No Point Stance

This is the original short that they reworked for the feature.

I pretty much abandoned WWE2K23 after exhausting the very enjoyable GM Mode. I hadn't played a WWE game since 2K19 and the lack of that game's chain wrestling mechanic in '23 has been a deal breaker for me. I honestly couldn't give a shit about the current television product (WWE or AEW) and the way they've 'informed' wrestling games with spot monkey arcade controls and shitty storyline modes is increasingly alienating me.

Whether it was AJW working the production, or the production working their audience, that had to be horseshit...right? Native talent aside, I can't imagine the Malenkos letting Debbie continue working there if she wasn't getting paid.

Random subtitle @ 41:47 - 'By jumping from this height Aja Kong disemboweled herself'.

Don't know if this has been posted before, but it certainly slipped under my radar until now and it's pretty great. I'm about half way through and, based on what I've watched, it might even be better than GAEA GIRLS.

Sounds awesome! I was at a Simonetti's Goblin gig a few years ago (livescoring an extended cut of DAWN OF THE DEAD) but I missed them a year or two later when they came back to do SUSPIRIA. The only downer for me is that Simonetti had assured me (on the first gig's Facebook page IIRC) that they'd play the title track to DEMONS and they didn't, so your experience - especially lifting Flash of the Blade for inclusion - beats mine.

Under the Shadow's been on my radar for a while and I'll definitely get around to it at some point. A couple of horror films from 'unexpected' nations that I've enjoyed the last couple of years were Baskin (Turkey, 2016) and Saloum (Senegal, 2022) FWIW.

I'm guilty of the misconception that pretty much all of Indian cinema is made up of musicals - a genre I generally loathe - so Tumbbad had to get a lot of traction before I took notice. Even then, it's taken me two or three years of good intentions before I finally watched it. Like you said, very simple thematically but a story so richly told, with a nice eye for detail, and beautifully shot. A solid 9/10 film for me

Finally got around to seeing Tumbbad (2018), and it just might be my favourite horror/horror-adjacent film of the past decade. That's considering I've really enjoyed everything Jordan Peele and Ari Aster have done in that period. Reminded me of Pan's Labyrinth, in that its horror is essentially baked into a fairy tale. It's included with Prime - in the UK at least - and well, well worth checking out if you haven't done so already.

I've been working my way through Hammer's Frankenstein flicks in chronological order (girlfriend and I did Hammer's Dracula and extraneous vampire efforts last October). Hot take: the widely despised Horror of Frankenstein is a really good flick. Hotter take: Ralph Bates is every bit as good as Peter Cushing in the role, based on this one outing. It's been called a reworking of Curse of Frankenstein, and I can totally see that, but I think it's been short-changed for over 50 years now. As of this viewing I'd put it just slightly ahead of Curse... but behind ...Must Be Destroyed.

I need to watch Kairo again. Saw it years ago after getting really excited about it from reviews, then ended up absolutely hating it. I've really enjoyed the other (Kiyoshi) Kurosawa projects I've seen though, so it's entirely possible that I just wasn't in the right frame of mind when I saw it.

I'm watching my pick today - apologies for my tardiness.

Alrighty, I'll PM you my pick now.

Why do I never think of looking for these threads until after October has already started?

Luchawiki is down. I hope this is temporary, as it's a lovely resource. EDIT: my bad - I used an old bookmark but it seems sometime in the past few months luchawiki.com became luchawiki.org, and is still very much alive

It's the wacky disco theme from the opening titles to Friday the 13th Part III (in 3D)

Jesus, I hated that one, and the model it seemingly popularised for Netflix horror fare; take a premise that is barely sufficient to sustain interest for a 90-minute feature and stretch it absurdly thin in order to fill up 10 hours of content. I haven't seen his King adaptations though. The word-of-mouth and general critical of reception to Doctor Sleep was almost uniformly lukewarm, IIRC.

I'm that one asshole with the missing review but I'm watching the movie today and should have the review sent in by tomorrow at the latest.

IIRC it was some sort of weird crossover with the producer (notorious chancer Dick Randall) getting double duty out of Bruce Le, the star of Randall's previous opus, Challenge of the Tiger. I'd hazard a guess that the two films were shooting more-or-less simultaneously, or maybe Le was in town for a production meeting (he has both co-director and co-writer credits on COTT). Both films were shot at least partially in Spain, and Challenge is every bit as amusingly shitty a Brucesploitation picture as Pieces is a great, shitty slasher.

Duplicate post. Sorry

Sounds good, if the offer still stands. Do we still PM you the pick and reason?

Missed this year's deadline but I'll be checking in regularly to read the reviews as part of my annual routine.

Just ordered a copy - thanks for the heads-up.

I'm so confused. Is that Kawada? Is he...smiling?

CTU were a fun stable. Literally nothing of them on YouTube the last I checked though.