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

OK, Pontypool is getting really silly about an hour in. Like, surreal-silly.

Not to go back to Trick r Treat, which seems to have its detractors, but I do find it interesting that a film (especially a relatively lighthearted one like this) should make one so uncomfortable (as it did me) simply by doing harm to kids, which, given the genre, is really modest in the shock scheme of things. I did like the en media rex vibe of the thing, and the near complete lack of explanations.

from what I know/remember, most horror movies bend over backwards to not harm the kids

I was going to give that a shot tonight but now you're worrying me.

it's nothing to get worried about, it's a pretty goofy movie. i'm with jjusten on this one though, didn't think it was that great. my issues with it had more to do with it being an omnibus of shorter stories loosely tied together, just didn't cohere for me. go for session 9 instead, one of the few genuinely scary movies i've seen recently.

and with hardly any gore!

OK Session 9 sounds pretty great and it'll be the 4th mental institution themed movie I've watched this week.

Hopefully not The Ward. I'm a huge Carpenter fan, but even I knew better than the expect anything from this stinker. And still, it let me down!

Oh yes, that was one of them. lol.

so what were the other ones?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRNYqsMIbg0

That was scary!!

I realize that's the point but damn. Good choice.

Watched Lake Mungo yesterday. I liked it, though it wasn't particularly scary. Quite a tender little story.

exactly

About to watch wilderness because I am falling behind on my streaming horror, will report back.

Well that was mediocre

Might be juuuust drunk enough to round out the night with the certain to be awful "red state"

Yeah, it was unfairly plugged as a ghost story but it's almost purely about loss.

(mungo)

Pro tip: you can not get drunk enough to watch red state

Watched Pontypool last night. Interesting concept, but could of used a few more scares.

watched "The Mist" last night, what a fucking great movie

Did you see it in black and white? Much better in black and white.

Loved how Pontypool wasn't scary. It's sort of like "No Exit" by way of Ionesco. Dada existentialism.

"What we need is a flame thrower."

No, we saw it in color.

I was impressed with how faithful it was to the novella (at least until the end, which WAU)

See the black and white version. Not only do the effects port better, but that's how it was lit/directed, with B&W in mind.

Dan, you can find a fan-edit version of the ending somewhere which, I recall, was better.

Pontypool also works as a sort of sneaky allegory, too, for the French-Canadian separatist movement!

I wasn't a huge fan but the mist in b&w >>>>> the mist in color

I didn't have a problem w/ the twilight zoney ending of The Mist... I mean they had to end it somehow considering that the novella didn't really have an ending.

Thomas Jane's Maine accent totally threw me

I spent about 5 minutes going... "Is he Dutch?"

Just occurred to me how many from "The Mist" cast made it into "The Walking Dead." At least three, and no doubt they would have gotten Jane, too, had he not been hooked up to "Hung."

HARDWARE NOW STREAMING ON NETFLIX FYI

Pro tip: you can not get drunk enough to watch red state

red flag to the bull here.

ha well consider the author tho

OK Session 9 sounds pretty great and it'll be the 4th mental institution themed movie I've watched this week.

― Juggy Brottleteen (ENBB), Monday, October 31, 2011 6:23 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark

s9 is creeeeeeeeeepy

wait why do people like this Pontypool movie...?

the lead guy is really good, but I dunno, the premise seems sort of overwrought

As I pitched it to my friend, it's "No Exit" by way of Ionesco but also a metaphor for the perils of talk radio and also maybe the French-Canadian separatist movement and also the threat of language itself. Maybe. Would make an awesome play. It's scary and funny, but in an absurdist way that nonetheless takes itself seriously. I think it's wildly ambitious, not overwrought, and hovers on the cusp of so many Big Ideas that it's constantly engaging. Some may see that is a failure, but I loved its tonal and thematic ambiguity. Plus, it's very well acted and directed for what is in essence a three people in a room story.

it is well acted and directed (and looks great) I just feel like the underlying premise was sort of fleshed out in the wrong way

I'm not so sure! It's pretty surreal. There's that bit where the doctor (who randomly enters via a window) is sitting in the booth, with headphones on, eagerly tossing back snacks as he watches the assistant go nuts on the other side of the glass. Or the fact that no one ever explains exactly what's going on, or the nature of the disease, or how it's spread. And then there's that absurdist black and white ending in the credits, which is just totally strange. Honesty, the movie really took me by surprise. I thought it one of the richest films I've seen in eons. The horror aspect was almost totally peripheral. It just added to the strangeness.

it is not a movie without flaws, but still worth recommending/seeing imo

reminded me of early cronenberg, not in tone or content, just in the way it presented some weird intellectual ideas on the horror/scifi spectrum while falling short of being a perfectly executed film, oh yeah and canada

Or the fact that no one ever explains exactly what's going on, or the nature of the disease, or how it's spread

yeah this is the real problem imho

early Cronenberg ref makes sense to me

The original conceptualization for the movie was to have Burgess read the script with the wavering line being the only visual. Sydney's voice would be heard and Laurel Ann would only get a mention.

^ they should still make this version, it would cost $19.95 to produce

I don't get the Cronenberg comparison. Pontypool is so totally about language and communication, whereas Cronenberg is so much more ... physical. The fear, the terror, is real and immediate. Pontypool is a much odder bird; for being terrified, its protagonists follow pretty unpredictable emotional paths, exacerbated by how much they may or may not be affected by the symptoms of the spreading virus. And Pontypool does have all those aspects of outright absurdism, too. It's very intellectually engaged if somewhat obscure, but no more than, say, Bunuel's "Exterminating Angel."

It's sort of lost in the shuffle that the film takes place on Valentine's Day, too, which surely muddies up the themes even more. "Kill is kiss."

it's more in the execution - the cerebral presentation, the half-explained stuff, dabbling in horror but not really fully engaging with the genre imho

Sure, I can see that. But I really do think the Ionesco comparison is pretty apt. I mean, at one point when the woman is listing words that have no meaning or whatever she does actually say "rhinoceros." And just as a convenient reminder, Wiki sums up Ionesco's play thusly: "Over the course of three acts, the inhabitants of a small, provincial French town turn into rhinoceroses; ultimately the only human who does not succumb to this mass metamorphosis is the central character, Bérenger, a flustered everyman figure who is often criticized throughout the play for his drinking and tardiness."

Sub in zombie for rhinos ...

sub in zombie for rhinos, and you have Zombie Strippers, which wears its (unexpected) Ionesco influence proudly. Club Rhinoceros!

Well, Zombie Strippers is certainly absurd ...

TS: Theatre of the Absurd Vs Cinema of the Unsettling

Bloody Disgusting had a pretty good list of the best horror films of the '00s. I got there looking up stuff about "Session 9," which was great until, inevitably, the resolution. Some good ones they remembered: http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/news/18403

oh i forgot about frailty