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

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.

okay so, in full flight from human fucking centipede, i watched rogue and triangle last night. enjoyed both, though neither struck me as great.

rogue is a killer croc picture from greg mclean, who directed wolf creek a couple years back. interesting to contrast the two, cuz while they're both "survival horror" pictures, they're very different in tone. where wolf creek was crushingly bleak and pitiless, rogue is a much more friendly piece of work. it's closer to a man-vs-nature adventure tale in the spirit of jaws than what i'd usually call a horror movie, but it strays far enough into body count territory to qualify. more than anything, i was impressed by the location photography in the film's first half. rogue spends more time developing sympathetic characters and impressing us with lovely scenery than it does grinding our noses into the spectacle of human suffering. i appreciate that. like many almost-there horror films, it goes a bit too far over the top in its frantic final act, but mclean does a great job of keeping the tension cranked throughout. probably could have used a bit more of wolf creek's sadistic vigor, but certainly worth a look.

triangle is harder to summarize. it's a puzzle film, one that asks you to sort out what exactly is going on, and keeps upending whatever understanding you do manage to cobble together from moment to moment. that said, it's never quite as puzzling as it seemingly intends to be, and leaves a few too many loose ends dangling to be entirely satisfying. a small group of weekend pleasure boaters are stranded at sea by a freak storm and seek refuge on a huge, ancient and seemingly abandoned ocean liner that happens to drift by. then things get weird. want to say more than i have, but it's difficult to discuss the film without spoiling it, and it's the sort of thing one should approach with as little advance warning as possible. (i will say that it bears a suspiciously strong resemblance to a superior recent puzzle film that you should probably watch instead, but that's as far as i'll go in that direction...) despite a few misgivings, i liked triangle and had fun watching the pieces fall into place. it's far more clever, suspenseful and ambitious than most contemporary horror films, and that alone is enough to recommend it.

I liked Triangle quite a bit!

Anyone watching Dead Set on IFC this week? Caught the first of five episodes last night and think it has potential.

http://www.e4.com/deadset/

continuing a brief horror kick/life avoidance routine, i watched two more horror films last night, both recommended in this thread:

first up, dead snow, and i'll keep in character as a picky-ass fun hater in saying that it was okay. a slick, professional and well-executed splatter comedy with solid performances and decent gore. but, man, it just isn't really my kind of movie. dead snow looks great and does the job, but there's no soul, vision, or personality to it. i suppose these are generic complains that apply to most 21st century horror films (the ones with commercial ambitions, anyway). filmmakers seem to believe that all the best horror films have already been made, and their only remaining task is to refine and recombine the established conventions in a marketable manner. this bums me out. i want a spirit of invention and ambition, the sense that the future of horror hasn't yet been mapped out. i dunno... i'm criticizing this perfectly respectable and entertaining popcorn horror flick for not being something entirely different, something it never intended to be, and i know that's not fair. but it helped crystallize and explain my lukewarm response to rogue, another fine but unremarkable pop movie that i felt i should have liked more.

next, the last house in the woods, a low-budget italian flick produced for (or at least distributed by) ghost house. i give credit to writer/director gabriele albanesi for putting my petty gripes about rogue, triangle and dead snow in context. TLHITW makes those films look like visionary masterpieces -- or at least gives me cause to appreciate their intelligence, craft and basic pop appeal. the title here provides a fine roadmap to the filmmakers' intentions: straight-up 70s exploitation homage, with nods to hooper, fulci and argento. rapey misbehavior, torture, deformity, mutilation and family depravity rule the day. there's some good here, including the three lead actors (a young couple and a mysterious stranger), evocative music that nails the 70s italo vibe, and a wonderfully bizarre conclusion. but getting to those last 20 minutes is such a goddam chore. the direction is flat, the photography and camerawork dull at best, and the film never generates much tension or interest. a real disappointment.

just watched Obayashi's House and holy shit is all i can say
it's amazing. not so much a horror movie i guess but man it is CHAOTIC

thought triangle was... OK. not a fan of 'recursiveness' on the whole tho

Saw The Loved Ones a couple of nights ago, fucking great! The audience was yelling and screaming, it was fantastic. Got to love projected high school dance fantasies.

just watched Obayashi's House and holy shit is all i can say

want to see this SO DANG BAD! played at a local theater a month or so back, but i missed it wah. poster's amazing too.

Watching this dead set thing Darin mentioned on IFC right now, and it's pretty ok!

house came out on dvd about three days ago. You're gonna love it.

fuck yes. adding it to cue with a vengeance.

so, tonight i watched another film that got positive marks in this thread: splinter. basically a monster attack movie set in a remote gas station, with the creature infecting/incorporating its victims in much the same manner as john carpenter's "thing". like several of the films i've watched lately, it's a slick, commercial production that lacks the ambition and oddball flair of my horror favorites. nevertheless, i liked it quite a bit. the filmmakers manage a nice balance of suspense and action on an obviously limited budget, and though there aren't any starmaking performances, it's stronger than most b-movies in the acting and character development departments. plus, although it's never terribly scary, splinter comes through with plenty of grue and good old-fashioned practical effects. very little obvious CGI and lots of grisly special makeup = AGL, especially in this day and age. nothing mind-blowing, but worth a look.

feel in retrospect that i went too hard on rogue and triangle. neglected to mention the former's excellent ensemble cast (including sam worthington, on the verge of his big breakthrough) and triangle has really stayed with me. want to see it again, now that it's had a couple days to settle.

Dead Set is that Charlie Brooker zombie Big Brother thing? I remember being not that impressed, but then I've had it up to here with both Brooker and zombies.

"rapey misbehavior, torture, deformity, mutilation and family depravity rule the day."

quoting myself on the last house in the woods, but i've been thinking about this for the last couple days. the insistent equation of evil with deformity (and age and ugliness) is horror staple going back to nosferatu, hell to shakespeare. it almost always bothers me. it bothers me a little when it's just sort of there, as it is in LHItW, and it bothers me a lot when there's a kind of equivalency suggested, as in wrong turn (backwood mutants flick w eliza dushku). this isn't limited to horror of course. you see just as much of it in kids' animated adventure films, in sci-fi, in fantastical genre films of all sorts. still, it's no less a significant part of horror's core identity.

i'm not outraged about it, or even wringing my hands, really. i'm only disappointed that this formula isn't more frequently inverted, subverted or just plain addressed. would like to see a few more lovely villains and hideous protagonists. suppose there's no money there...

"...is a horror staple going back to..." duh