ok lets all shit our pants to something old: pre-2006 horror film thread

HEX

If it weren't for some weak acting, unconvincing twists, poorly integrated humour and some bad special effects, this could have been really great because it's a very well shot film (way ahead of Black Magic in that respect) and the setting is really nice. The dancing scene near the end is kind of cool too but it changes the film into sexploitation, maybe a tad jarring and perhaps that doesn't matter. The drowning scene was the highlight for me. Would have been a really good ghost story had they reined in the tone.

The 88 Films disc version includes two very good features with Bey Logan explaining the Shaw Brothers studio and some aspects of Hong Kong cinema. He clears up a lot of misconceptions.

88 Films tend to focus on particularly trashy films so I hadn't been that interested until their Asian film line came out. I think it's been exclusively Shaw Brothers so far and I don't know if they'll expand. But I've been really impressed with them, they compare quite well with Arrow Films. Hoping they'll bring out Bloody Parrot and Black Magic 2 next. Throw in Boxer's Omen and I might even buy it again.

TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE: THE MOVIE

I liked this better than Creepshow. It's trashy in a fairly entertaining way. Was surprised how many famous people were in it. Arthur Conan Doyle and Stephen King stories for the first two segments, the third story is a lot like Yuki-Onna but I'm not sure if it's similar enough to the Hearn version to justify a credit (there's no adaptation credit for this one).

THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW (Disney)

Animated musical short film with the voice of Bing Crosby. It's decent, the horror bits are nicely done. I really like that type of spookiness, wish there was more of it.

AUTOPSY/THE VICTIM/MAGICIAN

Giallo with Mimsy Farmer. It's pretty good, very twisty plot, the museum of death has some striking pieces, but I don't think I've got that much patience for giallo outside the most stylish ones with the bolder colours.

Possible animal cruelty: there's a scene of a dog get belted a bit.

SEEDING OF A GHOST

For a few weeks or months it was really hard to find the recent 88 Films release of this but they made more. It's funny to imagine this being unexpectedly popular but they probably just made fewer of these than the others in their Shaw Brothers series.

It's like the other dark magic Hong Kong films but with some 80s rubbery monster gore. It's not as crazy as Boxer's Omen but it must be a runner up in the HK horror section. Some people have been exaggerating these qualities so don't expect lots of monsters (there's a grotesque corpse, some slight human transformations and an actual monster at the end) or constant insanity (it's mostly kept to the end and the magic rituals are definitely the strangest thing). It's pretty nasty too, the rape is quite bad, most of the characters are lousy people and there's none of the humour you might expect from a film like this. Worth seeing but I don't think it lives up to the hype.

It came out the same year as Devil Fetus but the ending is so similar I'm convinced one is ripping off the other (but I've never seen Devil Fetus in full).

THREE WISHES FOR CINDERELLA

Just a very sweet and nice film with lots of snowy countryside, dogs, horses and an owl. Popelku/Cinderella is stunningly beautiful and even her ugly sister is really cute. The sensibility is a bit too crowdpleasing and like a lot of adaptations it struggles a bit with the fairy tale logic (making characters seem stupid) but I really like this film. Apparently it's a popular film shown every Christmas in a few countries, I don't know if they're lucky or if it's better to keep it less frequent but I'd take it over The Great Escape.
The background information talk on the Second Run disc is excellent.

EVIL DEAD TRAP

In the 90s I always used to see vhs copies of this next to Evil Ed and the Evil Dead series, I thought they were all related.

This is an offbeat Japanese slasher with a small drop of rubber monster stuff. It's set in a military base, there's nasty rape and violence in there, which sounds like the type of thing I'd normally avoid but it's pretty stylish and has a cool soundtrack. Some might even call it a giallo.

I've heard that the sequels don't have much to do with each other and they didn't sound as good.

Saw a 35mm screening of EYES OF FIRE. Not bad, some cool visuals. Kind of a weird precursor to last year's The Witch, made in 1983.

Heard about it recently, don't remember where.

YOUR VICE IS A LOCKED ROOM AND ONLY I HAVE THE KEY

Really only bought this because I couldn't find a copy of the very beautiful Bruno Nicolai soundtrack and I've not seen many Edwige Fenech films. It's an okay/decent film, I'm sure a lot of you would like it a lot more than me.
The Arrow disc has a good documentary about Fenech and another one about the director (I've been hearing a lot more Scottish accents in dvd features recently).

Rewatched Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 for the first time in ages. What a weird movie, sometimes half-assed, sometimes funny. Once they get to the underground lair I was all, huh, how much time is left? 45 minutes !?!? Definitely seems to be ground zero for Rob Zombieville.

THE SCARLET FLOWER

A Russian 1970s Beauty And The Beast variation with a leafy tree spirit as the beast. The most impressive thing is the interiors of the palace, where all colours are muted except for reds. In the rural scenes there's a style of folk singing I've never heard before. The father looks a lot like Tom Hardy might in a few decades. It's a nice film but I wish there was a bit more going on, admittedly I wasn't paying close attention to all the relationships.
In the bonus features interview with the director, it seems like she had much bigger ambitions for the film than she was able to execute but she's still quite pleased with it.

THE BLOOD DRINKERS/BLOOD IS THE COLOR OF NIGHT

60s Filipino vampire film which is pretty lousy in most ways but manages to create some impressive images with lots of fog and its unusual use of colour. It alternates between full colour and black & white with red or blue tints.

THE FALL OF THE LOUSE OF USHER

Ken Russell's last full length film. It's as awful as they say, unfortunately. I only got half way through then fast-forwarded the rest. It's done on a shoestring budget, Russell puts on a terrible German accent, the music is Nick Cave wannabe stuff, most of the costumes and props look like they're from cheap Halloween and novelty item stores. It's silly and vulgar in a way that isn't fun.
If he had a huge budget and all the resources he wanted at this point, I wonder if it would be as puerile? Maybe he knew he could never make a great film on this budget and so didn't take the whole thing too seriously.
I feel bad writing all this because Russell is one of my favourites.

It's silly and vulgar in a way that isn't fun.

I disagree. It's silly and vulgar and puerile and generally terrible, but watching it drunk with your mates is a laugh-riot. Also the main actors are the singer from Gallon Drunk and one of the Mediaeval Baebes!

Maybe he knew he could never make a great film on this budget and so didn't take the whole thing too seriously.

I do think this is pretty spot on, though. I mean, it's basically filmed in his back garden with crap he picked up from, as you say, "cheap Halloween and novelty item stores". I don't think anyone involved thought they were making a work of art.

Didn't know about the Mediaeval Baebes member in this. I'm not familiar with Gallon Drunk.

If you're in the US (Arrow seems to be handling this better in the UK) and have any thoughts of procuring the new complete Phantasm blu-ray set, get on it ASAP. The thing was just released last week to a limited number of retailers and it's already totally sold out and going for inflated prices everywhere but Best Buy.

Wow @ Death Bed: The Bed That Eats. I knew it had to be super low budget (which it definitely is) but had no idea it was some weird art/exploitation film hybrid. The Bed's nemesis is Aubrey Beardsley (whose ghost is trapped in a painting in the same room as the Bed). The bed actually seriously drinks Pepto Bismol at one point. I think I love this movie.

death bed freakin rocks

I think it's officially joined Robot Monster in my pantheon of movies that popular opinion has written off as super shitty but that are actually kind of transcendent and amazing.

I think I'm gonna watch The Witch Who Came From the Sea next. Cool to see a couple of y'all discussing Arrow's American Horror Project set upthread!

Malatesta's Carnival Of Blood was the best of those easily. Real unearthed treasure.

The Witch Who Came From the Sea is fuuuuuuucked. Millie Perkins in the lead role is like a lite version of Isabel Adjani in Possession. It feels like the kind of role that takes a bite out of your psyche if you throw yourself into it so completely. Kinda not exactly horror, I guess, but I don't know what else to call it. Recommended.

(I keep a sort of mental file of indelible moments from horror films, and the flashback to her character's distorted utterances of 'Papa? Papa?' as a child is now burned into my brain.)

saw a print of Witch last year, loved it

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-40089750

There's a part in one of the Wishmaster films with the monster asking someone about love in his cookie monster voice. Someone needs to clip that for youtube then put it in a song intro.

Arrow finally got their own edition of Bava's Kill Baby Kill

Arrow and Scream Factory have been like a couple of mafia goons lately, shaking me down for unreasonable percentages of my paycheck.

arrow, scream, and synapse are ruining me financially

If only we had a choice. If only.

I realized recently that I own >500 horror/sci-fi/thriller movies, and probably at least that number of episodes of various horror/sci-fi/thriller anthology series. This constitutes most of what I watch, and most of it was released prior to 2006 (and mostly quite a bit prior). I should probably post itt more, huh.

Although the last three I watched were The Giant Gila Monster, Invasion of the Animal People, and The Toxic Avenger 3, so it could be that my taste and any potential commentary I might contribute are highly questionable.

Conrad Poohs and his dancing teeth!
https://www.movieposter.com/poster/MPW-42028/Dungeonmaster.html

Watched Bad Taste recently and it's not a great film but it has a charm to it. I liked all the brain stuffing. Feels like a snapshot of a specific era of male geekery, like a bunch of friends who might have made a table top rpg or PC FPS. Hope Peter Jackson starts bringing the goods again someday.

VIDEO NASTIES THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE 2

Not an old film but a documentary about old films. I seen the first one when it came out but waited for this a while longer.

The main documentary of both guides are very good but my favourite thing about them is the extras in which the critics/journalists like Kim Newman, Stephen Thrower, Alan Jones and others review all the films and try to guess why the British censors and police considered them dangerous. It's many hours worth of viewing and I could easily watch a lot more in this format.

In the first guide, Axe was the only film I hadn't seen which they persuaded me I might want to see. But from this one: The Child, Erotic Rites Of Frankenstein and Pigs caught my interest.

Pigs sounded mostly interesting for who made it. Crime film regular Marc Lawrence written and directed it as a showcase for his daughter Toni. Toni plays a traumatized killer and Marc is an oddball farmer who protects her.

Even if you're not particularly fond of most video nasty style horror films*, I'd highly recommend both these guides, I think they're a lot of fun.

*Never cared about cannibal/foreign tribe horror films. It's not just concerns about real animal violence, nasty faked human violence and racism. They just look completely tedious to me.

i had a good time with DOCTOR BUTCHER, MD recently. but yeah it's not a particularly great genre

i watched some ridiculous movie called BLUE SUNSHINE the other night? it is about LSD that makes people go bald and kill people. yea.....

Starring Zalman King, who went on to enjoy a career as soft porn auteur.

Lieberman's Just Before Dawn and Squirm are also good fun.

heh i definitely want to see BLUE SUNSHINE

Phantom of the Paradise, hoooooooly shit. Just watched it for the first time and I want to rewatch it like now. With a group and some drinks.

i would like to write the same post as old lunch, but about DEATH SPA

I really like Phantom Of Paradise, don't know how if stayed relatively hidden for so long.

If I ever make a movie, I will negotiate away my right to final cut in exchange for a guarantee that Paul Williams can vamp over the end credits a la Phantom and The Muppet Movie. Having seen it done a second time now, I genuinely can't think of a type of film ending I enjoy more.

Paul Williams needs to be in twin peaks s3 imho

Wow, you are so right. He's almost too normal-looking now, though. He'd need to bring back his look from that era.

Phantom of the Paradise has a huge cult following in Canada, apparently. still on my list
I saw a (perhaps the only existing!) 35mm print of DEATH SPA last year. it was pretty entertaining!

I think it was pretty big in a few countries but I've only known about it for about 6 or 7 years or something like that.

oh man i loved blue sunshine. the scene where the lady is babysitting the kids and starts to wig will always be with me.

RING
RING 2
RING 0

Hadn't seen the first two since I was a teenager and a lot of my memories were mixed up so I got the Japanese trilogy box set. They aren't really the originals because there was an earlier television version and a non-Nakata sequel that didn't do well before he did his own sequel.

The first Nakata film is still great and quite scary. I totally forgot about all the psychic stuff.
2 complaints: the "thwak" sound when Sadako gets hit by her father is totally unnecessary and the end credits has dance music that feels a tad out of place (the other two have some odd choices too).

Ring 2 is pretty solid and has some spooky moments but I'm not sure how to feel about the direction the story goes in. Most people (including myself) probably approach the story as a more or less old fashioned ghost story but the Koji Suzuki books are supposed to go in a nutty science fiction direction and this film just slightly veers toward that. I find it kind of difficult to let go of the initial set-up of the first Nakata film.

Ring 0 was okay, but again I feel like it doesn't add much that I like to the story, sometimes it seems a bit fannish towards the end and there's a scene that I think was lifted from Audition.
But the scene with Sadako's mother at the mirror is really creepy, especially for a slight variation of a scene we've seen repeatedly before. That woman has a brilliant face.

Just this minute finished House/Hausu (1977)...OMG...this was one of the most astounding things I've ever seen. Endlessly inventive, unceasingly inspired. I've owned this thing for years and feel like an idiot for never watching it before now, but all things in their time, I suppose. Just...watch it, for the love of everything. My jaw dropped about ten minutes in and was slack for the remainder of the runtime.

After feeling as if I may have encountered two of my favorite movies ever (between this and Phantom of the Paradise) on two consecutive nights, the next film I watch is either going to disappoint me massively or blow my brains out the back of my skull.

RAG, if you haven't already seen this, add it to the top of your Japanese ghost story list.

hausu is the greatest movie ever made

I saw Bava's A Bay of Blood in 35mm last night. :/ Invented the worst genre ever, I guess (the slasher by the lake).

My chief impediment to 98% of non-Cronenberg horror is the idiotic plotting.

Plot is about as important to the horror film as it is to the musical.

yeah, but I (usually) prefer songs to skewerings.

I saw Hausu when it was first released on disc and I like it a lot.

I like Bava a lot too but never cared for Bay Of Blood.

I don't know if slasher, jumpy ghost films and Saw films put more asses in seats but I think plot heavy detective horror might be the most enduringly popular type. There are great detective horror stories but personally I'm really tired of it.

Another fantasy interlude.

Second Run are releasing Karel Zeman's The Fabulous Baron Munchausen on disc but it's also on iTunes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Na1h7ozW9VQ