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

Borderlands kinda reminds me of it. That had a great ending.

finally sucked it up and watched "the poughkeepsie tapes" on youtube, and wow. its got some flaws, but definitely rises to the top of the found footage pile.

I've been to Poughkeepsie. I should watch that.

I'm starting the thnig's 31 horror films in 31 days twitter challenge today (we were on vacation so I got a late start) with Maniac, which I see everybody here hated (and I suspect the number of women I need to see scalped is pretty low, too), so maybe I will abandon it and watch Apartment 143 instead.

No, Maniac is pretty good. If I recall, the women scalpees were really likable, which was good to see, but also, you know, bad.

That sounds like my kind of challenge. My GF's out of town this weekend so I might binge pretty hardcore to make up the difference (I've shamefully only watched, like, two horror movies since the beginning of October).

The Descent's horror is almost self-contradictory because it's so scary and intense before they even add the monsters, so much so that the monsters actually deflate/decrease the scares.

Which ending did you see?

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, October 6, 2014 6:39 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I personally think the monsters are kinda unneccessary, for the exact reason you mention. I would've prefered the movie if it were simply about a doomed spelunking expedition.

― Certified Genious (Old Lunch), Monday, October 6, 2014 6:40 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

some kind of like super terrifying picnic at hanging rock scenario would have been more amazing.

― LIKE If you are against racism (omar little), Monday, October 6, 2014 6:42 PM (2 hours ago)

Yeah, this stuff. I was ambivalent about it even from the beginning, as the characters didn't gel with me (which is a massive shame as primarily-female cast = fuck yeah), but was hoping that the intensity/claustrophobia would make me care about them more, and then in come some rubbish monsters and it goes actiony and boring.

yeah the monsters sucked but i liked the cast and the first half was pretty scary
the girl with the beautiful eyebrows from the magdalene sisters was in it!
(i just looked her up and her name is nora-jane noone)

the characters didn't gel with me

ha yes I also thought there was something off about it - my initial question was "wait, how do all these ladies know each other?", their relationships to one another seemed kind of tossed and ambiguously set up, as if the screenwriter was thinking "well, we need at least six kills in this, better have six characters um here goes"

Not sure why a back story would be necessary.

Always thought she looked just like that Green Day frontman. Don't mean that as an insult or a compliment.

ha she does kind of look like him, only prettier!

I really love Magdalene Sisters. It made me realise that miserable realistic British films could be good.

well they bothered with the backstory for the first three (and the death of child/husband) and then quickly introduced three other randoms with little more than a sentence - which I wouldn't really have a problem with except that pretty much all the characters apart from the two leads ended up pretty indistinguishable

like nothing they did or said throughout the rest of the movie developed any character whatsoever

jjj, thanks for the tip on Poughkeepsie Tapes. I watched it this evening. Riveting and pretty fucking upsetting.

is "you're welcome" an appropriate response to that?

on the other side of the good coin, my continuing trip through after dark horrorfest got me to Perkins' 14, which is just (and remember, it's me saying this, I'll give a lot of illogic leeway to peeps getting chased by killers and such) totally incomprehensibly brain dead. avoid. avoid forever.

The moment way toward the end of Poughkeepsie where the one victim dies with the plastic wrap over their face was really really horrifying

Not a significant spoiler, in this movie abt a serial killer ppl are killed serially

I almost checked out of the Poughkeepsie Tapes nine minutes in with his first victim, but I didn't, which is maybe too bad.

It was a good movie, but I didn't like watching it very much.

i should have probably thrown in my typical "oh by the way this is super unpleasant to watch" caveat there

It's okay! I should be able to figure it out from context clues, really.

Yeah, there isn't generally a lot of wiggle room on the pleasantness scale with regard to pseudo snuff films, in my experience.

I just saw The Descent on Sunday & loved it!

Anyone saw the sequel? I normally wouldn't care but it retained a lot of the cast and crew of the original. Kinda curious how they managed a direct sequel.

Supposed to be terrible.

Bryan Bertino, writer/director of The Strangers, finally has a new movie that apparently just hit VOD. It's a found-footage movie called Mockingbird and I guess it's been in the can for a while? Bunch of bad signs there but I remain curious.

Descent sequel is absolutely terrible

Anyone seen It Follows? We saw it tonight in Leicester Square and loved it. Intelligent with plenty of nods to suburban US teen horror from the 80s, dude obv loves his Carpenter (good synths ha) although it also feels fresh and original. And it's scary! Liked it a lot.

It Follows and The Babadook seem to be the low budget triumphs of this year, I really like the look of both of them.

Cant find a trailer for It Follows.

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).