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

"The Superdeep" - good monster, decent movie, worth the $4 stream.

Thoughts on "The Night House"? Really liked the atmosphere, Rebecca Hall carrying the movie, and enjoyed reading the polarized IMDB reviews. Usually find films that mix objective (what the camera sees is reality) and subjective (what you're seeing is what one character sees, not necessarily the reality) views frustrating unless overtly called out by the film, but I liked this one. At the end, there's still room for debate. The subject (reason for husband's suicide haunts wife) becomes a metaphor that you could interpret the whole film behind. Not sure the mix is fully successful - would give it 4 of 5 stars - but I came out thinking about it, vs feeling I'd wasted my time.

Objectively, her interactions with other people are 'real': the totem and photos she finds and her friend sees, tracing the books to the bookstore and finding the lookalike who later visits. Both lend evidence to the plot that her husband was tricking a supernatural entity with the reversed house and killing the doppelganger women.

Subjectively, all the supernatural elements happen to her alone, while she's depressed and drinking: she's told the woods are empty but finds the reversed house by herself, the spooky events that end with her waking on the couch or floor, the footprints on the dock, the bathroom scene. Was that all hallucinated while sleepwalking? Also, when she finds the bodies under the reversed house's floorboards, why does she call her friend and then take a shower, instead of calling the police? That's the divisive bit for a lot of the IMDB reviews.

Coming to the last scene, felt the film played it coy and wanted it open to interpretation. I didn't mind so much. Though, if objective, she still has to deal with the dead bodies back at the reversed house.

What I really enjoyed were the f/x of the house in the final scenes, with the spaces morphing to a figure's outline, and the blurry shape at the end in the boat. Very creative.

Whoops on the hidden text. Thought it could handle carriage returns. SPOILERS ABOVE.

> Thought it could handle carriage returns

maybe the help text can be updated

Don't know if it's discussed further up in the thread, but my wife and I (both folk horror aficionados) watched the folk horror doc Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched over the weekend and enjoyed all 3-plus hours of it. It's on Google Play right now for $1.99. It's hugely ambitious, spinning off of the "holy trinity" to explore the whole idea of folk horror. Sometimes the roster of talking heads feels a bit like Kier-La Janisse basically just recruited all her film-geek friends, and sometimes it wanders in a way that makes it seem like everything is folk horror, but overall it does a good job of returning to its key themes while attacking them from several different angles. Plus it's a ridiculously roster of movies, just dozens and dozens of them. Highly recommended if the subject matter intrigues you at all.

Ridiculously HUGE roster of movies, that should say.

we got the box set as a gift to ourselves for the hols! the first movie we watched was Eyes of Fire, which I hear has just been added to Shudder.
super recommended, looks amazing & brings the vibe in the best way
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8_HDMaOMro

I think the other one we've watched so far (before our viewing was derailed by life events) was called Allison's Birthday. Also recommended.

We're about halfway through the box so far, just about to start the Australian discs (of which Alison's Birthday is one).

Viy was a clear highlight buy I was very intrigued watching Tilbury, which felt like it was made by Dennis Potter. I've enjoyed everything though Lake Of The Dead was really tenuously folk horror.

We watched Viy somewhere last year — maybe on Shudder, not sure — and loved it.

Count me as another disappointed Censor viewer. I was surprised to see Kim Newman's name among the producer credits; I'm guessing that he was partly there for genre scholarship and deep knowledge of video nasties, but the details all felt ersatz and not very accurately observed. Also found lots of the performances to be severely lacking (especially the sinister horror film director).

On the other hand, I absolutely loved Titane - seen in the cinema, a pure blast of energy. The first 30 minutes in particular are wonderfully intense and expertly sustained. And the scene where the 'son' dances in front of his co-workers is a pretty brilliant piece of filmmaking all by itself.

I wasn't really sold on Censor either. I thought the first bits were fine but it really fell apart around the point she was trying to get the under the counter film and never recovered. By the end and the multiple (?) dream states it was just a mess but looking at the positives it made me realise a film of Studio of Screams has serious potential.

Thought Titane was great up to a point but in the end was simultaneously too crazy and not crazy enough, depending on what sort of film it was supposed to be. A whole film of the 'son' plot would have been fine, as would a whole film of the 'pregnancy' but both together ultimately felt a bit forced.

Titane spoiler:

was I the only one who thought she was going to give birth to a toy truck?

Mentioned in a few posts back in September I’m the other thread, with 2006 in the title. Just watched the whole thing. Thanks for the recommendation, really well done.

we got the box set as a gift to ourselves for the hols! the first movie we watched was Eyes of Fire, which I hear has just been added to Shudder.
super recommended, looks amazing & brings the vibe in the best waywe got the box set as a gift to ourselves for the hols! the first movie we watched was Eyes of Fire, which I hear has just been added to Shudder.
super recommended, looks amazing & brings the vibe in the best way

Also recommended, but after I had watched it, I saw there was a directors cut also on the disc, so if you only want to watch once, then go for that one.

No idea of the differences, but some parts of the film were so atmospheric, I hope it leaned into that a little more.

Not sure if it counts as a horror but Memoria definitely unsettled and startled me. Almost requisite you watch it on a cinema screen if you're going to.

You can only see it (legally) in the cinema - it's not going to be made available on digital media or as physical disc.

oh right that explains why I couldn't find it on the torrents/nzb servers!

it's available on torrents just fyi

Watched Censor tonight. It’s really fucking good. Don’t want to say anything else about it; go in as cold as possible.

xp

I've looked again and it isn't!

My last post was referring to Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched, of course. Also just found this blog and the accompanying book: https://ayearinthecountry.co.uk/about/

I really enjoyed Woodlands Dark. I think it sacrificed a critical through-line in service of the impossible dream of being comprehensive but it was clearly a labour of love and as a compendium of films to check out it was a fantastic guide.

i found scream or 5cream kinda disappointing. it hit all the beats but i feel like that's all it really did. even wes craven's most compromised films feel like they're about something, and this just doesn't have the thematic heft at all

Wow, knowing your love for the series that's pretty harsh. So ... top 10 favorite film of all time?

;)

lol

Re Memoria...there isn't a way on the official site to see about screenings?

I've downloaded it from my nzb site just now so I guess forks was right!

yah, it was streamed on some russian site somewhere about a month ago

Sigh

i mean i'm not proud! but no, there's no way to watch it legally as a stream.

been laughing at this all morning thank you very much. pic.twitter.com/VyjeHENRXR

— RK Jackson | Atlanta 🛸 (@theerkj) January 29, 2022

"Woman Bites Dog."

I know most people were disappointed by In The Earth but I don't have any real complaints, pretty good. For a while I thought it might be a sequel to A Field In England and Reece Shearsmith had been wandering around the same location for hundreds of years getting crazier

x was so so so so so good

also probably the only post-credits sequence that made me like a movie even more for it being there

! with friends and walked out before that, thanks.

!!

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That should be the tagline for the horror movie based on ILX

bracing myself for disappointment with X cos because of incessant Instagram marketing and also Ti West so I'm cautiously welcoming your enthusiasm

This looks interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pt81CJcWZy8

i am asking BradNelson in a polite, nonchallenging way to please expand on his enthusiasm for X, bc i thought it was meh. well-acted in general but not much else about it stood out to me - no surprises, no visual flair, etc. also the central premise seemed to be west trying to have it both ways (see spoiler below for more detail)

it felt like west would say the movie was about the sadness of aging and was intended to be sympathetic to pearl, but also 90% of the horror was based on "ew old people expressing their sexuality"

again - not trying to be a jerk - i appreciate Brad's general enthusiasm. i would just like to hear more about what you liked about it.

the movie is def trying to have it both ways in the sense that mia goth is playing the old woman and is made up to look consumptive as possible, but also the movie definitely knows that "ew old people expressing their sexuality" is a projection of the audience and of literally every character in the film, so it worked for me!

it was also a highly enjoyable hangout movie (with notes of dread) for the first hour. the characters are very charming! i loved the microdynamics of the crew, partic the film school dork and his "churchmouse" boom operator gf

also no visual flair? what amount mia goth in the lake with the alligator? i thought there was a ton to drink in visually!

i did like the lake bit.

also NA my pronouns are they/them (and you do not need to apologize)

OK thanks for letting me know

I loved X. it's not groundbreaking (Ti West rarely is, he just enjoys putting his own wrinkle on existing templates) but stylistically it's marvelous. I love all of the beautiful shots at the farm, the set pieces, and the overall ambience and mood, as well as how ugly things get by the ending.

not to mention that when the blood starts spraying, there are some brutal murder scenes that are visceral as all fuck. well staged on top of that.

really enjoyed Kid Cudi too.

That looks fun

Censor didn't really do anything for me. Niamh Algar was great and Michael Smiley immediately ratchets up the tension in anything he's in, but ultimately I couldn't suspend my disbelief and found the conceit(s) clumsy.

Luz: The Flower Of Evil - Nutty christians losing their shit again. But it's set in the Colombian mountains and it looks really good, striking colors

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5PW5r3pEOg

trailer for ti west's x prequel, pearl. imo fuck yeah