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

So now I just watched Angst out of curiosity and jeeeeesus christ

The Menu was good fun

angst is excellent. nice klaus schulze score too. would make a nice double feature with henry: portrait of a serial killer or done thing like that if that’s your thing… sicko.

anyone else watch sick yet? had high hopes with john hyams directing and there is some excellent action-as-horror knife fighting and cool choreography but… the scream guys script stinks and i just couldn’t get past that.

*or something like that

So, I did go to see Enys Men last night and I looooooved it. Unreserved recommendation from me. Almost no dialogue, lots of slow shots of Cornish nature, isolation, ritual, recursion, lichen lichen everywhere. It's a deeply atmospheric film and very beautiful. One of the people I saw it with didn't enjoy it, and their main complaint was that it was too full of folk-horror tropes, and I do see that perspective, but honestly imo there aren't anywhere near enough good folk horror films so more is great (and the end result is nothing like The Wicker Man or Blood on Satan's Claw even if it works in some of the same imagery).

oooh that sounds VERY appealing

I think you'd like it!

Speaking of, has anyone seen "The Feast," a (the only?) Welsh-language folk horror film from 2021? Has that been mentioned here yet?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlttcY8mprs

going to see Enys Men on Friday, felt it was one of those film you need to be immersed in with no distractions.

there aren't anywhere near enough good folk horror films

you need to check out the ALL THE HAUNTS BE OURS box set by Severin, some great folk horror films, really opened my eyes to the scope of stuff out there..

kier-la’s doc (which is included in the set) is a fantastic primer too. and it’s streaming on shudder.

Oh, that does look like a good collection, I've seen Viy, A Field in England, Penda's Fen (the best of the best) and Robin Redbreast, and Alison's Birthday is ringing a huge bell in my mind, but most of the others I haven't even heard of.

xp

we have that set and i can confirm it is FULL of new-to-us folk horror. a worthwhile investment, esp for winter! Alison's Birthday was really good iirc

Have you seen In The Earth and/or Matriarch? Both semi-folk, the latter more so than the former, maybe more "nature's gonna getcha"-horror, but I liked both a lot.

Oh, In the Earth is another Wheatley - I'd forgotten about it but it did sound interesting. Not heard of Matriarch so I'll look that one up.

And ... Gaia?

I'm not sure what to make of Enys Men. Think I'm partly with emil.y's friend in that it hit lots of familiar folk horror beats but with little substance. I'm kind of tired with every "horror" film these days being about processing grief or trauma. Plus the "who the hell is that person?" "oh it's all in their head" trope. It was ok, I didnt hate it but Jeanne Dielman-goes-folk-horror should be right up my street and this wasn't really

For me real horror always lies in existence, being-in-the-world, the human condition. Ghosts and ghouls are fun, but they're not actually horrific. Existing is the most frightening, painful, awful thing anybody can experience. Horror can be a very escapist genre, full of impossible things and frightening only on the surface, a cathartic blast and then you're done. I love that kind of horror, but I also love horror that reflects the deep fears, a quiet existential horror.

absolutely agree with all of that

yes please

Lots to love in the Severin box, I think my favourite discovery was the Icelandic thing that looked like it was made by Channel 4 in the 80s.

I quite liked The Feast but it wrote quite big cheques that it didn't cash and I called the exact plot mechanism following one very specific scene and what appears to be a throwaway line.

Last of Us and Skinamarink have opened to wild success this year bc their style of horror doesn't rely on jump scares or gore but simply on showing audiences what it would be like to live in Alberta

— Ibaka Shinji (@Cam_Oflage) January 18, 2023

In The Earth was okay I guess considering it was a lockdown project but it felt a bit flimsy on the whole

It's the only Wheatley movie I've ever made it all the way through.

Lots to love in the Severin box, I think my favourite discovery was the Icelandic thing that looked like it was made by Channel 4 in the 80s.

100%, the find of the box set in my opinion but the breadth of other stuff was great.

the Australian stuff was a great find... really loved the stuff around postcolonial guilt as a horror theme.

I think *Kill List* and *A Field in England* are the Wheatleys that will endure - that's even with the daft final act in the former.

I thought In The Earth has some pretty good performances and was a bit underrated but I wouldn't urge anyone

I don't know if Sarnet's November counts as folk horror but it's definitely in my top5 from the past decade.

I was hyped for Enys men (loved bait) and it did not disappoint

I think once I might have had reservations about putting so much artistic energy into a kind of pastiche, to that earlier me I say: stfu nerd. Gorgeously composed, eerie vibe, great storytelling (NO CHANGE) - it recalls those earlier films but doesn’t really resemble them, the editing style & sound design are closer to bait. I kept thinking of underground short films & my friend said it reminded him of Czech animation which I can see

Another riposte to both past-wins and emil.y’s friend is that in folk horror (folk anything) you might expect to see familiar tropes - that’s implied in the folk part no?

lol also I have not seen angst and my v enthusiastic co-signing of brad’s post was because I thought they were talking about ANGUISH the bigas luna slasher that apparently only I am obsessed with

i desperately need to see anguish

dammit i keep watching new movies impulsively due to this thread.

so uh, Angst is great because it, like some other films, dispenses with the idea of a 'brilliant' serial killer, with meticulous planning, long thought out rituals/messages, and puts you in the POV of someone who is merely fucked up by years of unchecked sexual and physical abuse from just about every family member growing up, treated only as a carceral concern and receiving zero help. how he'd act if they were released from prison with a ten year murderous itch that hadn't been scratched and spent an entire day acting out his fantasy on pure instinct. nothing he plans in his mind works out right, he kills the old woman too fast, the young girl doesn't get to see her dead mother, he doesn't get to continue his spree, he gets in a wreck, etc....and he changes his plans frequently, like he can't commit to one idea. he's just spiraling and treats slaughtering an entire family like scratching an itch in his brain

Everybody does! Preferably without knowing anything about it going in

xp

not available 'in my region' on Amazon prime. lol I thought I found it but of course due to the common name it was some unrelated 2015 film.

Whoa, wasn't expecting an Enys Men trailer at AMC today (followed by one for The Quiet Girl... while seeing Saint Omer... AMC is good now?)

Though I still haven't found a way to see Bait, years after its one local screening

just watched this, it's on iplayer until tomorrow for those of you in the uk (and with a tv licence)...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001dh75/host

"Host", a Zoom seance

I'm not 100% sure what "Bodies Bodies Bodies" was going for, so I can't really say how well it nailed it, but it was better than I expected. The cast was great, though they do seemingly spend half the movie running around in the dark screaming.

lol my girl was dozing on the couch and woke up to the scene early in Bones and All when Mark Rylance is eating a woman's belly and she had a full on fit

lol my wife would do the same thing, I’m cracking up imagining this happening with us.

I wanna see Skinamarink and I’m thinking about taking my 13 kid. The scariest movies she’s seen are The Thing and Drag Me To Hell. We recently watched Meshes of the Afternoon which she enjoyed, especially the experimental aspect. Is it more unsettling than violent?

it's more boring than anything! There's nothing violent about it fwiw.

no clue how a 13 year old would process that, being much closer to their own childhood. might really creep 'em out, might do nothing. in fact that's pretty much my review of the movie. it's not the only horror movie to have a creepy psychological aspect and it's not the only one to center around kids, but it is the only one where psychological horror is inflicted on the kids. it got to me but that's probably because my own kids are about that age

it's not violent but there are a few really loud jumpscares. kinda hated that fwiw, made the whole movie (most of which is really quiet and subtle) incredibly tense.

just watched it last night, not been that unnerved by a horror movie since... ever?

ok, not taking the 13 year old. I'll watch it first. Kinda excited about this one.

it definitely freaked me out after thinking about it some, since there ARE some clues as to what's going on - in the beginning it's mentioned that Kevin fell down the stairs and got hurt, so most likely he's in a coma, reliving the few memories he actually has while his brain is slowly decaying. the "day 572" caption at the end implies he's been in it for a while and from the looks of it things are not going the right way. so what it makes me think of is The Caretaker's Everywhere at the End of Time, except it's happening to a 4 year old boy, which makes my stomach turn. also like that album it feels endless!!!

my take on that was that the kid got a concussion and then he fumbles into a subworld that evokes dreamtime.

I'm wondering how much of skinamarink is dependent on being young enough to be freaked out by creepypasta. excepting the (very awkward and gratuitous) jumpscares, i found nothing unsettling about it at all? it's like getting freaked out by a jonas mekas short.

it reminded me more of very bad dreams i had as a child than it did creepypasta. i’m glad you couldn’t immerse yourself in it at all, that makes you very cool

I'm in my 40s so possibly not qualified for your creepypasta demographic

i’m glad you couldn’t immerse yourself in it at all, that makes you very cool
how you managed to read "i'm above all this silliness and very pleased with myself" when i went out and saw this on opening night is beyond me, but go off

I'm in my 40s so possibly not qualified for your creepypasta demographic
maybe it's not an age thing then? the entire crowd when i saw this and the general online demo appears twentysomething.

it taps into some ageless existential fears. if it connects with you I think that transcends demographics, if it doesn't then yeah, I could see it being boring af

i was a kid prone to regular hallucinations and panic attacks but not really from this perspective
trailer DID unnerve me tbh, that's why i was curious in the first place. i like the 30 second version.