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

I'm not against humorless. I like humorless horror. But if the ingenuity doesn't expand much past what type of kitchen implement is used to mangle someone, then I'm going to be bored regardless of the realism of the splatter.

i have a soft spot for raimi and the ED franchise but the world does NOT need an army of darkness 2

OK, so I went to see a 12:35 screening of "Evil Dead" today. "Wait, 12:35?" say the vigilant time stamp watchers. "The movie can't be over, can it?" Well ...

I nestle into my seat and the movie starts. Demon woman burned alive, etc. Then I hear it: there are two other couples in this vast, empty theatre with me ... and one of them brought a fucking kid! Like, older than one, less than two, chattering away barely pre-verbally. I kind of squirm, but what can you do, right? So eventually the shit starts to go down and the kid begins to cry. They shush it calmly, and I'm thinking, just TAKE THR FUCKING KID OUT OF THE HORROR MOVIE! So eventually, the dad stands up and takes the kid out, shushing calmly the whole way. Phew, I think. But then, five minutes later, he bring the kid back in, right during the cheek slicing sequence. And guess what? The kids starts to cry. This time, he stands in the aisle bouncing the kid, shushing her, because god forbid he miss the action. After a while, I can't take it anymore, stand up, leave, and head straight for the counter. The guy who sold me the ticket greets me.

Me, immediately: How can you let someone bring their little kid into "Evil Dead?"
Him, raising hands defensively: I know, I know.
Me: That's totally fucked up.
Him: I know, I know.
Me: A kid shouldn't be watching that.
Him: I know. We usually have a policy of no kids under 6 in R-rated films, but that's only at night. During the day ... (he sort of shrugs)
Me: You know she's in there right now, crying?
Him: Right now?
Me: Yes, right now.
Him: Sir, I apologize. Please take this free pass.
Me: But see, I don't care that the kid is crying. I care that the kid's in there at all. You know it's fucked up when all sorts of shit is happening on screen, but it's the screaming kid that's making me sick to my stomach. The kid is going to be fucked up for life.
Him: I know. I'm really sorry.

Fortunately, this movie was such an absolute piece of shit I had no problem just leaving. I mean, it's as if they asked themselves, now can we better the first movie? And the answer was: fill the movie with the stupidest people possible. Even by horror movie standards!!!

Find a trapdoor covered with blood? Hey is that blood? Opens trap door.
Finds a basement that smells like burnt hair, filled with dozens of suspended slaughtered cats? Huh, that's weird, maybe it's witchcraft, let's stay.
Find a book made of human skin, wrapped in barbed wire, full of demonic images, that literally and legibly says, in English, "DO NOT READ THIS" and "PUT THIS DOWN." Huh, that's weird, maybe I will read it. Better yet, maybe I will translate this ancient unknowable language and read it some more!

I mean, holy fucking shit. The nurse? Who gets blood vomited up all over and cites it as a withdrawal symptom? Did she get her fucking degree from the University of Phoenix? And this fucking shack in the woods has power and hot water? For that matter, the previous, what, tenants bind up the book in barbed wire ... and then leave it in the basement with all the rotting cats? Which no one but the one girl could smell through the inch-wide cracks in the floor? I mean, fuck this shit. I like effects well enough, but this was bad, badly made and boring.

http://criticultredux.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/evil-dead-2013-movie-hd-wallpapers-5.jpg?w=538&h=300

was bugged by the suggestion that backwoods witch cults take penmanship lessons from shitty metalcore album art

and yeah, i wasn't so bugged, but JiC otm wr2 dumb plot holes and senseless behavior

though tbh, if i found a mysterious occult text with dire warnings scrawled all over it, i'd only be that much more intrigued

After you found the blood stains all over the trapdoor and a couple of dozen rotted cats hanging from the ceiling? I think I'd leave. The great thing about the original is that it doesn't even toss that extra shit in there. It just gets going. This one is so just so inert, so not kinetic. I'm glad I left.

I mean, gah, the misplaced priorities!

"Do you think some satanic ritual took place here? All these dead animals and Book of the Dead warnings and stuff?"

"I dunno. We'll look into it later, after we're done letting her go cold turkey in this safe, controlled environment."

Do they even go back and explain what was going on in the prologue? Who those backwoods folks were? Did that prologue take place a week earlier? A month earlier? It was implied this was their old family cabin. Do they bring in any of that stuff, explain what happened to their mother and why the old family cabin was no only in a sorry state of disrepair but also the site of sadistic demonic ritual slaughters and stuff?

Not that I care, though it's hard to care less than these filmakers cared.

ha i think some of you who are heralding the internal logic in the original ED have maybe not seen it in quite a while

I watched it again last week, actually. The *complete* lack of internal logic is what makes it awesome. It's totally unpredictable anarchy. This one removes the anarchy and goes for rote. For certain in the original the shit doesn't go down *after* they've descended through a bloody fucking trapdoor to a room filled with hanging cats which they identity as the site of some nefarious ritual before picking up a book wrapped in barbed wire that literally says DO NOT READ THIS BOOK.

The first ED proved your movie doesn't have to make sense to be fun. This new one unlearns every lesson taught by the first one.

Anyone else surprised they haven't remade (rebooted) Poltergeist? That movie is scary, and a remake would suuuuuuuuuuck. Thank goodness the Suspiria remake is DOA.

Really hoping Eli Roth's "The Bad Seed" never makes it off the ground.

And seriously, fuck any parent who would bring their kid to this.

My wife asked me this morning why I didn't yell at the parent instead of the manager. Because I didn't want to get shot, duh!!

Raimi is producing a Poltergeist remake...

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Dij6WEeIFp4/TwTgLtjLZnI/AAAAAAAAAxs/ES1-bcrnQoc/s1600/rick-santorum-family-e8430.jpg

Raimii, left, with fans

Go into the light, Raimi.

it's being directed by the guy who did Monster House which i know has its fans (and is meant to be pretty Spielbergian)

Sort of, in the "we are referencing Spielberg" sense. But it is animated and not scary, so whatevs. GTFO with a "Poltergeist" remake.

i particularly liked the clinical/psychedelic horror touches of beyond the black rainbow , made me think of phase IV, altered states.
"when you learn that Panos Cosmatos's chief inspiration in making Beyond the Black Rainbow was half-remembered yet vivid recollections of old-timey VHS covers in the horror section of the video store of his youth, you might decide that the movie itself is the evidence, not his words."
didn't know this while watching and the guy who wrote that is on the mark, this is exactly why i liked it: bad horror movie with uncomfortable mood and interesting retro photography. same reason i liked house of the devil, Blackaria and Last Caress (thanks for mentioning the last 2 upthread mr Jam) . have to say i fell asleep on beyond the black rainbow but i will watch it again for sure. recommendations pls?

note: last caress have some of the retro-iest crass sexual objectification that has rarely if ever been seen, like at one point the gang get into the creepy manor, no trace of the owner in sight, and one of the girls get upstairs to get a bath , right, and the magicians in the editing room made a digital zoom-in on her stipping after she stripped: they made her strip twice. faut le faire! another one near the end: the "last girl" is hidden by a wall, looks around the corner for the boogeyman then quickly climb up the stairs. magicians in the editing room play that back in slow mo so we can have a better look at her ass! for real.

it's only a joke movie, it's only a joke movie, it's only a joke movie, it's only a joke movie, it's only a joke movie, it's only a joke movie, it's only a joke movie, it's only a joke movie, it's only a joke movie, it's only a joke movie, it's only a joke movie, it's only a joke movie,

^^i kept repeating myself that and i did avoid fainting. on another subject, mr Jam upthread talked about another movie, "Gutterballs" , now that one i just couldn't find anything about it at all. i'm used to find something interesting in kitschy crap or just plain bad but that one i... couldn't , made me wonder if something about it flew above my head or something. beyond lousy: unwatchable. apparently they wanted to break the record of usage of the word fuck. so , there's that. oof.

yeah, i think you might have missed the raison d'être of Gutterballs, which was to be the gleefully excessive and vulgar '80s slasher we could never have gotten during that decade. c'mon, suffocation by '69!
you could try Nicholson's recent Famine, but i wouldn't bother. a fun riff on Slaughter High, but so poorly made that the technical shoddiness brought tears to my eyes. i don't know what went wrong.

since you liked the Gaillard/Robin films, see Andreas Marschall's Masks. has the audacity to remake Suspiria in all but name, with moments that rival the sensual intensity of Amer. i'm a big fan of his rough but promising Tears of Kali, so it's great to see him become even more formidable as a filmmaker. watch this guy.

Ok, just finished John dies at the end, thoughts tomorrow

quite liked 'evil dead', looked good and nice nasty streak. not mind-blowing but p fun, serviceable horror.

Wow, looked up "Gutterballs," which I had never heard of, and can't think of a movie I'd rather see less. Gosh.

FOAF worked on Gutterballs, movie is reportedly a classic case of having it both ways: he made it a parody so he could make the hateful scumbag movie he wanted to make.

Ok, just finished John dies at the end, thoughts tomorrow

curious to hear what you've got to say, cuz i started watching it last night at midnight, but quickly bailed in favor of sleep. initial moments weren't promising (mostly due to the overwritten, badly-delivered voiceover), but i was cheered by giamatti's appearance. gonna try again this evening.

ah! thank you for the info Mr. Hal Jam. i suspected that was my problem with gutterballs : i didn't "get" these guys. i naturally "got" similar stuff before , like when i was a kid and saw some troma films for an example, but these guys, idk why, but nope. i'm too old?! it is happening.

At last, a filmmaker brave enough to make the vulgar and excessive slasher film the '80s likely would have prosecuted.

Nicholson's heart is in the right place. At least physically, AFAIK. He's an über-fan making the sort of movies he always wanted to see. What he lacks in filmmaking talent, he makes up for in enthusiasm. And heart. Which, remember, is (probably) on the right side of his chest. Same as you or me.

Notice that i am not really recommending or endorsing any of his movies.

JDATE is a mess. But so is the book.

He's an über-fan making the sort of movies he always wanted to see.

From what I've read about Gutterballs - and keep in mind, I've seen A Serbian Film, and will defend it - it sounds like the biggest piece of shit ever, one that begins with a gang rape (in the first five minutes?) capped by rape-by-bowling pin, then goes downhill from there. And then to top it off, he re-released it with explicit sex cut in amidst the death by 69, sodomy by sharpened bowling pin and close-ups of castrations, eye sockets plugged with used condoms, etc.. That's the sort of movie he always wanted to see? Good for him for making his dream come true, but that's fucked up, even if it's in service of "parody," which the sort of bottom-scraping exploitation/slasher stuff he's referencing from a distance pretty much does on its own. Shock in and of itself does not seem a good goal if, by many accounts, the movie is not scary, well-acted or even particularly funny. Sleaze for sleaze's sake is a chump's game.

Don C's Bogus Journey.

i haven't seen gutterballs, but it's hard to be a truly dedicated horror/gore/exploitation fan and keep a clean conscience. i mean, i have a weird affection for herschell gordon lewis, this despite the fact that his films are exploitative, at least arguably misogynist and very poorly made. the cynical service they offer to the drive-in audience's most tawdry desires is part of their "charm", a quality that's only magnified by antiquity. what in its era seemed like reprehensible filth often comes in time to be seen as quaint kitsch. it happened to the naive gore and nudie flicks of the 50s-60s a while back, and now it's happening to the more feral strains of sleaze unleashed in the 70s and 80s (e.g., rob zombie, eli roth). on that level, i can see why someone might want to cross pieces with, say, forced entry in making a fond tribute to misspent youth.

personally, i can't compartmentalize graphic depictions of rape and torture as cheerfully transgressive genre thrills. regardless of context, i find that kind of stuff absolutely repellent.

it's hard to be a truly dedicated horror/gore/exploitation fan and keep a clean conscience.

I absolutely agree with this, to an extent, though the dividing line I suppose is being able to see a piece of shit for what it is, or even to have a personal dividing line. Granted, that may be a a fine line, but one-upping sleaze for the sake of sleaze is a dubious achievement, especially if it's achieved largely by just depicting gruesome or repellent acts in greater detail than ever before. Things get even more questionable when you factor in moral transgression, which, admittedly, is subjective. But while you will find very few people who will defend rape, obviously there are different ways it can be handled and depicted in films, to different ends. To shock, to challenge, to satirize, whatever. But the further a film leans on mere transgression as its theme, the thinner the ice becomes. Which doesn't mean these sorts of films shouldn't be made, but does often warrant the right to cry foul (pun intended).

Again, I'll happily defer to someone who has seen it, but it does not sound like "Gutterballs" does any of its gross stuff with an degree of wit or craft, which leaves ... what? The re-release with explicit material just makes the whole enterprise sound that much more cynical. No one said those shitty slasher films of the '80s were particularly good, and I don't imagine any save a select few had a problem with the fact that the past 60 or so years of exploitation lacked in the rape and gore and violence department. To push that stuff even further in service of some vague aim of "parody" is, like I said, a chump's game. To do something fresh or smart or funny or stylish with it takes talent.

anybody see Cronenberg's son's joint Antiviral? no idea if I liked it or not at this stage in the game (watched it on a bus ride while half asleep), but simultaneously impressed and amused by how blatantly dude is biting his daddy's stylistic cues.

Is this the one where celebrity itself is a virus or something?

i am watching john dies at the end. slow going.

The two leads are kind of awful, which doesn't help. I think there's an absurdist thing going on that I ended up enjoying, but in the same way that I enjoyed Rubber, which most of y'all hated iirc.

I am more than a little convinced at this point tht coscarelli can't really direct his way out of a paper bag, but somehow that works for him a lot of the time? He does feel a little bit like he is keeping the inadvertent shock schlock genre alive, but in a genuine way, not a wink wink way. Because he might actually be really terrible at what he does, but in a way that I find oddly charming.

All told, I really liked JDATE.

But it is also an unraveled baffling mess.

^ mostly the latter. the opening wasn't at all promising, but i gave it a fair shake on phantasm's behalf. it has moments and, yeah, a kind of dunderhead charm, but it's ultimately a trainwreck. done in by charisma-free lead performances, gratingly wacky dialogue, and lazy plotting that seems driven by nothing so much as a desire to seem "random".

i'm not the biggest rubber booster, but i enjoyed it a hell of a lot more than this.

I watched Resolution last night and although I wasn't too happy with it's own resolution it was a very unsettling, freaky ride. Excellent film for a low budget debut and if the ending had been handled differently it would be A+.

JDATE

Lol, I hope this is intentional.

110%

Need to see Resolution. And It's in the Blood.

watched the Criterion of Goke: The Body Snatcher From Hell (okay it's from 1968 so not post 2005 but whatever) - campy as fuck but some great really arresting imagery too

If any of you have the chance, see Upstream Color while it's in the theater. The sound stuff is amazing, and it's basically a horror movie, what with the worms and the surgery and the plants and the mind control stuff.

what if I hated Primer

I don't know because I honestly can't remember if I saw it or not. Pretty sure I didn't.(I know it's a cult favorite but I'm not a member of the cult is what I'm saying.) Anyway, I thought Upstream Color was scary and good fwiw.