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

bonus TMI: the poster/ads for ghoulies made me terrified of toilets for several months when i was nine.

Bonus BONUS NTMI: Ghoulies was Mariska Hartigay's first film

I check this thread to find out what's happening with recent horror films, not to discuss the relative merits of the ghoulies franchise

vampyr from 1932 is streaming on netflix too, but I'd go to the streaming netflix thread if I wanted to talk about it

heed the warning about stigmata it is an unredeemable piece of shit. fucking hate that movie.

I think the only Gabriel Byrne movie I've seen that wasn't terrible was The Usual Suspects.

wait did I see Miller's Crossing? I can't remember now

if you dont like millers crossing i will be so so sad..

excalibur dude

I know I never saw Excalibur!

jjj Miller's Crossing was the movie you were raving about to Kyl3 and me in high school that you called a "stylized gangster movie" that led to 10 minutes of Kyl3 and me gangster-voguing, right? I don't think I ever saw it.

do you know if the ROTLD3 and 'Land of the Minotaur' on Netflix are the uncut versions? the R1 DVDs for both are severely edited. it makes a huge difference. the only reasons to watch LOTM are for Eno's score and for the exploding cultists during the climax. you will hear the former, but not see the latter, if this is the same print that BCI released as part of their 'Exploitation Cinema' double feature (with Norman J. Warren's sweet 'Suspiria' homage, 'Terror').

and the 'R'-rated ROTLD3 is just an insult to Screaming Mad George's insane FX. love this movie!

there's some crap in netflix's streaming options. from beyond, for instance, is the R-rated cut.

'Stigmata' is srsly THE WORST. Rupert Wainwright was on an episode of Bravo's 'The Millionaire Matchmaker,' and he was every bit the insufferable prick you'd imagine. and then some.

Netflix's 'Suspiria' is the US theatrical cut. plus: the puffy/throbbing title lettering. minus: much of the glorious gore. unforgivable!

to bring it back around to the new... i'm not a Toetag Pictures fan - to say i hate everything they stand for would be an understatement - but Fred Vogel's latest, 'Sella Turcica', looks promising. it also looks like a straight-up Iraq-era 'Deathdream,' though i have it on authority that it goes somewhere else by the end. guess it'll cost me $20 to find out where. may wait for a used copy to show up. nice to see Camille Keaton out of retirement!

what are yr thoughts on wicked pixel

haven't seen 'Deadwood Park' yet, so i can only judge Stanze based on 'Savage Harvest' (guilty fun), 'Scrapbook' (meh. could have been something with a better male lead), 'Ice from the Sun' (WTFWT?!) and 'China White Serpentine' (whatta downer, man. no thanks). i like that Eric's ambitious, and that he knows how to focus a camera and frame a shot. sometimes both at the same time. but i've yet to be really impressed by anything WP has turned out. have i missed a good 'un?

I actually have not dived into his stuff yet at all, just seemed like he was doing some promising stuff in the late 90s / early 00s and was wondering what the deal was

when I was in st louis earlier this year I found out the local free weekly is a suicide girls type thing, and he takes a lot of the photos for it

as budding auteurs go, my eyes are on Paul Solet ('Grace'), Dylan Bank ('Nightmare'), Graham Reznick ('I Can See You') and Travis Betz (if he can outgrow his Joss Whedon fixation). how about you?

that does not surprise me. you might want to try 'Savage Harvest'. it's a no-budget 'Evil Dead' clone. impressive FX jostle for attention with some of the most awkward expository dialog ever penned. like i said, guilty fun. a painless way to spend an hour and change. ideal Halloween fare.

not to be too UScentric about it. v. curious to see what Tom Shankland ('The Children') does next, too. and what Steven Sheil ('Mum & Dad'), Júlíus Kemp ('Harpoon: Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre'), and Lawrence Gough ('Salvage') can do with more original material.

I dunno, it seems like a lot of people are capable of making 1 or 2 good films here and there but I'd hesitate to grace anybody with an auteur crown. I think I mentioned nightmare upthread? haven't gotten around to seeing that one.

kinda wanna see what devereaux pulls out of his hat next, and if laugier can follow up martyrs in any meaningful way. his new movie stars jessica biel so already I'm wondering.

wondering/doubting

oh! and Patrick Roddy ('Mercy' (2006) - a really interesting debut).

maybe it's morbid, but i have Laugier following the makeup man's lead and offing himself rather than attempting to follow up 'Martyrs'.

yeah, forgot Devereaux, maybe because he already has a few (early) strikes against him.

casting jessica biel in yr movie seems like a special kind of offing yrself

i like JB, but i agree.

if i didn't recommend 'Nightmare' here, i meant to. thought Blank pulled off the snuff metafilm gimmick so much more effectively than any other contender. and he demonstrated a refreshingly adult attitude towards sexuality.

er, Bank. forfend i should confuse him with Aussie hack Jamie Blanks, yet i do so constantly.

so i suppose its too late for Lucky McKee to have any auteur left in him huh?

Also yeah I would love to see what Shankland does next, "the children" was a jaw dropper.

ha, I was gonna mention mckee. he's filming a new horror film in the state adjacent to mine with angela bettis, so maybe there's hope for him yet.

still have hope for mckee

Ive liked everything hes done so far so i am still in his camp for sure. even RED which shows the cracks of a aborted production is really quite a movie imo (and I blame the less great parts on the fixer that they brought in 100%)

ok to be fair, Sick Girl was not all that great, but in comparison to the other stuff in that series its still in the top 10%.

ok just watched Blood Creek and uh wow it was just awful. like one of the worst most nonsensical horror scripts ive seen in a while, and let me tell you, thats saying something.

"the children" was a jaw dropper.

I'd add James Watkins (Eden Lake) and Sean Byrne (The Loved Ones).

watkins did descent 2 after eden lake, is he ready for auteur status

going to see Paranormal Activity 2 today. excited as I loved the first. deliberately chose a time that I think the theatre will be least populated to reduce the possibility of other people ruining it for me.

You know, it's easy to be cynical, but "Paranormal Activity" (the first) was really fucking scary. Every once and a while it just pops in my head, and then I'm freaked out when it's time to turn out the lights at the end of the night.

I agree. I actually had trouble sleeping that night, and I can count the number of movies that have done that to me on less than two hands!

watched Teeth last night, and maybe im just on a bad run here, but it did very little for me.

yeah ditto on paranormal. the "pulled out of bed" sequence is real effective and the enemy that could be the furnace coughing hits a lil' too close to home.

just wish they'd have ended it with the footsteps on the stairs and then the door slamming shut. would've worked so much better without a big BOOGABOOGA scare.
that said, i have no idea what they'd do to make the sequel watchable.
a smart investor would chart how long it takes between "horror movie where nothing happens and nothing is shown that is a huge hit a'la blair witch/paranormal" and jump in the water in say 2016 with a 25K investment and make a gazillion bucks

The sequel is very good. Just got out. First is better, but instead of merely recreating the plot they interwove a connecting storyline before and after the events of the first. The first was better as the thrills were more subtle and this one was more abrupt...but this is a B plus for sure

and the 'R'-rated ROTLD3 is just an insult to Screaming Mad George's insane FX. love this movie!

― babytown frolics (Mr. Hal Jam), Friday, October 22, 2010 1:52 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

yeah, the uncut version is the only way to go. great movie, but a little bogged down by teen angst whinge.

watkins did descent 2 after eden lake, is he ready for auteur status

― mr. mandelbrot flythrough vertigo, esq. (Edward III), Saturday, October 23, 2010 7:30 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark

is this worth a look? figured it for a cheap cash-in. eden lake pissed me off to no end, but i respect the craft.

and lucky mckee OTM. didn't love red, but on the basis of may and the woods, i will happily watch anything the dude does.

I thought "Rogue" (the giant croc movie from the "Wolf Creek" guy) was surprisingly solid. Good acting (Radha Mitchell, Sam Worthington ...), and good effects.

Watkins didn't direct Descent 2, just wrote it.

okay, so against my better judgment, i watched the human centipede tonight w/ a horror fan friend who brought over the DVD. annnnnd ... i don't quite know what to say. i didn't like it, but i respected and "appreciated" it a hell of a lot more than i thought i would. first half hour is marvelous: hilarious and bizarre. echoes of david lynch in the uneasy mix of surreal camp, plastic awkwardness and slick suspense. dieter laser (!!!), who plays dr. heiter, our conjoinment enthusiast, is marvelous, just fantastic. he's up there with udo keir's dr. frankenstein and david gayle's dr. hill (reanimator) in the mad scientist sweepstakes. a display that klaus kinski would be proud to call his own. but, man, i was not entertained by the movie's 2nd & 3rd act descent into remorseless, annihilating bleakness. it's funny at first, then ghastly, and finally just depressing, and that's not my idea of a good time. if it was me, i'd take the film's first 30 or 40 minutes, roll credits and call it a day. don't have much need for the grueling follow-through.

honestly, if anybody's seen it, i think you could take the film's one "deleted scene", a jaw-dropping dance number, show only that and call it a day. wraps up everything worthwhile about the movie in a nice little two-minute package.

had to play some walter/wendy carlos afterward to clear my mind. felt as though i'd been soiled.

i want to see Human Centipede but the stupid red box here isn't stocking it

do you know if the ROTLD3 and 'Land of the Minotaur' on Netflix are the uncut versions? the R1 DVDs for both are severely edited. it makes a huge difference. the only reasons to watch LOTM are for Eno's score and for the exploding cultists during the climax. you will hear the former, but not see the latter, if this is the same print that BCI released as part of their 'Exploitation Cinema' double feature (with Norman J. Warren's sweet 'Suspiria' homage, 'Terror').

"Minotaur" must be the uncut one, then. I watched it yesterday and pretty much failed to extract any drops of enjoyment from it til the cultists started blowin' up. That scene is as awesome as the foregoing 70 minutes are dreary.

I preceded that on instawatch with The Crimson Cult, a clunky sub-Hammer joint which totally delighted me anyway. Give me a small town in England dominated by a secret murder cult and sufficient atmosphere of solemnity, namedrop 'The Great God Pan' and Hern The Hunter, and I'm happy.