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

I've always assumed it's simply because claustrophobia is hard to represent on film.

I'm not sure what way you are meaning. Tsukamoto's Haze is great for this. Obviously Buried did it.

I just wish Descent had more parts with people stuck in horribly tiny tunnels and get attacked by monsters.

As the resident freak that loved "Rubber" and "The Oregonian" (because that disclaimer might be kind of important here) I really recommend that people give "Escape From Tomorrow" (the rogue Disney violating film) a shot. It's a glorious fantastic mess, and the horrendous awkward humor that people are so irritated by seems to magnify the creepy, and IMO intentionally so.

One of my favorite things I've seen this year. Not kidding. At the same time, I can see why people hate the hell out of it.

At the same time, I can see why people hate the hell out of it.

is anyone watching penny dreadful?

2nd ep was dope

I'm interested; it doesn't show in UK until next week I think. I thought any potentially big show would be kept closer on the international airing dates. When a thread gets made its just weird when some people are several weeks ahead of the others.

Ha Eric! Are you in the hated it camp? I'm always curious when we radically differ on stuff, since I think we have a pretty big taste overlap, esp within the horror stuff.

Definitely in the hated it camp. I was going along with it for a little while, but it eventually got so wrapped up in puerile-whiny-dad B.S. If I wanted that, I'd just watch more Judd Apatow thx.

been on a kiyoshi kurosawa kick lately. how's his horror stuff outside of pulse and cure? love both myself. I think I'm most interested in checking out his penance tv series next.

I've never seen that film and I know I've talked about this several times but it never ceases to amaze me how passionate people's film/tv responses are. There used to be a couple of films I hated when I was a teen insecure and dogmatic about how art/entertainment should be made, but after calming down about that, I can't think of a single film I hate. 93% of films range between annoyed, irritated, many different degrees of boredom but never hate.

I was actually laughing the other day imagining House Of Voices finishing on a cinema, most people saying either "that was boring" or "I actually kinda liked it" and Hal Jam still sitting down looking insane with fury.

I'm sure I only hate or love about 5% of the movies I see too.

And then there's that select 0.05% of movies I love and hate equally.

The remaining 7% was for the range of like to love. Very few films I love.

I started the Penny Dreadful thread.

Have you seriously never been betrayed by a movie?

Maybe, but you need to feel invested before you are betrayed and I am rarely invested in anything. A lot of people feel betrayed because they don't get the type of film they wanted but you can't criticize something for being what it never intended to be (although people constantly do).

However a general feeling of disappointment constantly hangs over films (and a lot of books and comics) for me most of the time in the sense that I always wish the general bar of quality was much higher. I even get furious about that, but not at specific films.

I don't hate Stakeland, I hate the fandom that fawns over it. But these days I'm more curious about how and why people adore things I was bored by.

There's Stakeland fandom? smdh

Loved Escape From Tomorrow

Stakeland seems to have been greeted very warmly by people who buy horror magazines and frequent the horror blogs.

I HATE people like that!

I try to replace my hate for horror, SF, fantasy, superhero fanboys with compassion because I am close enough in species to them that I feel sorry for their life of religiously hyped consumerism, tunnel vision and geeky trivialities because it should be spent pursuing things that evoke the qualities that made them a fan of this stuff in the first place.

I tend to find that fandom only problematic when it equates to "all remakes are terrible"/"wolverine would never have done that" sort of protective precious nonsense. If fandom makes you dismiss stuff out of hand, well, you suck imo.

cf: prometheus thread

:)

Fandom is a great support structure that enables some great things to happen. For all its flaws, metal fandom is an incredible thing. But fan cultures often tend to be quite decadent and not have enough healthy criticism.

Horror and fantasy is in my blood, I feel like it's a large fundamental part of who I am, so I really care about the general health of the genre and it pains me to see people who are some of the biggest fans treat it so poorly.

I like horror blogs and have no problems with fandom. I just hated Stakeland.

I like some horror blogs (I'm a member of one) and magazines but I was just trying to convey the type of fan who loves virtually everything that isn't totally incompetent.

There used to be a great blog devoted to scenery in films, but it seems to have stopped.

About to watch "Here comes the devil" per aeros emphatic recommendation upthread. Will report back. Streaming netflix, FYI.

Experiment ruined 20 minutes in by baby, but so far 90% whoa awesome, 10% huh camerawork.

I'm really surprised at contenderizer finding that it is a 'gorgeous film, exquisitely well crafted'. I thought it looked like ugly, cheap digital. However, this once again helped the off-the-cuff-ness of it all. I'd say check the last half.

― Frederik B, Monday, May 5, 2014 8:14 AM (1 week ago)

i thought it was lovely, sharp, beautifully composed digital, the latter not at all compromised by the loose, handheld approach. have never seen a bad-looking KDK film tho. re alan n: i often wondered while watching whether i should just bail on the thing, but an awful, rubbernecking fascination that held me through. it's really lingered in my mind, not just due to the yuk factor.

^ on moebius

http://www.deadline.com/2014/05/cannes-stephen-king-novel-geralds-game-to-be-adapted-by-oculus-helmer-mike-flanagan-and-intrepid-pictures/

thanks for weighing in, frederik & contenderizer. I'll give moebius another shot sometime soon.

THE CONJURING
I disliked this. It has many of the flaws of Insidious but worse, another nauseating sentimental depiction of a nice dull American family being terrorized by spirits. It seemed like it was made for a conservative audience that is in the habit of being exploited by mediums who claim they can speak to ghosts.
It does some things well enough and like Insidious, some of the music was good but all this got buried under bad cliches.

MAMA
The visuals of the mother spirit are central and while there are quite a few images that are quite cool, they just aren't done well enough. There are moments where the face of the mother spirit is a real actress but a bit distorted and it looks better; I think they should have stuck with that more realistic technique because the more spidery images just make you think "the concept art for this is probably really good".
The drama side is okay (certainly looks good next to The Conjuring) but not as moving as it was probably supposed to be.

watched proxy --not dreadful, but it's way too dour, characters are not well-crafted, ppl behave unrealistically @ several turns, not enough is explained abt the first woman really or overall generally; there is also a really absurd slomo blood spurt in joe swanbergs face where u can't not scoff @ it

Just watched Triangle, thanks to this thread. Help me out here, those who remember it. * THAR BE SPOILERS*

The loop logic of it seems solid, except for the moment of the wreck. Had she survived it, crawled away, and then limped off to the dock, that would make perfect sense and lead to the beginning of the film. But instead, there's suddenly a second her gazing at the aftermath of the wreck. But at this point, unlike on the boat, there should be only one of her, not multiple hers. Ah, crap, you'd probably have to have seen this yesterday to be able to discuss this much detail. Pretty cool movie, flaws and all, with one fantastic reveal (she comes around a corner chasing the married woman and you see... well, you know).

***spoiler***I could totally be wrong here, but part of why I loved Triangle was because they did such a great job of keeping the overlapping timeline(s) logical up until the very end where they just seemed to say "fuck it, this is a much more entertaining ending than trying to have it make sense"

Ah, crap, you'd probably have to have seen this yesterday to be able to discuss this much detail.

― The Thnig, Friday, June 6, 2014 12:28 PM (10 hours ago)

yeah, had fun, but don't recall the details anywhere near well enough to really get into it

I've watched some trash recently when it has been too hot to do anything else.

Paranormal Activity 5 has the advantage of being marginally better than Paranormal Activity 4 but is still very slight. The only thing that the series really has going for it is well-choreographed domestic scares and the latest essentially dispenses with any of that, leaving very little.

The Entity is another in the long line of films where mediocre actors wander around a disused light industrial unit in Romania insane asylum shrieking and filming things falling over. It's played completely straight and the back story about Russian MK-ULTRA experiments adds nothing. The whole thing looks like it could have been devised, written and filmed over the course of weekend. It's completely pointless.

In contrast Banshee Chapter, which also had an MK-ULTRA theme, looks quite passable. It's loosely based on Lovecraft's From Beyond and stretches a low budget a hack of a lot further.

Jug Face could have potentially been interesting to those who don't have an aversion to hillbilly stereotypes and hammy acting but it doesn't really gel together. Might have been ok as a 45m TV thing but doesn't do enough to sustain feature length. Sean Young is good value as a scenery-chewing backwoods matriarch though.

World War Z is exactly as you would expect it to be from the trailer.

considering the trashing WWZ got on its own thread, I was pleasantly surprised by it.

wow "Megan is Missing" caught me completely offguard. Not sure it's really good in almost any measureable way, but wow. Last half is stunningly unpleasant and difficult to watch.

Oculus was a big disappointment after Absentia, quite ambitious in a way but actively irritating from halfway.

Oh sweet Jesus "Megan Is Missing." I think I'm glad I saw it, but I'm positive I'd like to never see it again.

agree
i just remembered what it is

and i dunno if A Field in England counts as "horror" but whooeeeey was it good! i think i loved basically every single thing about it.

oh hey I just watched that too! I got a bit frustrated with it while it was on but then reflecting on it later it's grown in my estimation. It's one of those things that seems simple on the surface plot-wise - not a lot really happens - but it has all these little details that tie the narrative in knots.

I was thinking that Friend and Jacob are spirits that are trapped in the field, and Whitehead joins them at the end - but this leaves open why Cutler is there, what his role is.

I'm sorry, the characters are named

the singing one with the beard and the hat
the alchemist's servant
the one with VD
the guru
the rakish bodyguard

i think that was it? i really liked the bug segments too.

ok Friend is the singing one, Whitehead is the alchemist's servant, the guru is O'Neill ... I think Cutler is the rakish bodyguard and Jacob is the one with VD. At the end in the final shot (SPOILERS) Whitehead is standing in the field in between Jacob and Friend and wearing Cutler's hat (and other clothes iirc?)

the implication being that Whitehead has assumed Cutler's role/replaced him... altho Whitehead didn't kill Cutler, it was O'Neill that blew Cutler's face off iirc. see I already need to see this again...