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

Just watched "Lights Out" and "Bedfellows." So basically they're both just variants of the stare at the screen and then Regan from the Exorcist pops up gag? "Lights Out" was done really well, though.

Lights Out was OK, but the payoff wasn't up to the build.

I'm assuming Circa1916 linked to "Bedfellows", but for some reason linked videos on this forum don't show up on my kindle. I looked for it on vimeo and it is indeed the film I was looking for. I think the rock music in the credits was a bad idea and with a few changes it could have been a lot scarier.

Thanks.

so i also saw the conjuring and while it was way, way better than insidious 2 (low bar there) and had some nice moves in it, theres just this weird patina of unbelievableness to the whole thing that i cant really put my finger on. and i am a huge suspension of disbelief type wrt to horror, as has come up many times on this thread, but it sorta felt like the writers/director/actors all couldnt get past their skepticism abt psychic detectives or whatever even while the movie was being filmes, and it really seemed to show through, especially for the last 15-20 minutes somehow.

Or maybe they just realized they had made a feature length version of Friday the 13th the Series and fell into a deep funk.

the original "compact of doom" episode from Friday the 13th: The Series was kind of good

Bedfellows was a hundred times scarier as a screen shot, to the point where it still creeps me out now.

I feel that way about the animated gif

Has anyone seen The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears? It's the follow-up from the directors of Amer and one of the only good segments in the mostly-shit The ABCs of Death, but it doesn't seem to have gotten much of a US release, if any at all. There's no DVD or stream yet, either...

I watched it in a bit of a sleepy haze, but I would rank it significantly lower than Amer.

I've heard good things from film buddies, but they're more art film types than horror nerds.

been trying to catch up on recent stuff...

A Field in England (2013, Ben Wheatley)
Battlefield deserters in search of a pint get dragooned by an alchemist who may possess magical powers. (Great Britain) A strange, hypnotic and stunningly beautiful slice of magic-realist historical psychedelia. Funny, baffling, wonderfully well-written & entirely satisfying. Instant favorite.

Frankenstein's Army (2013, Richard Raaphorst)
Found-footage horror about a WWII-era Soviet reconnaisance unit that falls afoul of the mad doctor's madder descendant. Kind of loved this. Obviously made on a meager budget and prizing lunatic monter mayhem above all else, it never lets practical limitations get in the way of unhinged imagination. A blast.

Moebius (2013, Ki-duk Kim)
Said to be wordless, abstract & quite violent (S. Korea). Again, that description right on the money. It's hard for me to rate this one. It's a brave and gorgeous film, exquisitely well crafted and obviously the product of a singular and deeply personal cinematic vision. On the other hand, it's relentlessly unpleasant and almost absurdly on-the-nose. Admirable in its way and obviously bound for infamy, but I can't say I enjoyed it much.

Oculus (2013, Mike Flanagan)
Supernatural thriller about a haunted mirror. Not a bad movie by any means, but a bit bland and underwhelming. I quite enjoyed the first hour or so, but as the mysteries resolved themseves, my interest dissipated. Dull conclusion, too.

Open Grave (2013, Gonzalo López-Gallego)
Existential mystery about a man who wakes up in a pit of human bodies without any memory of his identity or past. Easily spoiled, so I'll just say it's a fairly clever and suspenseful variation on a well-worn horror theme. I can see why many praised this film, but it didn't do much for me.

Rigor Mortis (2013, Juno Mak)
Update of the 80s "Mr. Vampire" series (Hong Kong). Though I've never seen any of the films to which it pays tribute, I loved every minute of this action-packed supernatural drama. Atmospheric cinematography and striking special effects are certainly welcome, but it's the phenomenal ensemble cast and emotionally resonant storytelling that really stand out. Entirely satisfying, if a bit darker than necessary.

Under the Skin (2013, Jonathan Glazer)
Alien in human guise seduces hitchhikers in Scotland, said to be quite abstract (UK). WONDERFUL MOVIE! In the running for the best I've seen this year. Extremely eerie and at times disturbing, often as a product of its coldly dispassionate, successfully alien tone. Great soundtrack, too.

Adam Chaplin (2012, Emanuele De Santi)
Italian "bloodiest movie ever", said to be in the vein of Rikki-Oh (prod. by Necrostorm). A stupendously violent demon-as-superhero revenge story, simple as can be, but equipped with memorable villains, knockout gore effects, and go-for-broke pacing. Bad by any conventional measure, but distinctive, inventive and never less than entertaining. Suprisingly decent production values for such a low-budget effort, too.

Byzantium (2012, Neil Jordan)
Said to be a non-traditional vampire tale featuring two blood-sucking sisters holed up in a small Irish town. A character-driven movie with a rich sense of place, more gothic drama than horror. Could be accused of a romantic sentimentality not uncommon to Jordan's films, but strong performances and melancholy atmosphere kept me engaged. Not a great movie, perhaps, but one I enjoyed a great deal.

Stitches (2012, Connor McMahon)
Ghost clown horror comedy, going in w/ low expectations. Though it's quite gory, Stitches puts the comedy first at every turn. On that level, it easily outclasses most films of its ilk. Helped by a charming cast, good character & gag writing and some surprisingly inventive camerawork. Too facile to sustain interest all the way through, but consistently better than it has to be.

Taeter City (2012, Giulio De Santi)
Sci-fi gore epic set in a dystopian future metropolis (prod. by Necrostorm). Superficially quite similar to Adam Chaplin, but nowhere near as successful. The pacing is more breakneck still and the lovingly depicted gore becomes nearly constant, but the genre context switches from spooky demonic horror to blackly comic dystopian sci-fi. Pointless, incoherent and numbingly repetitive.

Thanatomorphose (2012, Éric Falardeau)
Canadian, a woman rots away from within (expect bleak, slow, gruesome). And yeah: bleak, slow, gruesome. Not much more than that. To be commended for making the most of obviously limited resources, as it features one location and, for the most part, one actor. Still oppressively dull and unpleasant, undone by poor performances, murky lighting and heavy-handed thematic underlining. Great gore effects, though...

Wither (2012, Sonny Laguna & Tommy Wiklund)
"The Swedish Evil Dead". An attractive group of young stranded at a cabin in the woods endure standard zombie flick trial-by-trauma. Though well-executed, suspenseful and cinematically "professional", I found this an almost entirely empty viewing experience. No ideas or personality, just a competent handling of overly familiar material.

Masks (2011, Andreas Marschall)
Giallo homage about a girl enrolled in a mysterious acting school (Germany). A nice surprise after the promising but lacklustre Tears of Kali. Owes a huge and undisguised debt to Suspiria, with enjoyably expressionistic visuals and a wonderful layering of sound & music. Atmospheric, oddly romantic and, like Marschall's earlier film, based around some novel ideas & interests.

The Road (2011, Yam Laranas)
A lonely stretch of road connects three independent stories with shared characters (Phillipines). An ambitious and involving supernatural mystery spanning three decades, concerning the persistence of past in present. The conclusion comes as no suprise, but I suspect the filmmakers were more interested in tragic resonance than pulling a fast one on the audience. Liked the way each story layer deepened the last.

Tomie: Unlimited (2011, Noboru Iguchi)
Reboot of the long-running ghost girl franchise (Japan). Wallows in deliberate cheese & low-budget cruddiness, tries for Hausu-style psychotronic oddity & occasionally succeeds. Lacks that film's visual flair and sugar-buzzed energy. Still quite entertaining.

Tormented (aka "Rabbit Horror") (2011, Takashi Shimizu)
Supernatural mystery (Japan), linked companion piece to Shock Labyrinth. Enjoyable, if overly melodramic in the spirit of its predecessor. Chris Doyle's cinematography & some wonderfully weird, rabbit-themed pop surrrealism help elevate this installment a notch above Shock Labyrinth.

Visible Secret (2011, Ann Hui)
The budding relationship between two young people is complicated by her ability to see ghosts (Hong Kong). Much more digressive and zany than I anticipated, and stressing the romantic and comedic aspects of the story over its horror trappings. Took me a while to orient myself, but once I got the hang of the film's loopy rhythms, I enjoyed it well enough.

The Last Circus (aka "Balada Triste de Trompeta") (2010, Álex de la Iglesia)
Two deranged clowns compete for the affections of a beautiful trapeze artist (comingling of drama, comedy & horror). There's something rather obvious about de la Iglesia's self-indulgent weirdness, and he can't tell a story to save his life, but I enjoyed this film's colorful oddity and constant tonal shifts enough to keep me on board all the way through.

Shock Labyrinth (2009, Takashi Shimizu)
Supernatural mystery, linked companion piece to Tormented (Japan). Slick, commercial and fairly ambitious, but the convoluted narrative is a good deal less interesting than the filmmakers seems to think. And too bathetic by half. Still "watchable", and I did enjoy the old-fashioned, haunted-house atmosphere.

Sick Nurses (2009, Piraphan Laoyont and Thodsapol Siriwiwat)
A vengeful ghost pursues a philandering doctor and his staff of comely young nurses (Thailand). Truly terrible but somehow charming in its screwball ineptitude and go-for-broke nuttiness. I admit the possibility that my opinion may have been swayed by the near-constant (though quaintly chaste) cheesecake parade. Perfect junk food cinema.

Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl (2009, Yoshihiro Nishimura and Naoyuki Tomomatsu)
Transfer-student vampire and spare-parts vixen compete for the affections of a timid young man (Japan). Utter garbage. Boorish, witless pandering of the saddest sort.

Dorothy Mills (2008, Agnès Merlet)
Mystery thriller about a possibly possessed girl, looks great. Wound up a big disappointment. Sleepy, low-intensity gothic mystery about a seemingly possessed girl and a small island town's dark secrets. Initially interesting in that it could be described as an inverted version of The Wicker Man, but descends quickly into soppy melodrama. No pulse, no style, might as well have been a TV movie.

Gutterballs (2008, Ryan Nicholson)
Ugly, irritating bullshit.

Midnight Ballad for Ghost Theater (2006, Gye-soo Jeon)
Korean fantasy about a young girl's encounter with the ghostly inhabitants of a decrepit movie theater. A bit overlong and heavy on both gratingly wacky spirit hijinks and at borderline maudlin sentimentality, this film's inventiveness and good cheer manage to see it through. Memorable songs, atmospheric sets and an appealing cast certainly don't hurt.

Contenderizer- I've been enjoying your arguments and contributions to many threads recently, so much so I can almost forgive you for not liking Tideland. Keep it up.

xpost But what did you watch the next night?

That is a good and useful list.

hi dere contenderizer!

got plague town coming tomorrow, i predict it will be great or crap, thats def what the imdb reviews seem to suggest

this just in - imdb reviews for horror movies are 100% useless discuss

i mean, not that they are great across the board on films in general, but i pretty much just mentally add 2 points to anything in the horror genre since that site is clearly full of would be movie critic horror haters

re: Gutterballs, "he made it a parody so he could make the hateful scumbag movie he wanted to make."

ladies and gentlefolk, i give you Ryan Nicholson's latest, Dead Nude Girls. cumming soon.

have we talked about Dustin Mills? Toledo-based, brimming with ideas, enthusiasm, and adorably warped sensibilities. he has enough technical chops to surmount his microscopic budgets, and an impressively deep bag of tricks. started strong, keeps improving. currently filming Snuffet, an all-puppet snuff film. Kill That Bitch, Night of the Tentacles, The Ballad of Skinless Pete, and esp. Easter Casket all highly recommended. if you can get on his wavelength, you'll be a fan for life. The Puppet Monster Massacre, Zombie A-Hole and Bath Salts Zombies overstay their welcome a bit, but are still enjoyable.

I would have thought the opposite. The place is full of Fangoria readers who use the word "masterpiece" for anything that isn't totally useless. There are lots of "WORST MOVIE EVAR!" reviews but they don't really overwhelm the place. I don't see many elitists there unless you look at films squarely in arthouse territory.
However, sometimes something like House Of Voices gets a bizarrely low rating (maybe because it was nothing like Martyrs).

I will say in these guys favour that at least they review loads of things that might have been ignored. Sometimes I imagine these are the same people as the metal fans who give loads of reviews even to the smallest bands. But occasionally I will find a horror film with hardly any reviews and not knowing why.
It really sucks when I'm looking for reviews of a supposedly canonical book and I can't find even 3 reviews. Some genres of books, films and music somehow just don't have many online reviews.

The film section of Rateyourmusic is impressive sometimes.

or maybe because it's the WORST MOVIE EVAR! (HoV)

I'm talking about imdb above; just in case of confusion.

i'm talking about House of Voices. a film i LOATHE.

House Of Voices is okay/leaning towards good. I felt about the same about the similar film The Orphanage.
More than anything I find it interesting because it was filmed in two languages (I've never heard of anyone doing that in modern times). Laugier also got Simonetti to do the soundtrack but rejected the results.
It's a pretty film with a nice ambience but I imagine a lot of people just found it boring and forgettable; so it's difficult to imagine why anyone could actually hate it.

Hahaha Hal Jam, I assume you are joking but please explain away if you are serious.

it's such a wasted opportunity. Laughier had an amazing location and a decent story, and he proceeded to do precisely NOTHING with them for a butt-numbing 98 minutes. loathe, not hate.

*Laugier

Don't you think that boring film/nice setting is a really common thing? Considering how many totally incompetent horror films with nothing going for them, it doesn't seem like such a bad thing.

i do not, obviously.

loved house of voices. a huge & welcome surprise after the hated martyrs. fite!

Loved Martyrs. Had no idea I was supposed to care about House of Voices.

seems to be pretty divisive, with plenty of outraged detractors, though i'm not sure why. relatively subtle gothic mystery. worked for me.

Maybe the two versions of the film significantly differ in quality? Maybe THat's why people differ so much? I saw the English version.

Wow this plague town thing is pretty close to unwatchably bad, and that's coming from me, so

Actually, fuck it, this is unwatchably bad, I'm throwing in the towel halfway through, which I never do.

^ did this w/ helldriver yesterday (post-2005). dunno why i keep giving nishimura another chance.

STAKELAND
Frustratingly little of note happens. Why did this film climb the heap when there are so many similar stories?

Oh man I hated that movie.

I thought it was OK, iirc.

I still think the Indonesian (Phillipino?) cult section of VHS2 was one of the best, scariest and most inventive horror movies of the past several years.

stakeland is terrible (and bad)

Xp
Yeah that Evans/Tjahjanto one was insanely brilliant.

Executive Koala (2005, Minoru Kawasaki)
Salaryman (who happens to be a furry-style koala bear) becomes enmeshed in dark doings. A real chore. The poker faced absurdity is initially beguiling, but quickly wears thin. Similar to a Troma or Nishimura movie in that it offers little beyond reflexively smirking cruddiness.

13: Game of Death (2006, Chookiat Sakveerakul)
Hapless reality show contestant faces bizarre & increasingly dangerous challenges (Thailand). Don't generally care for the dark-thriller-as-horror genre, but 13 had me on the edge of my seat all the way through. Solid performances, gut wrenching tension, and a welcome streak of vicious humor. Recommended, but not one to watch over dinner.

Helldriver (2010, Yoshihiro Nishimura)
Yet another kitschy Japanese splatter movie from Sushi Typhoon. I'm beginning to think I must have been about Tokyo Gore Police: Nishimura's work is otherwise abyssmal. Helldriver does manage a few moments of inspired lunacy, but I couldn't even finish the thing. Drek.

Alyce Kills (2011, Jay Lee)
Young woman loses her marbles after accidentally killing her best friend. A tightly focused psychological character study in the vein of May and Repulsion, graced, like The Seasoning House, with an unforgettable protagonist. Unfortunately, while Jade Dornfeld is excellent as Alyce, she can't overcome the senseless screenplay. Okay, but best approached w/ low expectations.

The Seasoning House (2012, Paul Hyett)
Cat and mouse revenge thriller about a mute girl enslaved in a truly hellish Balkan brothel (UK). An effectively tense and disturbing (if rather repellent) nail-biter held briefly aloft by a remarkable lead performance. Though I'm not inclined to condem The Seasoning House, I can't imagine recommending it to anyone, either. Just not my cup of human trafficking.

Hidden in the Woods (2012, Patricio Valladares)
Chilean film about a feral family, said to be quite savage. And savage it is! Unlike many "70's style" retro exploitation flicks, Hidden never succumbs to kitsch or homage. It's a bracingly raw and lurid piece of work, often evoking a particularly dark (modern) fairy tale, but ultimately a bit too satisfied with gleefully crude brutality as an end in itself. Gah, and why so much rape in movies these days?

Big Bad Wolves (2013, Ahron Keshales & Navot Papushado)
Rogue cop & grieving father put the screws to a schoolteacher who may be a murderous pedophile (Israel). Wolves is a tight and blackly comic mystery thriller, elevated by vivid characters and sharp cinematography. While successful on its own terms, it left me cold and never quite lived up to its wonderfully dreamlike opening scene.

Miss Zombie (2013, Hiroyuku Tanaka)
Japanese drama about a high-functioning zombie employed as a domestic servant. Avoiding horror almost completely, Miss Zombie is a patient, rather mournful film about human cruely and the possibility of something like redemption. Lyrical, slow-paced (but never dull), and ultimately quite moving. A very pleasant surprise in a tired genre.

"All Cheerleaders Die" by Lucky McKee ("May," "The Woman") and Chris Sivertson ("The Lost," "I Know Who Killed Me") is a total blast. So much fun.

Anyone seen Thale from maybe two years ago? It sounded interesting.

That's the Norwegian guys discovering the fairy woman? I found it really slow. They work on building a sense of dread, but it seemed more like a fantasy than a horror film.

from contenderizers list, im a huge fan of 13: game of death, didn't much like hidden in the woods, hated helldriver.

i remember liking stakeland quite a bit, but its been a while.

speaking of films with 13 in the title, and i know ive mentioned it before, but 13 Tzameti is really really worth seeing, but seriously DO NOT WATCH THE TRAILER as it is a huge idiotic spoiler for the film. French iirc, but not cut from the same cloth as the french extreme stuff really. tightrope thriller with horror elements, remade as the absolutely terrible "13" with statham and mickey rourke in america which should be avoided entirely

"All Cheerleaders Die" by Lucky McKee ("May," "The Woman") and Chris Sivertson ("The Lost," "I Know Who Killed Me") is a total blast. So much fun.

― Walter Galt, Monday, April 28, 2014 4:31 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Cool, looking forward. I loved loved LOVED The Lost. McKee struck out with The Woman but I'm still into him.

Still really wanna see Thale. Thanks for the reminder.

huh that is a split decision for sure, mostly love mckee, almost entirely hate sivertsons stuff. mainly this just makes me want to watch the woods and red again.