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

the tension created in the first section had already started to flag at a certain point when all the standing at a distance and then disappearing became too repetitive. i thought the movie was at its best when the female character was left alone in the house for the first time.

xpost re: the strangers

totally. film needed to up the ante at a certain point to sustain the tension and it just didn't

I read somewhere the strangers was supposed to have a much longer section at the end with the intruders interacting with the couple but they ran into issues - can't remember if it was budgetary or they just didn't like how it was turning out - seems like the ending was something thrown together to make due, and it plays that way too

agree it's an effective movie with a disappointing ending, ils (them) is extremely similar but handles the payoff much better imo

been a dry dry last few months for horror movies huh? btw that exorcism thing that made piles of money is crap right?

Big piece in the NYTimes on Ti West and his new ghost movie "The Innkeepers."

It sucks.

saw that piece, movie sounds terrible

Did either of you see/like the last one? Because I loved the last one, but some people think it "sucked" too.

Your talking about "house of the devil" right? I hated it but I think I was seriously in the minority on here.

i liked "house of the devil" a lot until the last 15 minutes or so.

house of the devil is horrible crap. insidious too. can't imagine what people see in those movies.

have like six months of this thread to chew over...

lol Harry Potter is gonna be in a horror movie

guys don't see apollo 18 it is awful. MOONROCKS. jesus.

The Woman In Black actually looks...potentially good?

guys don't see apollo 18 it is awful. MOONROCKS. jesus.

:( had high hopes for this based on the premise but this is the third random bad thing I've heard about it

MOONROCKS oh wow! I think there was similar stuff in Track of the Moon Beast.

yeah Apollo 18 was such a disappointment. Why does most sci-fi horror ended up disappointing?

not every movie can feature Satan making Sam Neill poke out his eyes

don't know if it's been mentioned but Lady In Black carries the Hammer imprimatur and after seeing the trailer (which looked pretty decent) it really seems like they're going after the classic Hammer vibe.

I dunno I just keep laughing at Harry Potter looking startled

Every time he looks out the window and gasps, in my mind I think he's seeing Dumbledore

SPOILER the woman in black is snape SPOILER

most or all of these have already been mentioned but here are some recent fav horror movies:

martyrs - pretty brutal and compelling, the guy at the movie store was like "enjoy!...well...you probably won't exactly ENJOY it"
insidious - it was dumb but fun and had a couple really crucial scares and the score is one of the best ever
all 3 paranormal activities - i don't think the blair witch comparison is fair in that none of these will cause motion sickness
teeth - this is an origin story I AM READY FOR TEETH 2: THE CUNTENING ALREADY

and not sure if it qualifies as a horror flick but MURDER PARTY...everyone should watch MURDER PARTY, it is gorey and hilarious and about the most fun i've ever had in front of a tv screen

Teeth was filmed in a friend's house in Austin!

The Woman In Black might be interesting. I remember the 1989 version being really good - they captured the tone of the novel perfectly.

I keep forgetting Daniel Radcliffe is an adult. I though he'd be too young to play the lead, but maybe not.

tempted by TEETH 2: THE CUNTENING as a dn

The Woman In Black might be interesting. I remember the 1989 version being really good - they captured the tone of the novel perfectly.

It was awesome. Quite cheaply done but very very effective. One scene in particular (I think you know the one I mean) gave me nightmares for years.

I finally got around to watching "Insidious." All I really knew were the consistent complaints that it begins with real promise but goes off the rails halfway through, but I almost felt the complete opposite! I thought it started out pretty boilerplate but then turned into a riff/parody of "Poltergeist" by way of "Paranormal Activity." But especially "Poltergeist." Should have had the balls to play the OTT angle for laughs, I guess, but I've seen less enjoyable movies.

It's not that I didn't have my complaints about Insidious, but I got enough outta it to make a second viewing mandatory. And finally a non-semi-ambient score for a horror flick, hallelujah.

Yeah, it's a pretty aggressive score.

I admit it's one of those movie where I sort of felt bad for the guys. Like, they had a quick idea, made a cheap movie fast, with some degree of ingenuity, then sort of fudged it until it was too late to turn back from a pretty rote idea that owes so much to "Poltergeist" (and its sequels!). But a rote idea with ingenuity is better than a simply rote idea!

didn't get a sense of ingenuity from indisious, just of tedious rehash posing as fond tribute. so much lifted from poltergeist and paranormal activity, but nowhere near as scary or enjoyable as either of those. a great score, one unforgettable jump scare, one nice netherworldly set piece, and a splendid villain's lair didn't add up to a watchable movie, imo.

but i hate fun, so what do i know?

Maybe i was just in a great mood that night, who knows?

I thought the ingenuity was all technical, not the storytelling. Just creative camera placement and stuff is what I meant.

Catch-up post:

Appreciated I Saw the Devil, but didn't love it. It's slick in a good way, like good Spielberg, and suspenseful as hell, no complaints on a technical level. I very much enjoyed the unexpected comic touches but thought it got lost in the obvious relish with which it presents its antagonist's misdeeds. The hero's story became a background detail for much of the film, and the sleazy presentation of rape and abuse eventually turned me off. A good film, overall, but it can't hold a candle to Memories of Murder (since jjjusten made the comparison).

Rewatched A Tale of Two Sisters to prep for I Saw the Devil and liked it even more than I did the first time around. Insubstantial but extremely well put together: solid performances, stylish visuals, impeccable suspense engineering, and a satisfying central mystery.

I may have mentioned this upthread, but I didn't at all care for Martyrs. Boring and pointless. Inside is marginally better, but when it comes to the “New French Extremity”, I'll take Trouble Every Day or Calvaire (Belgian extremity, I know).

Pontypool is GREAT. Showed it to a friend of mine a few months back, and like A Tale of Two Sister, it holds up just fine on a second pass. Love the ideas, ambition and execution. The Dogville of zombie movies.

Red State is hideous, one of the ugliest movies I've seen in quite a while, but I can't call it unoriginal or insubstantial. Takes big risks, some of which pay off, but the sexual politics are just revolting.

Monsters is okay, but vanishingly slight and full of story holes that undermined my immersion in the story.

Tucker and Dale is funny and endearing. Wasn't blown away.

Had a great time wrestling with and dissecting Antichrist, but it's not one of my favorite Von Trier flicks. Smart, visually spectacular and symbolicially dense, but also a bit of a chore.

Josh in Chicago OTM re: the "trend divide between horror and the horrible" in contemporary scary movies. Not so down with cruel, ostensibly realistic thrillers that exploit the horrible (Wolf Creek and Eden Lake for example). I tend to think of such stuff endurance or survival horror, as those descriptions cast a wider net than "torture porn" and aren't so divisively judgmental.

Didn't care for Black Death. Spent too much of its time heroicizing the faith of the brutal Christian witch-hunters and demonizing the haunted pagans for my taste (even if the epilogue subverts everything that came before).

Love Trick R Treat! Last segment is a bit of a letdown, but I was totally on board for everything up to that point. My favorite horror anthology this side of Creepshow.

Have doubts about anyone who enjoyed The Mist.

Didn't really feel like starting a new thread about it, but parts of Joe Carnahan's The Grey were scarier than any recent horror flick I've seen, though it doesn't qualify as horror per se. A really nice surprise.

Was JUST about to post in this thread in support of the horrorish undertones of The Grey!

It's a horror movie maybe in a Bergman "silence of God" type way, but it's probably more a disaster movie than either. Still, the most singularly upsetting thing I've seen in mainstream release in a long while.

Ok so that's one to add to the watch list, was curious about it already.

'insidious' is just sort of nothing, i think, like its the sort of movie that fills time w/o really requiring much of the viewer or leaving any impression

Is "Attack the Block" horror? It's pretty fun.

xxpost Really misleading trailer, tho

attack the block is not horror. kidstyle sci-fi action, imo. it's way fun.

lol Eric, great minds. It's amazing how much would-be-hokey material you can pull off when you effectively dial up intensity.

Slightly off-topic but I read The Woman in Black tonight, in one sitting. incredible book.

i'm not necessarily arguing "attack the block" is horror but it's barely sci-fi. if they just called the creatures "monsters" instead of "aliens" it would be hard to classify it as sci-fi. either way, i really enjoyed it and think a lot of the horror fans would like it too (though it's nowhere near as gory as most of these movies, some blood/gore but not a lot).

I enjoyed Attack the Block, but think it's massively overrated. Like Tucker and Dale, it's sort of a slightly different take on the same ol', albeit tonally the two couldn't be more dissimilar.

Still amazed that Martyrs has gotten as much OMG mileage as it has. I thought the movie was padded out to the point of absurdity, and silly to boot. Though I suppose that is better than Insides, which is just ridiculous on so many different levels.

well, though they both clearly aim to entertain a broad audience, attack the block is more thematically substantial than tucker and dale. it's also more ambitious and takes bigger risks. none of that necessarily makes it the better film, but i got more out of it.

I really want to see The Grey! I have a irrational fear of wild animals especially dogs of any kind.There are wild dogs that roam the woods behind my mother's house and at night you can hear them howling. They have bred with the coyotes and now they look like wolves. No one really knows what they are at this point.

just saw a trailer for silent house, a remake of a uruguayan film that looks like a mashup of ils and russian ark, starring the olsen twins younger sister

also watched the six degrees of hell trailer which has one of the creepiest taglines in recent memory: "Corey Feldman is back"