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

Bought The Lords of Salem on Blu-Ray - am watching it for the first time now. It's definitely the best-looking Rob Zombie movie to date, and the one with the least egregious stunt-casting. Plot-wise, not sure yet.

Lords of Salem is the best thing Zombie has ever done

Yeah, I don't know. It's definitely exactly what you think it is, no surprises, but there are some really interesting beats that keep it a little ... offbeat. Plus, some nice feelings of apocalyptic dread. Not sure I saw Halloween 2, but I didn't like his Halloween or his first movie. Really liked "Devil's Rejects," though, which captured something ugly in what I thought (iirc) was a sort of novel way. Been years since I saw it, though.

looooove Lords of Salem. So fkin good

Just finished it. I've found his previous movies literally unwatchable (tried to revisit Rejects the other day and lasted about 20 minutes, which is about as far as I got into Halloween 2), but this one is great. 75% of it is stolen from Kubrick or Ken Russell, but it's really meditative and beautiful, and the trio of elderly present-day witches are hilarious. I also liked the relative lack of explicit gore and jump scares.

yeah it's that atmospheric horror like all those creepy ass British movies from the 70's

Yeah, I did love Lords of Salem. I only remember one jump scare, in a ... kitchen? Hallway?

Anyway, want to say Rejects is worth getting through, if only to see the bad guys get ... not quite sympathetic, but something changes. Also, "Freebird."

best thing about Devil's Rejects is the soundtrack

The Scream TV series is fitfully entertaining but suffers from the main problem you'd expect from a long-form slasher story, in that if you make it abundantly obvious half way through who the killer is (partly because they are a terrible actor) you have four more hours, rather than 40 minutes, to sit through with no suspense. It has its moments but it's not a patch on the excellent Harper's Island.

Anyone else see Macbeth? It looked pretty nice but I felt the Shakespearean dialogue with the quiet naturalistic acting was an awkward mix. Generally okay but I wasn't very engaged. Kind of bizarre when Fassbender makes a whooping sound.
I thought I saw a lot of walking out the cinema, not that that's a measure of the film's quality, but I'd imagine a lot of people thought they'd be getting something faster and louder. I wondered if this would drag in the patriotic crowd (they'll surely complain about the accents but I didn't care much).

Not seen the whole of House of 1000 Corpses or Devil's Rejects (maybe 70% of both to the end) but I felt both tried to make you feel involved as if you're having a great time with the lovable crazy hicks. Found the "Freebird" bit quite cringey. Didn't want to see anymore. Unless there was hundreds of corpses at the start that I missed, House of 1000 Corpses didn't really deliver much of the title, I know the film was severely cut and apparently the missing scenes are lost or destroyed.

I made it through Devil's Rejects once, when it was newer; this time out, it just seemed like Zombie wanted to rub as much grime and hickoid-ness in the viewer's face as possible, and I wasn't in the mood. Plus, the dialogue was overwritten to the point of wretchedness - it sounded like a heavily caffeinated, sociopathic teenager had written it.

Do wonder if Zombie watched Texas Chainsaw Massacre and thought "I want to make films like that dinner scene and thoroughly enjoy their company".

Lords of Salem is part of a growing pantheon of recent movies that are amazing, slowly-expanding balloons of horror until they ultimately let all the air out in the most irritating fashion imaginable.

I never saw the film but I think the novel version was made to show what he would have done if he had more freedom or a bigger budget.

I don't think Lords of Salem suffered from lack of budget so much as lack of suspense. Was it supposed to be a metaphor for drug addiction? Were you ever once supposed to believe what was happening is not happening? The brilliance of "Rosemary's Baby," its most obvious influence, is this crazy vibe of "this can't be happening!", which of course dovetails with the weirdness and horror of pregnancy. But maybe it's the flashback that gives it all away at the start (iirc), but Salem goes exactly where you expect it to, and in fact its total lack of development is its biggest surprise. Don't think it really hurts the film at all, since it is generally so chill and the Kubrick side of things succeeds far more than it should. But it's kept me from going back.

I need to revisit Rejects. I do think it's interesting how many upthread have only seen part of it but don't want to see the rest. It has been years, and the movie is most certainly unpleasant, but it's not nearly as ugly or insufferable as something like Martyrs or Insides or that kind of stuff. I think you're on to something (xpost) that he wanted to make a Texas Chainsaw more from the perspective of the family. If anything, I want to say it reminds me of Chainsaw 2 in that regard.

Reading through the news on RueMorgue site, I don't know how seriously to take the film development news because these sites are known to extensively report things that never get out of development hell. But Richard Stanley is supposed to be making an adaptation of Color Out Of Space (an interesting choice). Also a Suspiria remake set in Germany with a strong focus on the generation divide in the 70s, with regards to WW2.

Suspiria has been rumored for years, right? What a stupid idea for a remake. It'd be like remaking 2001.

I have these to watch soon: Dark Places, Contracted Phase II, Hidden and Time Lapse. Any thought on these without giving away spoilers?

saw Crimson Peak last night. hugely disappointing. some nice setpieces and acting, but totally let down by OTT CGI, some terrible plotting, more clichés than you could shake a stick at, and general hamperedness all round.

Crimson Peak wasn't remotely scary, but it was constantly beautiful. I'll take that.

i finally saw the guest last week. it is the best movie ever

Went to an annual horror marathon this weekend at a local theater, and it included a screening of the upcoming horror/comedy The Scout's Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse. It was neither horrifying nor funny, but did include the greatest "a zombie getting its dick ripped off and thrown in another zombie's mouth" scene I've ever watched.

(Directed by Michael Landon's son and has, in a small role, Arnold Schwarzenegger's son. What a world, what a world.)

Finally convinced (tricked?) my wife into watching "The Descent" tonight. Then I thought, man, I wish Roger Ebert had reviewed this, he would have loved it. Then I thought, wait, he probably did review! And indeed, he did and did love it: http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-descent-2006

Wait! Wow, apparently despite the byline that review is ... not by Ebert? Jim Emerson? Mysterious.

"I have these to watch soon: Dark Places, Contracted Phase II, Hidden and Time Lapse. Any thought on these without giving away spoilers?"

Curious about Dark Places, based on a decent enough novel by the Gone Girl lady. Surprised that it didn't get a bigger release esp. with this cast hmmn maybe not a good sign actually... Wow critics hated it.

Original Contracted has a really unpleasant premise also descriptions of some of gross out bits--"maggots falling from vagina"--from first film are really (o_O)--not sure if that's too spoilery. Can't imagine sequel is worth watching here.

Time Lapse is decent Twilight Zone-ish fare. Not really much horror at all.

Just finished it. I've found his previous movies literally unwatchable (tried to revisit Rejects the other day and lasted about 20 minutes, which is about as far as I got into Halloween 2), but this one is great. 75% of it is stolen from Kubrick or Ken Russell, but it's really meditative and beautiful, and the trio of elderly present-day witches are hilarious. I also liked the relative lack of explicit gore and jump scares.

― the top man in the language department (誤訳侮辱), Friday, October 16, 2015 10:18 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Huh guess I need to watch this now. I have never seen corpses but I think Rejects is fun and I love the ending. I watched his Halloween last weekend and it . . . wasn't good but I don't know why he would have wanted to touch that anyway.

I just watched Zombie's Halloween last night. Agreed that it was neither great nor entirely necessary, but I thought the first half (minus all of the WE ARE POOR WHITE TRASH DO YOU SEE HOW OTT TRASHY WE ARE garbage) fleshed out Michael Myers nicely. Gonna watch the sequel tonight and see what the limited hype is all about.

Since the horror polls never progressed this far, I'm curious if anyone has a top ten list of recommendations for the years that fall within the remit of this thread. I realized recently that the past decade is the most poorly-represented (aside from maybe the '40s) in my horror movie collection. There have been a lot of good recommendations in this thread but I wonder what stuff has really stuck with y'all.

1. A Field In England

2. It Follows

3. A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night

Technically all three are 2014 though.

Nevermind saw that you asked for past decade.

Martyrs
Kill List

The Strangers (Scott Speedman, Liv Tyler, 2008)

Cabin In The Woods is just about the only unqualified recommendation I can think of (off the top of my head) from the past ten years.

Trying to remember if the Lucky McKee movies I've loved are all more than 10 years old. Oy the string of disappointments.

Inside
Halloween II
Bug
Joshua
Antichrist

i suppose the overrated Babadook is still good enough to make the cut here
and both Swedish and American versions of Let the Right One In

I just watched the Babadook and thought it was fucking ace. Though sadly I can't join in any previous conversation about it here as when I try to load all answers the thread seizes up. Maybe time to start a newer new film thread? Or just time for me to get a new computer?

Trying to remember if the Lucky McKee movies I've loved are all more than 10 years old. Oy the string of disappointments.

― banned on ixlor (Jon not Jon), Tuesday, October 20, 2015 3:31 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

May is great, The Woman is cool, Red got taken away from him, the rest have been short films, right?

May and Red both make my cut if they're recent enough to fit the criterion. The Woman sucked. Another one he didn't direct by had a hand in, The Lost, would also make my list.

and both Swedish and American versions of Let the Right One In

Otm

i am hard pressed to think of any other foreign genre movie remake that was as well served by its US version

Tops from recent years:
Borgman
Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh
Trash Humpers (yeah I know it's just me)

Lords of Salem is 75% amazing. I have my doubts Zombie can ever close the deal on the last 25% though.

tons of great horror in the past decade imo, most already mentioned - Under the Skin, It Follows, Babadook, Kill List, A Field in England, Cabin in the Woods, Let the Right One In (original),

May was v good. Can't wholeheartedly get behind the Strangers because the ending is botched so badly. Oculus probably deserves a mention.

Oh, yeah! Under the Skin and A Field in England -- both tremendous.

I gotta find my horror ballot and then I can answer this question probably. Despite some definite split opinions just upthread, I think "Deadgirl" is amazing.

Flanders

"i am hard pressed to think of any other foreign genre movie remake that was as well served by its US version"

We Are What We Are supposed to be good no?

xpost
The Bruno Dumont movie? I think it's possible to see all of his movies as horror movies, but Hors Satan is the one, if so.