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

http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/The_Monster/Theories

PRIDE, duh.

http://smollin.com/michael/tmonstr/mon011.jpg

I DARE some young aspiring horror filmmaker to pull off what Grover did there.

M. Night, eat your heart out.

Again, not post-2005, but for those who enjoy low-low-budget stop-motion horror (like the original EVIL DEAD or EQUINOX), you gotta check out WINTERBEAST. So much stoopid fun.

I liked "Magic Magic." Really well-acted and effective and depressing.

Finally watched 'My Amityville Horror'. Felt like the director cheesed it out a bit much with the overdone sound effects/music cues. But I found Daniel really fascinating and a v sad protagonist. The part where he was talking about constantly having to play the role of protector *for himself*, that he was never really able to enjoy much of a normal childhood, that really got to me. George really did a fucking number on him, jesus.

The stuff with Lorraine Warren was ! and O_o

finally saw stoker last night (the american debut of Park "Oldboy" Chan-wook), which has its own thread but only one post from someone who's actually seen it, so posting here. Highly recommended to old-school auteur theory types, as you can really see the director chafing against the material. First half of the movie is loaded with abstract portent, shit like Mia W creepily a hard boiled egg on a table so that the shell crackles after a funeral, people can't open a door without signaling "that ain't right," and it seems like its going to build into a grotesque peak when suddenly exposition comes barreling forth and all that ambiguity goes out the window. So whether you see it as a self-indulgent director fruitying up a strong Hitchcock homage or a visually striking director hampered by a b-movie thriller script, it's one of the clearest examples i've seen recently of the two being at odds.

Some would debate whether it's horror but there's death, lotta modern dark "gothic" shit and the title made everybody think it was a vampire movie, so

Finally saw Lords of Salem tonight. SUPER into it. Definitely a new fave.

you are all high. that rosalind leigh movie was bogus. protagonist didn't have to do anything but wander around gazing at stuff, and wasn't even credible (or interesting) doing that. house looked like someone barfed a "spooky props" warehouse all over the place, silly & distracting. final explanation seemed to dispel the subtler aspects of the mystery in favor of a blaokboard-erasing cheat. not scary. boo.

did like stoker, tho. agree w da croop (croopsy?) that the style seemed at odds with its somewhat underwhelming substance, enough so that it fizzled somewhat in the 2nd half, but i dug the style enough to enjoy it overall.

Rosalind Leigh was great - thanks for the recommendation! It seemed unambiguous to me that Leon was never at the house and the movie was a story Rosalind was telling herself, either just before death or as a ghost. The monster seemed to me to be a manifestation of Rosalind's loneliness, no?

I watched the Innkeepers and V/H/S over the weekend. Innkeepers did the horror comedy genre really well, although I preferred the comedy to the horror. Great sense of tension and humour but the false-starts were scarier than the final payback. Did enjoy this though. V/H/S was disjointed. The first story (cat demon lady) was by far the most impressive while the rest of the stories seemed to riff on similar themes and some of them were a bit difficult to follow. I didn't think the whole thing held together so well and a lot of the stories could have taken more time to develop. That said, it did give me some pretty creepy dreams so obv something worked.

Calvaire was good though - a nicely done take on an old favourite, beautifully shot too.

OTM! love that movie. since i don't see many belgian movies, i'll lump it in with france and say, with trouble every day, it's one of my favorite horror films from "that region" in the last decade or so. so strange and, yeah, beautiful.

speaking of rosalind leigh, it's interesting how central the idea of belief has become to tales of the supernatural. so many possession & ghost films in semi-recent years that make a huge point about the tension between skepticism and faith. TLW&TORL primarily stresses belief in the divine over things that go bump in the night, but both are in play (and the latter sometimes stands for the former anyway).

xpost that bit in the bar was amazing.

If we're talking monster (since so many have seen "Rosalind") I think the film's own literal-mindedness worked against it. For example, I find it really hard to believe that ghost or real Rosalind imagined her son sitting at a desk reviewing security footage. That's what I meant by its hinky POV: there was so much that happened that I could not imagine from the POV, real or imagined, of "Rosalind." I will reserve judgment as to whether that is sloppiness, shortcuts or just sort of hail-mary (so to speak) fingers crossed obfuscation. There's omniscient, and then there's multiple POV, and I thought the movie walked the line in a really confusing way, like, I dunno, cameras breaking the 180 rule.

Calvaire! The bar scene is legendary. It is worth the price of admission 10x over.

otm

another way to view rosalind might be to suppose that leon /really did visit the house, and was haunted by his mother - in the form of the monster. she has been so consumed by her loneliness that its monstrous form is all that remains. she doesn't recognize her son when he does return, and he (of course) doesn't recognize her.

not sure that works any better than "it was all in her ghost-head."

I like anger-regret demon on the loose better than "it was all in her ghost-head."

not my idea, but yeah, i like it too. still don't like the movie tho.

I liked stoker a lot, def dark + weird + gothy so would appeal to a lotta folks here

ending falls apart big time but being a fan of s korean and/or horror films I'm used to that

it gets almost 3/4 of the way in before losing the plot so that makes for a good amount of gorgeous design & aggressively virtuoso camerawork

Ok you all should watch Tony on streaming Netflix so we can talk about it. Unless we already have upthread. Absolutely loved it,

Note - it's super refn-ish in tone (although not so much wrt on screen gore) so if you hate moody lonerism feel free to avoid.

But also funny (but not comedic) which refn is basically not, so idk.

saw mama last night - not perfect but really enjoyed it. loved how it morphed into pure fairytale for its extended climax; loved how driven by interesting female characters it was (useless brother character gotten safely out of the way swiftly); loved how the monster was ultimately emotionally resonant as well as scary (i'm no horror aficionado but this struck me as pretty original - any other examples of this?). the scene during the climax of the ghost cradling her baby's remains was genuinely quite moving. the child actors were pretty amazing too.

chastain's rock chick character was a bit on-the-nose but i thought it worked ultimately - refreshing to have that sort of character as female lead, liked the implied parallel between her and the ghost being "bad women" of their eras - and when she found out the back story, i felt like her empathy/understanding was crucial to the resolution.

psychiatrist guy going to the woods at night was a bit "oh horrorpaws" cliché though.

oh and i thought it looked really fantastic, the use of the children's drawings and dream sequences especially, which lessened the negative impact of the dodgy cgi when mama herself was shown in the climax

Lex, if you haven't seen it, I recommend "The Orphanage," another similarly tonally ambitious horror flick that at the end leaves you more sad than scared.

"Mama" is just an unusual movie all around, which helps make up for its flaws. It's certainly memorable and well-made, and it's always refreshing to see a spooky movie with virtually no blood and gore.

Picked up a copy of Berberian Sound Studio for £7. Been looking for it for ages but now I fear my TV and sound isn't good enough to do it justice.

I have been watching The Following recently. It is pretty daft, in a 24-with-serial-killers way, but oddly grisly. Kevin Williamson is behind it and there are echoes of Scream in parts. It is a long way short of the mark set by Harper's Island but better than a lot of TV horror.

Someone mentioned the American Horror Story series - is it any good at all?

nope

Yes

First season started promisingly but declined into corny soap opera. Second session is meant to be better.

Second season is a completely ott throw everything in the horror genre in a blender and hit the button fun fest, so I would start there and if you dig it, give the first season a shot, it's not bad, just not as willfully "holy crap how is this on network television" batshit in tone. Probably the best horror show on television in recent memory, although Hannibal is also in the running if you let the border of thriller in the gate.

Fair warning: underneath the camp lies a nasty unpleasant heart, so be prepared for some difficult moments, particularly wrt treatment of women (as discussed earlier itt)

i was dubious about the first one, hated the second, stopped watching. too color-by-numbers for me. the posters for the new season did nothing to convince me otherwise.
some people like it but i am not one of them afaik, which is midway through season 2.

Oh hey, watched Grabbers last night (boozy Irish horror comedy) and it is basically an ok background movie but nothing more.

I'm about 1/4 of the way into the second season of American Horror. I'm trying to settle into the OTTness but I keep having serious 'ok why am I watching this' moments

IMO American Horror Story is ok, but the best part about it is it's theme song. It's definitely cheesy, cliched and OTT, but it is really fun to watch Jessica Lange. I would say start with season two and see what you think... it's pretty lowbrow but it's not terrible (usually).

It's certainly nothing compared to Hannibal, which I think might just be the best horror-genre TV show ever.

http://24.media.tumblr.com/528fa659ef00d0fa3808829aeb0ee867/tumblr_mwnkpeUMHr1r3gb3zo1_400.gif

Alright y'all, been flicking through my back log on streaming and decided on The Bleeding House. How will it turn out? Who knows?

Never mind, I have a crying baby to tame. Soon though! Unless someone has a must see netflix streaming suggestion

I really liked the Bleeding House so that is my suggestion.

Uh oh, perennial laughing stock fave "Zombie Ass: Toilet of the Dead" now on Netflix streaming. Wish me luck!

ok, i manage to make my way through some pretty terrible stuff, but even I couldn't get all the way through zombie ass. not because it was gross (which uh it def is), but because it was just incredibly bad. I think it's time to just accept that I can't stand the Japanese Splatstick stuff at all.

basically it's the stunningly awful "F is for Fart" from abcs of death (same director) drawn out to 90 minutes. so yeah, if you liked that, go for it. also if you liked that, you suck.