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

family of 7! sorry!

Your basement is decidedly not evil, though. It's not even a little creepy!

It is when I'm down there hehehe

Are you a Salem Witch?

Perhaps I'm being hard on The Conjuring because it felt like the straw that broke the back. Horror movies have grown quite adept at pulling off shock scares in the last four or five years (Mama, et al) and that has been fun but now it's starting to feel like a formula (have scenery A + silence B + camera movement C) and the weaknesses are really starting to show through. The glow is gone. We need a fresh model.

I found it scary beyond the shock scares, actually. There was a creepiness to it that really got to me, plus as Jesse and I were discussing, some of the really scary parts were longer than just a second of being startled. Like

SPOILER ALERT
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The kid looking under her bed and then insisting that she could see the thing behind the door standing right behind her sister, Jesus H. the "hide and clap" game with Lilli Taylor and the hands coming out of the wardrobe, the whole long scene starting with the pictures falling off the walls and ending with the Wicked Witch of Rhode Island jumping off the top of the wardrobe onto the eldest daughter.
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END SPOILER

What people find scary is completely subjective, and those parts contained some elements that are almost guaranteed to freak me out. But as arguably dorky as the Salem witch premise was, the fact remains that I got up to pee in the middle of the night last night, three days after seeing this movie, and while I was sitting there sleepily looking out the bathroom door, I suddenly got it in my head that said witch would be crawling past the door any second and damned if that didn't wake me up fast.

Kid looking under bed=Poltergeist, which was 100x scarier.
Clap game with ghost=The Orphanage, which was 10x better
Wicked Witch popping out=Drag Me to Hell, which was better.

And so on.

I got lots of Friday the 13th the series vibes from bits of this, from the investigators to the room full of cursed objects that LOL DOES NOT LOCK?!?! The doll in the glass was like

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

Which movie that was 100x scarier did the bit with the laundry line sheet flying into a silhouette?

My sense of exhaustion with movies like The Conjuring might be personal to me. It reminds me of The Great Re-boot Forsaking of 2010, when the Nightmare on Elm Street remake got me to swear off all such movies forever.

...OR DID IT?!?

I do like that there is a now a sub-category of "yeah the house is haunted now what movies?" Used to be lots of "is it all in her head?" Or "there must be an explanation here." But now it's all "what do we do about the demon living in your basement?"

My fave along these lines may be the guy in "Paranormal Activity." "Hmm, let's see what's going on here, usually there's a good explanation for ... oh my God, I am detecting a terrible presence here, I'm leaving, good luck!"

Man, now I'm trying to remember where the clothesline gag was from ...

Let Kevin Bacon, Andy Griffith and Cloris Leachman renew your faith in the genre...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WktVSnhdEmc&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DWktVSnhdEmc

kinda feel like all those movies are the fading concentric circles of a rock thrown into the genre pool by late 90s asian horror directors. also the rock has long matted hair and moves with rapid jerks.

anybody got a line on the patient zero for this style?

it isnt the first, but wrt american directors the ring really spawned a million imitators

maybe this is selective memory but didn't ju-on: the grudge single-handedly revive the haunted house movie

anyone ever see the solid and creepy japanese haunted DJ booth film "the booth"? A robust 73 min.

obv ringu revived the moribund haunted VHS tape movie

I enjoyed The Conjuring and like carl a. said, it was nice that it wasn't scary up front and then limp and dumb in the second half.

It wasn't one of the best movies I've ever seen, but it was easy, fun, and scary, which is what I want sometimes on a summer afternoon.

The Catholic stuff was fine - I mean, it was in the context of a standard movie about possession. What I don't like, and when I think priests and crosses are lazy moves is when they show up in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where Christianity otherwise doesn't figure in, so they're just shorthand for "Good."

yeah i agree the catholic stuff is pretty straightforward in a context of demonology / possession and as far as this is based on an actual "case file" i guess it needed to adhere to some basic conventional tropes

also it's rhode island & you can't really escape catholicism in this place.

There were some good scares, like what carl posted about SPOILER thekidseeingthethingbehindthedoor /SPOILER, which was a nice, extended creepy moment. And a couple that could have been standard shocks: the woman on top of the wardrobe and the pictures falling. They were special b/c they extended the scare a few beats beyond the initial startling jump.

I'm sure my fear was heightened by having carl agatha shrieking and trying to duck for cover under my torso.

yea agree, the rhythm was pretty slow to start but the i thought it was to good cumulative effect. also the period costuming & set dressing was pretty well done without being overdone or distracting imho. i appreciated all of the dramatic collars of vera farmiga.

Yes, me too. Some dumb Slate writer criticized Farmiga's outfits. As if a clairvoyant working in an evil-fighting duo in the 70s wouldn't wear ruffles. and IIRC, she dressed like that IRL, too.

her outfits were great and totally reminded me of some of my earliest teachers (who weren't nuns)

Has any horror movie ever addressed what happens if you've dealing with a classic (classical?) demonic possession and you're, you know, Jewish or something? Like, do demons just go for the Catholics? If you're Jewish, do you have to worry about vampires? Can you still wield a cross against vampires if you're Jewish? Or are there different demons that prey on different religious denominations? Just the cliche of all the religious iconography and all that gets a little campy to a non-Catholic like me.

Thinking (a tiny bit) more, doesn't the presence of demons or whatever in a Catholic god vs. the devil context invalidate all the other religions in these fictional worlds?

I seem to recall the vampires in Buffy, and the demons and other stuff, being sorta of unrelated to religious stuff. They're just there, like aliens or interdimensional monsters. Because Willow was explicitly Jewish, but neither her religion nor anyone else's religion played a part in the show, iirc. And Whedon is an atheist.

That's what I was getting at - religion isn't really a part of the show, but sometimes they still casually use crosses without commentary. Or maybe that was just in the early seasons?

There have definitely been movies in which the demonically affected were atheists or nonbelievers. One of the rules in Stephen King's TV's Salem's Lot (or maybe it was the book?) was that if you didn't believe in the power of the cross, the cross had no power, which is why Barlow ate the priest.

I'm sure my fear was heightened by having carl agatha shrieking and trying to duck for cover under my torso.

Hush you screamed, too. Do you remember when we were watching I think it was Friday the 13th Part II and something scared me and I poured beer over both of us? That was funny.

also everybody OTM re: Vera Farmiga's collars.

Oh, LL, I was watching The Legend of Hell House the other day and if you have not seen it, I think you would really appreciate medium Florence Tanner's wardrobe. It made me think of you as I was watching it.

we were watching I think it was Friday the 13th Part II and something scared me

Probably wasn't Friday the 13th Part II, then. Now, if you said you fell asleep, then yes, it could have been that one.

The Possession (2012) was, if I recall, a Jewish exorcism movie. Shares the same traits as the rest of these films: good acting, fine production, a few creepy sequences, some jump scares... and then some forgettable flailing before the end credits.

It's kind of like comic book universes. When Jews are dealing with this demon over here, Catholics are dealing with that demon over there, Spider-man is dealing with this villain here, X-Men that villain there ...

Probably wasn't Friday the 13th Part II, then. Now, if you said you fell asleep, then yes, it could have been that one.

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, July 29, 2013 7:43 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You are just too cool for me. I can't keep up.

It was some goofy jump scare, to which I am particularly susceptible having, as LL said so well upthread, glass nerves.

Legend of hell house is fucking obligatory!!!!

Ah, the De-Ghostulator machine. Who could forget that?

The novel of The Keep dealt with the issue of a Christian monster and a Jewish protagonist. I can't remember if Mann's film carried any of that over...

Has any horror movie ever addressed what happens if you've dealing with a classic (classical?) demonic possession and you're, you know, Jewish or something?

not really a horror movie but "this is the end" does kind of

The Possession was mildly interesting for the Jewish angle (and Matisyahu) but disappointing otherwise. There is also a famous 1970s Turkish rip off off The Exorcist called Seytan I've been meaning to watch.

In other news, know what's scarier than demons? Angry off-leash dogs. Just now, not 5 min ago, I was walking my dogs and this big froth-mouthed monster came barrelling at us and attacked my dog (not the little one, but she was caught in the middle). It was one of the most terrifying things I've experienced in SOME TIME and I screamed at the top of my lungs for help because I was pretty sure that this dog was going to eat all three of us there in the alley.

Fortunately, we are ok but holy shit. Talk about what's scary? That's scary. This dog was real (compared to a demon).

FYI we are all ok physically, though the dog has a little blood in his fur. I'm scared to touch him.

Dogs are fucking scary.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/7f/Devil_Dog-_The_Hound_of_Hell_FilmPoster.jpeg/220px-Devil_Dog-_The_Hound_of_Hell_FilmPoster.jpeg

hope you & your pups are ok, LL

All I know, is that if I were a non-believer, and I saw a vampire, and I saw that the vampire did not react well to crosses, then watch me become a believer pretty quickly. Like, if that won't solidify your faith, nothing will.

The novel of The Keep dealt with the issue of a Christian monster and a Jewish protagonist. I can't remember if Mann's film carried any of that over...

― Spot Lange (Jon Lewis), Monday, July 29, 2013 7:57 PM (29 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't think it was very explicit that the monster was Christian, but it's such a weird weird movie that I may be misremembering.

Yvette Mimieux!

Yeah dogs are seriously scary. My poor baby, I wouldn't blame him if he never wanted to go into the alley again. He let me touch his head and chin. I think he's ok?

All I know, is that if I were a non-believer, and I saw a vampire, and I saw that the vampire did not react well to crosses, then watch me become a believer pretty quickly. Like, if that won't solidify your faith, nothing will.

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, July 29, 2013 3:28 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

but maybe all this would prove is that vampires hate cliches

yeah i mean real demons aren't scared of the vatican
that much i know

The novel of The Keep dealt with the issue of a Christian monster and a Jewish protagonist. I can't remember if Mann's film carried any of that over...

― Spot Lange (Jon Lewis), Monday, July 29, 2013 7:57 PM (29 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't think it was very explicit that the monster was Christian, but it's such a weird weird movie that I may be misremembering.

― Lawyer... SUAVE... (carl agatha), Monday, July 29, 2013 4:31 PM (9 minutes ago)

iirc the nazis mistakenly thought the symbols embedded in the walls of the keep were crosses, so they started wearing crosses to ward off the evil, but it turned out the symbols represented the hilt of the sword the protagonist carried w/ him. pretty sure there's a scene in the movie where the SS commandant tries to pull a cross on the evil spirit and he just crushes it and the hand in which it is held.

weren't the two powers battling supposed to be older than christianity? read the book 20 years ago so I'm a little foggy.

I was thinking of the scene where the bad monster (who's really nice to Ian McKellan in the movie, plus I think he stops Ian McKellan's daughter from getting raped by a Nazi, so how bad can he be) was unimpressed by the cross-wielding Nazi.

But yes, I do recall that it was an ancient battle between the Keep monster and the dude on the motorcycle.

I read the book when I was a kid (part of the "steal age inappropriate horror novels from my aunt" years) but I did rewatch the movie in the last couple of years, although the weirdness of the movie has obscured my memory.