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

is that the one Stephen king talks about in Danse Macabre like the holy grail of what they wanted to see as kids, calls it "macbare"?

(ha, first ddg hit for "Stephen king macbare" is me in another ilx thread)

Holy shit, Der Fan (1982). Just saw a screening. A lot of unpack on that one, but man pretty affecting, even just as a incredibly slow burn (coming-of-age) thriller to the climax, let alone all the pop music idolatry metaphor for Nazism. Don't want to spoil it for those who haven't seen it, even by indirectly comparing to a certain iconic modern horror it's probably influenced, but yeah... catch it if you get a chance.

All Region bluray of Laurin coming
https://secondrundvd.com/comingsoon.html

Nice that two of my favourite Italian films are getting blurays: Horrible Dr Hichcock and Night Of The Devils. Not sure I need to buy these films again but the former might benefit an upgrade. Undecided.

Laurin is pretty good. Grim little Christmas film I didn't understand was a bonus feature.

If you haven't heard of it, here's a trailer of the recent remaster
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3qRUc0PHGo

Just watched The Exorcist, which I'd never seen before (it's on Max). It's technically accomplished, but only moderately frightening. More interesting for its depressing early 70s vibe. NYC in 1972: scarier than demonic possession!

Watched Event Horizon for the first time - first two-thirds I was confused how it got bad reviews on release, it looked great and was creepy as hell.

The back third horror action could have been all right but it's the rare time I wish a movie had been longer - more build up to Sam Neill going insane or something. As it was it dropped from a couple of rungs below Alien to a couple of rungs below Hellraiser.

I still haven't seen it I full but it terrorized me from the bits I saw in high school

As Sam Neill horror movies go, it's Possession > Event Horizon > In the Mouth of Madness > The Omen III.

Night of the Demon is likely my favorite horror film ever. Jacques Tourneur is one of the great Hollywood directors and Demon is certainly one of his masterpieces in my book.

A great concept - most horror films deal with fear of the unknown, and this one develops that idea to its furthest extent. You have characters with a comfortable understanding of the world that is based on some rock solid logic - it would be very hard to take that away and convince them that the foundation for everything they believe is fallacious. To do so would be traumatizing. And what happens when they do accept that they can no longer rationalize the world around them? Suddenly anything can happen, and that leaves them very vulnerable. It's terrifying - reality becomes very alien and very hostile. Yes, Dana Andrews generally keeps his cool, but that isn't the case with Professor Harrington or with the audience.

And regardless of whether Tourneur wanted to film those demon shots, he was right to be unhappy because they break from the ambiguity inherent in the challenges to the characters' perceptions. Aside from the emerging smoke, they should have been cut out. If the rest of the film hadn't been so strong, they would have spun the entire movie on a far less powerful trajectory.

I watched DEATH SPA (1988) over the weekend. Totally recommend it if you love ludicrous 80s horror. There's some hilarious and campy 80s design/acting/fashion throughout but it actually goes hard with the gore too. I was thinking of the Patton Oswalt bit about the movie Death Bed (The Bed That Eats People)....this is the GYM THAT KILLS PEOPLE. Great ending too as well.

Death Spa is great but it absolutely must be paired with a side of Killer Workout (aka Aerobicide).

I'll have to return to Event Horizon one of these days. I saw it at the time and basically hated it

BFI: "Only 5 of the mere 17 great British horror movies ever made were from before Y2K"

https://letterboxd.com/bfi/list/great-british-horror-films/

Pretty embarrassing. You'd think that list was made by an American (who'd only just started getting into horror movies like three years ago).

it's a list of their facilities coordinator's favorite British horror films, so?

Greatest American Horror Films of All Time:

Night of the Living Dead
The Shining
Halloween
uhh...Nightmares on Elm Street? I think is what it's called?
It Part 1
It Part 2
Megan
Totally Killer
Saw X
The Exorcist: Believer

Host wasn't THAT good, geez

Yeah, this just seems like a little list of favourites from a BFI staff member, rather than anything more institutional.

A more comprehensive list went up on the BFI website this time last year:

https://www.bfi.org.uk/lists/great-horror-film-from-every-year-from-1922-now

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It’s everywhere.

THEY FOLLOW.
The long-awaited sequel to the modern horror classic IT FOLLOWS from David Robert Mitchell.
Coming soon. pic.twitter.com/V1IiS7PpzU

— NEON (@neonrated) October 30, 2023

Really enjoyed It Follows

Just watched CUJO for the first time. It's streaming on Max. Wow, that movie hits hard. It's basically a late 70s/early 80s kitchen sink drama for the first 45 minutes — there's an unhappily married couple (she's cheating on him) with an only slightly annoying kid. Then the mom's car breaks down and she drives it to the mechanic's house/shop only to discover that a) he's out of town, as is her husband and b) the mechanic's St. Bernard is rabid. From there it's 45 minutes of siege movie, tense as hell but with zero cheating. It really earns every bit of tension, and the ending is barely happy. Highly recommended — it's instantly moved to the top of my list of Stephen King movies, right up there with The Dead Zone and Salem's Lot and The Shining.

If the movie had only stayed faithful to the book’s original ending, it would be the last great movie of the Uber-downer ‘70s

Yeah, but even the ending you do get is dark as fuck. The main couple's marriage was disintegrating before all this, and now they've got a probably permanently traumatized kid, Mom's gotta get rabies shots, pan out just a little bit and life is basically over for them.

Naw, everything worked out ok.

https://www.joblo.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/deecujo1-1.jpg

I really love the behind-the-scenes detail about the filming of Cujo and the lengths that the director had to go to make the incredibly friendly dog actors appear even a little bit ferocious.

that is an incredible photo

Black Roses.

heeelarious. my favorite bit is how the band actually learns an extremely lame pop/rock ballad to fool all the parents in town before launching into their real setlist. like what if the olds had stuck around for a bit, did they have more sub-Foreigner songs at their disposal?

lol yes i loved that so much

grow, my flowers of evil!