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

Echoing ShariVari and the thign upthread, holy fuck you guys, the taking of Deborah Logan is stunningly good.

Sorry, the thnig

YES, ITS FOUND FOOTAGE SHUT UP

Also, in the not horror more thriller Primer vein, Coherence is very much worth the hype. Should scratch the thinky thinky itch for all you terrible Pontypool types without ruining it all by being Pontypool.

the taking of Deborah Logan is stunningly surprisingly good

Anne Ramsay and Jill Larson are fantastic. To the extent that the movie concerns their characters and interactions, it really is stunningly good. Problem is that it's at least equally concerned with the utterly vapid team of youngsters conducting the investigation and doing the filming. And the found footage conceit is completely unnecessary here. And it's taken to ludicrous extremes - there is simply no reason for them to place cameras in the house's hallways (and the elderly subject's bedroom for god's sake). And the "spookiness" is exaggerated for no good reason (your senile mother wanders naked around the house at night, you don't act all terrified by the non-diegetic soundtrack, you take her a fucking blanket). Then again, the mystery plot was more interesting and satisfying than is typical for films of this type. A mixed bag with, yeah, stunning high points.

agree with all of the above.

Totally disagree that this movie would have worked the same as a non ff/handcam pseudodoc - the movie (and the 2 lead performances) need to be personal and up close to work as well as they do, and the interview/investigation is the setup for that. FF isn't always about cheap jump scares, it's more about where you place the viewer, which I think this does near perfectly.

Yeah, agree that the found footage aspect added to the sense of immersion (and in some instances, realism). But it could have been dialed back quite a bit, and better thought through besides. At this point in the game, I think hybrid FF almost always works better. But that's just me.

the Taking of Deborah Logan is stunningly surprisingly good mediocre.

I'm really hoping Crimson Peak is gonna be good (saw a lovely photo from it last week) because I don't think I've heard about anything that looked intriguing this year, but I'm not sure horror films are anymore stagnant than usual.

Thought this was dead on, for anyone who didn't see it. Totally reminded me of the end of "The Guest," with bits of "Saw" (obv.), but I thought it nailed it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCw-iEJoVfY

hehe yup

The Soska sisters' most recent film, See No Evil 2, is on UK Netflix now. Stars Katherine Isabelle should any more inducement be required.

^ ok, this was terrible - don't bother.

How did you rate American Mary?
It didn't do much for me but it was a little different.

Yes, that's more or less what I thought. It wasn't a great film but did indicate that the Soskas had a potentially interesting vision.

Babadook really held up on 2nd viewing. The things that seem genuinely scary (e.g. hating your child, and furthermore learning how to manage that hatred) manage to cut through the almost too-frequent scare setpieces.

It's a solid horror film. Maybe not entirely deserving of the season's hype, but I personally loved the themes you just mentioned. The portrayal of the kid was a great, honest thing, I think, because children ARE beasts, even if it's not their fault.

The overbearing director's eye took me out of the story regularly but that's first film problems i guess

maybe some day the babadook will be available to me in some viewing format and i can share my IMPORTANT OPINIONS on it

icefilms icefilms baby

i dont even know what that is? not to go all tuomas or anything

in 30 years when we're all old and incontinent there should be an ilx thread just called "ok let's all shit our pants"

I'm super looking forward to Babadook, still, but it really scans, at least loosely, very similar to Mama.

it's not available on VOD in your area yet, jjjusten? It went day and date in the US I think

huh i could check that i guess, im just baffled that netflix doesn't have it on disc yet honestly

Also, it's technically still playing in the Cities -- St. Anthony Main.

it's still in theaters out here in NYC!

Can't say I outright loved The Babadook, but it's damn good, considerably better than (and not terribly similar to) Mama. Agree w/ Eric H. that the psychological elements are more interesting and better handled than the more overtly scary scenes, which aren't bad but do make the rookie mistake of giving too much away. I'd also have preferred a somewhat less thematically obvious conclusion, but of what I've seen, it's still the year's best traditional horror film.

My friend the young widowed mother got blindsided by it but found non-horror elements very in line with her own experiences.

Been reading some good reports about What We Do in the Shadows i.e a couple of people saying it is the best horrom/com since Braindead and Peter Bradshaw gave it a 5 star rave review.

horror/com

Housebound is my favorite recent horror comedy (good year for Antipodean chills), but I'm now quite curious about What We Do In the Shadows.

Yeah Housebound was piss funny. I am not a fan of Clement/Waititi's previous work, but from the reviews this seems be very dark and funny.

Was it from this thread that I got the recommendation to watch BENEATH (the one where the teens are trapped on their boat by a devil-fish)? If so, damn you! So lousy!

Anyone seen the Iranian vampire movie, "A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YGmTdo3vuY

No, but I've been looking forward to it for some time.

it's good! virtually no horror elements to it at all tho'.

You mean other than it being about a vampire?

yes! there's no suspense at all. it's more of a dybbuk movie of sorts i think; kind of a peek into a world i don't know anything about.

I look forward to seeing it! Iranian cinema is so sneaky and subversive. This one in particular. In a society that targets women for being alone at night (under the pretense of prosecuting prostitution), it's pretty ingenious to have a female vampire wandering around at night preying on men.

Or completely regressive, female sexuality as predatory threat etc

idk I havent seen it

It was filmed in LA fyi (tho it is in Persian and set in a fantastical Iran)

What We Do in the Shadows is good fun with a few big laughs. It needed more of Rhys Darby's rival gang of werewolves, though. But yeah, if you liked Flight of the Conchords...

so a (former) substitute teacher was just convicted of four felony counts for (inexplicably) showing The ABCs of Death in class.

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2015/01/15/Verdict_in_substitute_teacher_trial.html

wow

http://www.fright.com/edge/2014YearInHorror.htm

Always unpredictable and a little bit baffling in places. Happy about his top 2 though.

Yeah, it's an interesting list, though as you say, all over the place. To be honest, I'm somewhat disappointed by the preponderance of long-reach borderline horror, especially in the top 10: Nightcrawler, Blue Ruin, Sin City 2, Edge of Tomorrow, etc. The former two are excellent films, but it's not like 2014 was such a terrible year for genre horror that one has to push out into straight-up crime thrillers and "blockbuster" action pictures to fill slots.

My top 10 2014 favorites (many are no less stretched than the fright.com list):

1) Under the Skin
2) Moebius
3) The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears
4) Rigor Mortis
5) Only Lovers Left Alive
6) Miss Zombie
7) The Babadook
8) Housebound
9) What We Do In the Shadows
10) Found

Five more I'd love to include, but which don't quite make the cut as 2014 releases:

A Field in England (Swedish DVD in Oct. 2013, but first played NY in 2014)
Here Comes the Devil (limited US release in mid-December 2013)
Byzantium (okay, this is a straight-up 2013 release I'm including just because I dug it)
Dark Touch (apparently played NY in 2013, but no other non-festival showings or DVD release until 2014)
We Are What We Are (US remake - another 2013 release I'm throwing in for no good reason)

The Worst:

Thanatomorphose
Horns
Crawl or Die
The Devil Incarnate
Septic Man
Judy
Hotel Inferno

dunno if this got discussed here but um:

Watch the eerie trailer for a horror film about a murderous EDM producer

i must check out more of your list contenderizer. only seen the Babadook out of that list (and most of Under The Skin), but I thought it was one of the best horrors I'd seen in years.