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

saw terrifier 2! lol

― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Monday, October 31, 2022 9:46 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

to expand: gross, not very scary (unless you're scared of clowns) (i'm not), takes place in a universe ruled by random cruelty and sadism (so our universe), but brings a lot of imagination and fun(?) to it. more impressed the more i think about it, can't think of a recent horror movie that more gleefully walks the line between ridiculous and upsetting. the story is very basic, practically a slasher writing prompt, but i didn't feel the 2.5 hour runtime at all (well except when the teens go to a boring halloween dance, my expectations for halloween party scenes are v high) and i loved whenever there was a dream sequence or a teen fantasy element bc i felt the film's narrow and cruel world expanding; also grateful the film spent zero time explaining the elm street-esque dreams and fantasy stuff, which would've made a good dumb movie bad dumb

https://letterboxd.com/unbornwhiskey/list/halloween-2022-dead-by-dawn/

i also finished my october horror marathon, which since it was all pre-2006 is maybe more appropriate for the other thread, but wow it sure was a brainmelter. mostly incompetent z-grade grindhouse/direct-to-video/might as well be shot-on-video even if it isn't-type fare. i had an amazing time. if you were to ask me "which of these movies were legit good" i would dwell on the british horror classics the shout and xtro, those movies will fuck you up for days, plus fulci's the psychic which had the increasingly rare effect of pulling me in with its story, it's such a good yarn. but also the new argento, dark glasses, was an utter delight, otherworldly, atmospheric, unsettling, yet ultimately...wholesome(?) at its core. watching the characters take such good care of each other made me believe in humanity lol

xpost I know it is sort of intentionally over the top, but I heard about a scene where someone is tortured and mutilated and nearly killed, then the magic clown leaves and comes back with salt and bleach just to torture her some more. and I thought, I get it, that's so ridiculous, but at the same time I thought really? *and* it's two and a half hours long? nah.

i thought it was interesting that both barbarian and x both center around monsters that are grotesque naked women who are driven by stereotypically feminine concerns (feeling less attractive as they get older/motherhood) without anyone being offended by it (as far as i've seen). it bothered me more in x because of the whole "ew a gross old person wants sex" angle and bc the movie as a whole was not as good, at least in barbarian the monster is ultimately sympathetic, but it felt icky to me (not in a fun horror movie way) in both movies. i do agree barbarian suffered in the final chunk when they actually had to show and deal with the monster but that's true of like 85% of horror movies so i'm not going to ding it too hard for that.

pearl is totally sympathetic

i think the movie plays it both ways

cynically

i agree the movie plays on the characters' and audience's revulsion toward aging bodies but i don't think it shares said revulsion. fair to read it the other way i guess

but as a character she's totally as tragic a figure as the crone in barbarian. of course i'm a little informed by the prequel but i thought of x this way before i saw pearl

i'm not super upset about any of this, i've seen enough horror movies to know how stuff like this works, i'm just surprised i didn't see any discourse around it

i've seen it mentioned in a few letterboxd reviews, especially of barbarian, which tend to note it as an inadvertent 2022 horror trend lol

I think the stunt casting in "X" at least partially explained why a lot of people elided right over the "yuck, old people" angle. I haven't seen "Pearl," but there was this weird ambiguity to "X" that felt more ambitious than what the movie delivered, though not necessarily to its detriment.

Watching "Barbarian," I thought they totally leaned into the "ew" angle, but I thought it was mostly lazy, like much of the by the numbers end stuff.

man can't believe a horror movie featured a character with grotesque facial features

also Brad super otm re: Terrifier 2.

using a balding old naked woman to horrify people is one of the oldest dullest tricks in the book imo. honestly because it's so common i didn't think twice about it in Barbarian. i wouldn't have expected her to look any different tbh.

am I the only one here who thought Hatching was great? I am not a hardcore horror fan so it was just the right level of scary for me, also I love the sound of Finnish when spoken

I love Cabin In The Woods in all its meta glory

Boy, "X" was OK but "Pearl" was utterly inspired. Martin Scorsese otm.

prey for the devil: incredibly average possession/exorcism movie with more than a few anti-choice vibes? solid lead performance tho

lead was jacqueline byers who has barely been in anything but i look forward to seeing her in a good horror movie maybe someday

i saw two horror-adjacent-but-not-really-horror-movies recently and i don’t know where to post about them!:

1. the menu: maybe a little basic in some of its storyline choices but deliriously entertaining anyway

2. bones and all: this movie worked its way inside of me and did something to me and i’m different now

Agree with the "Barbarian" reviews itt. The Justin Long "boop!" made me laugh.

The Menu felt like a foodie Theatre of Blood

This is a good thing

I thought "The Menu" was great, like "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" by way of Peter Greenaway, with a dash of "Ratatouille."

skinamarink: remember when you were a kid and you'd turn out the light to go to bed and the shadows in your room would collect into the shape of a face on the ceiling and if you were tired enough you could hear sounds like gnarled speech coming from its bottomless mouth

^^^ I just came here to post about this, my son the horror buff sent me the trailer last night. Intrigued.

Getting some serious "Near Dark" vibes from "Bones and All."

This was fine and there was more I liked about it than didn't, but at the same time it felt frustratingly half-baked, like a low-budget pandemic rush job, with limited time with the actors and locations (maybe it was?). Also count me among those that did not really like Mark Rylance's Clare Quilty as written (and directed) by Stephen King.

horror and horror-adjacent 2022:

crimes of the future
dark glasses
bones and all
mad god
pearl
nope
the munsters
orphan: first kill
you won’t be alone
skinamarink
smile
x
terrifier 2
halloween ends
bodies bodies bodies

bitter disappointment:
scream ‘22

best first 30 minutes of a horror movie:
barbarian

not good at all:
the invitation
prey for the devil

still need to see:
resurrection
watcher

best horror movie from the past i saw for the first time this year:
the shout (1978)

horror/horror-adjacent director i grew increasingly obsessed with over the year:
shinya tsukamoto (tetsuo the iron man, kotoko)

Tsukamoto and The Shout is my all-time stuff, have you seen Tokyo Fist, Haze, Vital and Gemini yet?

Rebecca Hall has been in at least 3 horror films and I haven't seen any of them yet.

Best Horrors from 2022/2021 that I saw this year

Top Tier:
Skinamarink
Flux Gourmet
Hatching
You Won't Be Alone
The Northman
Lamb
The Feast
Memoria
We’re All Going to the World’s Fair
Hellraiser
Censor
Strawberry Mansion

Middle Tier:
Hellraiser
Deadware
Incantion
Black Phone
She Will
Barbarian
Gaia
Broadcast Signal Intrusion
Things Heard & Seen
In the Earth
Resurrection
Prey
VHS 94
Nope
Shepherd

Disappointing:
X
Deadstream
The 8th Night
Medium
Watcher
Midnight Mass

Lol I see I've put Hellraiser in 2 tiers, and that def reflects my indecisiveness over how good it is...

Did you see Pearl? I thought it was a lot better/more interesting than X.

Tsukamoto and The Shout is my all-time stuff, have you seen Tokyo Fist, Haze, Vital and Gemini yet?

still working my way through the filmography so no not yet! literally just saw tetsuo ii body hammer a few weeks ago (it’s insanely great and i should’ve bought the manga entertainment release back when it was constantly advertised to me on anime dvds when i was 12… wonder how i would’ve reacted to it, suspect i would’ve instantly been on its wavelength bc people transcending their bodies to become big guns is awesome)

Your putting Hellraiser in both the top and middle tiers also reflects my feelings about it.

Things I saw this year (not all from this year) that I liked a lot:

Barbarian
Hellraiser
Censor
In the Earth
Prey
Barbarian

i have tetsuo ii on vhs... (and didn't like it as much as the first)

it isn’t quite as singular or homosexual as the first but it still… rules

nice to see another Hatching fan!

Watched Hellraiser at the weekend and still working out my final opinion, at the moment I feel it was very well done compared to all other horror remakes (Suspiria the exception), but compared to early Hellraiser it felt surprisingly smooth and didn't have the grime and suburban ennui that I associate with the first film and the franchise ethos.

Cant say there was anything wrong or lacking, just expected more ambition in the delivery.

to clarify, well done compared to every remake in the last 20 years but I feel the Suspiria remake is a great example of well done and ambitious remake.

I don't think anyone has posted this yet?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCt7Iq6wSUw

Evil Dead Rise, a sequel, I guess? Directed by Lee Cronin:

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

well i have tickets for skinamarink, hope it's not boring

Feeling super suspicious it's gonna be "cursed images the movie" and as online as I am i don't think i'm that online

that evil dead preview looks pretty good but i'm a sucker for injury to the eye motif

sorry to say that it is kinda “boring”

Going to see Enys Men a week on Monday, will try to remember to report back.

Have to admit that looks right up my alley, but I do love impressionistic horror much more than others around here, it seems

from the camcordery thread:

Saw Skinamarink in theaters last night and, while I come equipped with considerable moviegoing patience and appreciate the commitment to the bit, this mostly missed me. As a Gen Xer, i think the vintage on this madeleine is a bit late for my taste. We like our mindfucks more explicit.

That said there are certainly a few interesting moments, particularly the ending shot. The (rare) jumpscares felt pretty cheap and elicited giggles from my audience. In general, the star is the film grain so I can't imagine getting too much out of this on an ipad screen... if you're gonna see it, try it on a big screen but keep your expectations extremely small. Props to Ball for getting mainstream distribution for what is explicitly an experimental film tho! Sneaking this into the discourse is no small feat.

M3gan was fun, but it did feel an awful lot like Child's Play reboot. like the style is a bit darker (though it has plenty of jokes), but I seriously get annoyed when two movies this similar come out within a few years of each other.

i thought M3GAN was pretty CH3AP. there was nothing redeeming about it; the technology scenes were very b-movie, there was almost no atmosphere, no cool shots, no interesting sound design, no memorable lines, no 'whoa' moments... it's good for a silly laugh, but even the laughs are like 'heh'. such an empty, empty film... but maybe i'm just getting old...

Saw "The Menu" again, and it's even better the second time. And even funnier, too, so much so that I'd barely count it as horror. (Made me want to reassess "Midsommar" and its own debatably innate comedic angle.) Lots of little one-off mumbled lines and other details I caught in the background the second time.