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

Watched Quarantine this past weekend. What a waste of time.

this is one of those times where i really wish i could say "well you should see the original which they screwed up" but the remake is such a carbon copy that i doubt you'd like REC either.

Thanks guys for the Sauna and Martyrs recommendation. It was very good. What you guys suggest would be even better?

"the fx guy who did martyrs committed suicide shortly after it came out"
this is bummer! i hope it had nothing to do with the movie

didn't like Sauna. i admire Annila for trying something different. beautifully made and acted, but the J-Horror tropes seemed out of place in such an austere, almost-Shakespearean drama about brothers and guilt.

i'll recommend these:
Coming Soon(2008) - the old "haunted film" thing, but with a clever twist. assured first film by the writer of the Shutter. intense without being too gory, and very commercially accessible, this could be a calling-card movie for Thai horror - if it's picked up by the right people (anyone but Lionsgate). only out on R3 (SG?) DVD right now. may have made the festival circuit.

The Chair (2007). co-ed moves into a house that may be haunted. yeah, yeah, yeah. and for a while this plays out like a first draft of Paranormal Activity. Brett Sullivan (who directed the first Ginger Snaps sequel) has some nifty new tricks up his sleeve, though, and the story ends up going somewhere quite unexpected. The Chair is one of the most effective horror films I've seen in some time, thanks in no small part to the brilliant sound design. everyday sounds are tweaked throughout to fray your nerves so that the shocks, when they come, hit hard. oh, to be see this in a theater with a sweet sound system! the scenario is inventively freaky, with more than a nod to Poe's oft-filmed "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar," but believable characters sell the weirder plot turns. with better promotion, this one (which picked up a slew of major festival awards) could and likely would have enjoyed the same phenomenal word-of-mouth success as PA. Instead, the ever-clueless Lionsgate, in their infinite idiocy, packaged it as a Saw clone. they've done a fine film a tremendous disservice.

Red Velvet (2009)
Murder Loves Killers Too (2009)
a pair of unconventional slashers that demonstrate just how quickly shot-on-DV horror is coming of age. the slashing is actually the least effective part, though i'll credit both directors for coming up with ever ghastlier ways to slice, dice and otherwise dispatch their casts. handsaws seem to be in vogue. Red Velvet sets itself apart not only by looking fantastic - there are sequences here that wouldn't be out of place in the most vivid dreams of a Bava or Argento - but by devising an amusingly bent framing story. it's more Scream than Sorority House Massacre, in other words. but it doesn't smack of smug, self-conscious/righteous Cravenisms (or would they be Williamsonisms?) can't quite sustain itself through the not-so-shocking reveal, but a noble effort. MLKT is even stranger, plowing through its slasher mechanics early on, in an almost desultory rush. when the ensemble has been whittled down to the killer and the Final Girl, MLKT prolongs their cat-and-mouse games with nail-biting efficiency. and then it gets weird. gonzo, even. i don't know what genre to ascribe to the rest of this movie, but it's all very, very entertaining. if you pick up the DVD (and you should), don't miss the extra where deadpan director Drew Barnhardt recites the roster of alternate titles FOR 14 MINUTES! the movie's a treat, but this is absurdist cinema at its finest.

Red Velvet was shot on 35mm, not DV. my mistake. and the very Bava-esque color saturation in many sequences is an homage to Pierre et Gilles, according to the director.

didn't like Sauna. i admire Annila for trying something different. beautifully made and acted, but the J-Horror tropes seemed out of place in such an austere, almost-Shakespearean drama about brothers and guilt.

really? it was pretty seamless for me... unless you're referring to the abrupt ending, then I agree. it's like 80 minutes of brooding then 5 minutes of everybody going apeshit.

referring to the abrupt ending, yes, but also to the sporadic visions of lank-haired girl ghosts spitting up black stuff. filth, as per the original title, i assume. visually, it all just seemed a little too "Samara goes to Finland," and didn't jibe with the unique mood Annila spent so much of the film's running time carefully creating.

I've read similar comments from others, but I can only say those images didn't strike me as being a straight J-Horror quote. Made me think of the medieval spooks and demons from M. R. James' stories, and that seemed entirely in keeping.

Seconding (thirding?) this. I liked it a lot, but watching it at home on laptop was much more effective than seeing it in a theater. It's basically a feature length YouTube video.

lol. doing this now. alone (with only the youngest kid at home). it's not that great but WHY THE FUCK do i always watch this (and blairwitch project and...) when i am alone? at night? in the dark? cause i'm stupid i guess. okay, HUSBAND COME HOME NOW. LIKE FUCKING PRONTO.

I always watch movies on my laptop with headphones and it can be much scarier than a television.

I know! Also, uh, what the fuck is up with that ending? Kinda dud. But the rest was scary. Not original at all, badly acted, but it still got me excpetionally scared. Husband is home now. Thank god. lol

man this thread is an absolute goldmine, although i only posted on it at the time to hate on The Mist (and saved taunting J0rdan about liking P2 for AIM). i just went nuts and added about 20 movies mentioned here to my queue, since the wife and i have a tradition of watching horror flicks on Valentine's Day.

haha now that is a tradition i can get behind!

Baby Blues (2008)
A rural mom with a downright lethal case of PPD chases her children around the family farmstead with a meat cleaver while her husband is away on business. Her eldest boy squares off with the murderous matriarch after witnessing the systematic slaughter of his weaker siblings, and tensions escalate as survival instincts clash with familial obligations. This is a lean, mean movie, nasty but undeniably effective, that "goes there" - again and again, pulling absolutely no punches. Which makes it one to avoid if you can't abide injury to beasts and children. Alongside Baby Blues' maniac mommy, the murderess from Inside comes off as reasonable and lenient. i'd say she makes Susan Smith seem like Mary Poppins, too. but that would be in bad taste.

I Sell the Dead (2009)
An odd one. Amer-indie horror guru Larry Fessenden is in front of the camera, as half of a Burke & Hare-styled resurrectionist duo (Dominic Monaghan is his younger partner). Their grave-robbing misadventures, as related to an inquisitive priest, are a motley assortment of Hammer Horror motifs, tweaked with a thoroughly modern comic sensibility. The tone is odd but endearing. I could have done with more sauce, but this IFC find is sure to delight anyone who shares the filmmakers' genuine affection for the vintage chills of the Lee/Cushing era.

this is pre-2005, but all the heads are here so I'll ask... anybody have opinions about douglas buck's family portraits? always wanted to see it, but nobody talks about it much.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0463310/

Rogue is showing up tomorrow and i am excited/a little worried its going to suck

i mean killer croc movie should be enough to pretty much dash any expectations of good, but yknow its the Wolf Creek dude, so ???

i keep almost watching family portraits and then just never getting around to bumping it up the queue, id be interested on what people think of it too

was Family Portraits the first formal appearance of Cutting Moments? that was one BRUTAL short! can't remember where i caught it - it has been anthologized several times - but i know it wasn't in the context of FP.

Rogue isn't bad. looks great - both the movie and the croc. but it's too stingy with its onscreen mayhem, and falls short of the other Aussie killer-croc flick, 1987's Dark Age.

IIRC cutting moments made the festival circuit in the late 90s, then it was on a comp of shorts that went OOP and became highly sought after by horror fans... I think family portraits was the first widely available version (i.e. my local hollywood video had a copy).

This thread is like torture in that you guys are making me interested in seeing movies I know I can't actually watch.

you def don't want to watch family portraits dan

I just read about "Cutting Moments" and you are 100% correct

though in our post-audition/oldboy/martyrs world, cutting moments does seem a little quaint

at the time it was :O

or should I say :()

This thread is like torture in that you guys are making me interested in seeing movies I know I can't actually watch.

― struck through in my prime (HI DERE), Thursday, January 28, 2010 2:05 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I'd like to option this premise for a high tech thriller that absolutely nobody will watch btw

'cutting moments' is totally o_O and 8< (scissors)

also: 'aftermath'

ok so i am selecting out of the on demand section of my cable - any votes for whether i should watch "the burrowers" or "skinwalkers"?

Sorry if it's already been discussed but has anyone seen "Amer"? It is recommended to me so so strongly. Also, we all loved "Martyrs" right?

oh man after thinking about it FOR MONTHS i finally remembered the name of the horror movie i always wanted to get made (or released) in full:

CHUNK BLOWER: A MOVIE WITH GUTS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9t2YjcbPzg

there's something so awesome and funny about it, and pretty much everything else Jim Van Bebber had a hand in. like 'My Sweet Satan.'

i watched 'Amer' the other night! it was okay.

Imdb shows amer as not coming out until march 2010 unless I am missing something

Ha ok then nevermind

Burrowers looks great but has a VERY slow build. decent payoff. and a very interesting cast. Skinwalkers was that PG-13 pseudo-werewolf thing? don't remember much about it.

Van Bebber box has been blowing my mind lately. never imagined I'd get to see Roadkill in full. and The Manson Family is definitive.

xxxp I'm totally obsessed with giallo/Argento though so...

Stevie, have you seen Bava's "Bay of Blood/Twitch of the Death Nerve"? it isn't Bava's best, but it is by far the most beautiful.

check out Eyes of Crystal (2005), Stevie. surprisingly good latter-day Italian giallo that borrows heavily from SE7VEN and delivers a compelling, linear(!) story in addition to dizzying visuals. never released here, but there's an excellent, fairly cheap R2 PAL edition.

you might also enjoy Five Dead on the Crimson Canvas, an endearingly inept recent(ish) Upstate giallo homage with its heart in the right place. god love them, they did try.

i've been exploring proto-gialli, like Tinto Brass' Deadly Sweet and Bava Sr.'s pre-Blood and Black Lace titles. interesting to chart the evolution of the form. and will we ever get see a DVD of A Quiet Place in the Country?!

you really think Bay of Blood is Bava's most beautiful film, Tabes? it's fun, sure, but candy-colored hackwork compared to The Whip and the Body and (esp) Lisa and the Devil. Bava always seemed best when he was playing up the kink for all its worth.

checked out k*ll*an's "Argento" poems on your rec, BTW. very cool! what else would you recommend? wrong thread, but IDGAFF.

seems like the place and time to gush with admiration for Fulci's criminally overlooked Lizard with a Woman's Skin, Freda's nearly as good Iguana with the Tongue of Fire, Pastore's cheerfully crude The Crimes of the Black Cat and, perhaps my favorite of all, Avati's untouchable The House with Laughing Windows. is there a dedicated giallo thread? there oughta be.

huh, never actually seen 'The Whip & The Body." on the queue now!

i think i really like "Bay of Blood" because it is so...candy-colored, so rich in class dynamics. plus the ending actually did make me go, "WOAH. FUCKING GREAT." but maybe that's just me.

if you liked that book of K3vin's, i'd also check out his latest, 'Impossible Princess.' it's stories, but they're all violent, sadomasiochistic, and slyly smart in a way that only dawns on the reader after a daty or so after finishing it. his latest project is apparently a book of poems based off of James Bidgood's classic "Pink Narcissus," which I AM ANTICIPLATING HIGHLY.

nah, not just you. love the ending of BoB. a real o_O moment! i blurt out something like, "remake that, Hollywood!" each time I see it. but the film, while important as an archetype of the '80s slasher/body-count cycle, is just one of Bava's lesser films, maybe on a par with the decorative but shallow A Hatchet for the Honeymoon and Baron Blood. certainly there's little of the psychosexual depth of his late masterpieces - the funereally transcendent Lisa and the incest-steeped Shock, which their subtle, almost subliminally nerve-rattling horrors. and, as a tale of terror, it's not much more than a haphazard assemblage of audacious, gory slaughter setpieces that fails to match the fine-tuned fear mechanics of Black Sabbath's "A Drop of Water" segment or the Gothicized fairytale lyricism of Black Sunday and Kill, Baby... Kill.

tnx! 'Princess' added to the list. since Pink Narcissus is already sheer poetry, this should be heady as hell. i'll stay tuned.

back on topic, have you seen Bruce LaBruce's zombie opus, Otto, Or: Up with Dead People?

Ok, finished the burrowers. Liked it quite a bit, weird somber mood to it, and yeah nicely filmed and cast was pretty great!

So apparently the writer/director of this did the screenplay for batman begins?!

also would like to see this: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0800361/ but it appears to be unavailable on dvd

more importantly, Petty made the disturbing and original Soft for Digging.

from the filmed evidence, the western-horror hybrid is very hard to get right. it shouldn't be. what's naturally spookier than the lonesome plains at night, or a deeper, more mysterious vein than Native American legend and superstition? but, not counting Near Dark, how many solid horror westerns have there been? VHS-era anthology Grim Prairie Tales was pretty decent, with a handful of genuine standout moments. so was Empire Pictures obscurity Ghost Town, a low-key chiller that has stayed with me like few others. can't think of more recent examples. i seem to be one of the few who hate DeadBirds, finding it an insufferably portentous misfire,

... should The Proposition count?

someone really needs to take an overdue whack at filming Richard Brautigan's hysterical PoMo farce, The Hawkline Monster: A Gothic Western. or, really, any of Robert E. Howard's mercilessly violent Western short fiction.

i recall Stephen King saying that, if he and Louis L'Amour were to stare out at the same picturesque mountain lake for long enough, L'Amour would surely come up with a sprawling saga about the settling of a frontier town, while he himself would end up writing a story about a monstrous being emerging from the depths nightly to drag cattle and cowboys to their watery doom. now, that's a horror western i'd love to see! wish he'd get on it already. and, please, let anyone but Mick Garris helm the inevitable screen adaptation.

have you seen Bruce LaBruce's zombie opus, Otto, Or: Up with Dead People?

I unfortunately only saw the first 30 minutes of this, and wasn't quite sure what to make of it, but it looked promising.