tediously cliched. Knowing they were playing around from the get go was sort of crucial.

I think it was very well measured. I didn't expect it to go as bonkers as it did. I guess Meta's only direction to go is out.

("The Japanese are the only other viable market currently running!")

Ha. I like the furious STATE-OF-THE-GENRE-RIGHT-NOW of the movie the more I think about it. It may or may not toss posterity out the window, but whatever - the manipulators/manipulatees scenario may probably always be potent. Or not.

anyone seen the divide? very bleak

remind me: pontypool is yea or nay?

i like pontypool, its worth watching

Finally got around to Stake Land last night. I liked its faux-Malick lyricism and affectless voiceover more than I usually like actual Malick lyricism and affectlessness. The story felt very third- or fourth-hand, too much like I Am Legend or 28 Days Later or whatever other apocalyptic vampire/zombie movies you might name. But the downbeat vibe was an interesting approach, and there was some legitimately gorgeous filmmaking.

did rex reed even watch the same cabin in the woods that i did?

well he thought the virgin was actually a virgin so I don't think so

also, since we've gone all Glenn Kenny, here's Wells: http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2012/04/underground_hor.php

remind me: pontypool is yea or nay?

very enthusiastic yea from me, but it's pretty divisive, so no promises

someone make a Cabin In The Woods thread

Leaving the reveal til the end would have been mindblowing, but left the entire first half pretty tediously cliched. Knowing they were playing around from the get go was sort of crucial.

yeah, i agree with you there. i guess i wasn't clear. i liked that we knew from the outset that a game was being played and who the players were. my criticism, and it's a fairly mild one, is that i felt that the film gave the larger game away a bit too soon. we quickly came to understand so much of the film's overall design that after the first forty minutes or so, there weren't any real surprises left. we just got to see how things played out. a more conventional approach would have been to hold enough back so that we could learn about the next-level stuff along with the protagonists, and i think that might have served the final act a little better. would at least have allowed the ever-increasing absurdity to be disorienting, rather than merely comical. think this could have been accomplished without ditching the basic structure.

i dunno, maybe that "merely" was unfair. this winds up being a strangelove-style satirical comedy more than a "proper horror film, and there's nothing necessarily wrong with that.

xp

ok

I've debated it here at length, but I think "Pontypool" is one of the best movies I've seen in years.

I'll add another yea for Pontypool.

I think pontypool is rampagingly adequate.

pontypool is better on the second viewing

i will never know if that is true

Was surprised to see The Wicker Tree on sale at Best Buy last night for 14 bucks. Worth buying, or just worth seeing? It beckons me strongly...

I did the same double take, as it was on a center rack facing the front door with the likes of MI4

Wicker Tree is...something. Worth seeing, definitely. A friend of mine is quoted on the jacket, though, which was nice to see!

one of the reviews of "cabin in the woods" was mentioning those recent-ish french horror movies that were talked in this thread, made me think to check-up on those guys and it turns out the guys who made "Inside" made a new one, "livid". I checked it without knowing/seeing a thing about it and it was ok.

*trailer-like mild spoiler*

the subject of the movie appears on the betting board of "cabin in the woods", haha.

thanks for the tip, sebastien, gonna watch livide tonight

Okay, so Livide is wonderful! Not perfect by any means, but I had a hell of a lot more fun with it than I was expecting (wasn't a big fan of writer-director team Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury's previous À l'intérieur). It's a hybrid of a number of different horror approaches and tropes, generally gothic in style and more seductive than coherent.

It contains winking references to a number of classic horror films, but never succumbs to meta-movie jokeyness. Despite it's self-awareness and fan-letter trappings, Livide is quite serious and straightforward about its aims as a traditional horror film. It's spooky, atmospheric, increasingly dreamlike, visually inventive and rather old-fashioned in many respects, especially recalling the more surreal European horror films of the 70s and early 80s. And it's only occasionally punctuated with the kind of slam-bang gore and action you might expect from the writer-director team. Recommended.

wanna stress that's it not a perfect film by any means. the acting isn't great, the ending is iffy, its more a mash-up of borrowed bits than an original work of its own, and the characters & dialogue are pretty dull. the emphasis is clearly on the visuals and atmosphere, which is fine, but the film takes a while to really get going in that department.

the emphasis is clearly on the visuals and atmosphere

Which may explain a comment on some torrent thread that despite lacking English subtitles the dude felt he got the gist.

That said ... I'm having trouble finding a copy with subtitles.

The English sub script in circulation is extremely clunky. I opted to write my own. Curious to see how it compares to the subs on the forthcoming French Blu-ray.

As for the film, i'm more reserved in my enthusiasm. Some gorgeous bits, often beautifully lensed, and i didn't mind the slow-to-start structure. But where their first film got tighter once its players converged in the house, this one unravels, the story going nowhere and everywhere between setpieces. It tries to pull off that Euro-cine illogic that carried Argento, Bava, Fulci, etc. over their roughshod narratives, but never really convinces that Livide wasn't being made up by its creators, simply as an excuse to introduce allusive and generic elements, as they went along. the fauilure to establish a coherent, original mythology makes its horrors funhouse-freaky rather than in any way consequential. I got the impression that Maury & Bustillo built their script from images instead of ideas. fine for the phantasmagoric factor, but a recipe for a half-baked film.

Dude, you returned! Just in time for the all time horror poll!

hey welcome back hal jam! can't say you're wrong about livide, but i was more enamored of its strengths than distracted by its flaws.

Which may explain a comment on some torrent thread that despite lacking English subtitles the dude felt he got the gist.

That said ... I'm having trouble finding a copy with subtitles.

the copy i, uh, borrowed came with subs, but they're very bad, often completely nonsensical. didn't get in the way of my understanding/enjoyment of the film. i could mail the .srt to you if you haven't got anything else.

the fauilure to establish a coherent, original mythology makes its horrors funhouse-freaky rather than in any way consequential.

i at least half agree. the film's mythology is erratic and oneiric, which makes things seem incoherent, yes, but not entirely senseless, imo. i bought into the allowances granted by livide's dream-logic, though the film has basically no psychological subtext and is therefore only occasionally as weirdly evocative as its makers seems to intend.

the "funhouse-freaky" assessment is 100% otm. as it went on, livide reminded me more and more of insidious, james wan's cinematic carnival ride from last year. the two films have a lot in common, though bustillo & maury's in-genre reference points are different, and i think livide is a much, much better film overall. certain aspects also reminded me of hélène cattet & bruno forzani's amer, a richer exercise in retro-themed dream-horror.

mr. hal jam please report to this thread, also if you could tell us the 200 films we forgot to nominate that would be great

THE VAULT OF ILX Top 100 HORROR Movies Poll Voting Thread (voting closes May 7)

Bumping thread to get as many horror threads on the Site New Answers page as possible...

And because apparently, The Loved Ones is pretty good?

I saw it at TIFF's Midnight Madness a few years back. It's far from profound but it's a lot of fun.

is The Loved Ones finally getting US distro? it's a stylish, fun riff on torture and teen horror tropes. def. worth checking out.

didn't like it, but it's not dull

looks like it, MHJ

only three years later. christ. already ponies up for the UK DVD (and Blu-ray upgrade), but I enjoy it enough that I'd pay yet again to see/support the domestic theatrical release.

watched sion sono's cold fish last night. not sure what to think of it, tbh.

it's a long, a slow-building, and largely character-driven suspense thriller that eventually goes completely off the rails with grand guignol gore and brutality. somewhat reminiscent of takashi miike's audition in this regard. left a bad taste in my mouth though i'm not sure why, as it's less perverse and sleazily transgressive than strange circus, which i love.

couple of new-ish titles worth checking out.

Absentia - patient, subtle, admirably Lewtonesque. sticks with you.
Ashes - moody, mature, thoughtful. shame about the third act. had to go there?
DeadHeads - overlong but endearing zombuddy flick #1
Enter Nowhere - stagy but clever. though i can't see the point of re-watching once you're keen to the trick
Evidence - FF-by-numbers, but this one builds to an exhilarating, disorienting, frankly batshit finale (that continues through the credits. don't tune out prematurely)
Father's Day - irreverent Troma-approved exploitation. works best when it's not tripping over its own excesses
A Horrible Way to Die - mumblecorror? some will hate this more than life itself
Nazis at the Center of the Earth - no, really. totally entertaining.
Respire - inventive and almost great. see qualifier for Ashes
Restraint - Aussie cat-and-mouse thriller, adult variant (read: with sexy overtones)
The Revenant - overlong but endearing zombuddy flick #2. mentioned upthread, i believe.
Some Guy Who Kills People - didn't completely work for me. still worth seeing for the acting and good intentions.
Wrath - Aussie cat-and-mouse thriller, teen variant (read: with slasher overtones)

can't wait for DEAR GOD NO! promises to be the last word in demon biker Bigfoot meta-exploitation.

I hated Cold Fish - too long, too loathsome, too self-satisfied.

co-sign on Absentia and The Revenant.

the former is noteworthy for pulling off quite a bit on a seriously skimpy budget.

Some Guy Who Kills People - didn't completely work for me. still worth seeing for the acting and good intentions.

gets points for title obv

what Shion Sono movie isn't too long, too loathsome, and too self-satisfied? that's his trademark.

i liked CF - more than Guilty of Romance, which i can't get into no matter how i try. it's operatic in a way that recalls the OG Straw Dogs.

CF, that is. not GOR.