Horror Franchise Thread

[Newb82]

Since there's been quite a bit of FRIDAY THE 13TH & HALLOWEEN talk in other threads plus I am a total franchise whore, I figured I'd give these types of films their own thread.

CONTROVERSIAL STATEMENT: IMO, the SAW franchise is the best top-to-bottom of all the major franchises. The only low-light is V, and is doesn't hit the lows that sequels in other franchises did. I like that they took steps to make it all a single, follow-able (although non-linear) narrative, and were smart enough to realize that a feeble cancer patient couldn't do it all on his own. What I didn't like was the lack of any semblance of a happy ending in any of the movies, not enough people calling "bullshit" on Jigsaw (Amanda goes on a rant before she dies, Hoffman is more direct during a flashback in VI to the setting up of "The Rack" from III) and I would have liked more exploration of his network being a lot bigger than originally shown, which was teased a bit, especially before the release of THE FINAL CHAPTER.

I've been going through the HELLRAISER series via netflix, and most of them haven't been particularly memorable. Same with the RESIDENT EVIL series. I'm usually good at remembering plotlines and what takes place in what movie, but I couldn't tell you which RE movie was which since they're so interchangable.

I've heard good things about the PHANTASM series, but was bored by the original.

I haven't checked out any of the CANDYMANs yet.

I think there's a lot to be mined here, like best & worst series, scenes, & sequels.

[LooseCannon]

I'm not really a horror fan, but I've always thought that Scream 3 should have had Sydney turn out to be Ghostface for that installment.

[Newb82]

That was the rumor going around at the time. I like the idea they went with, if not the execution.

[jaedmc]

CONTROVERSIAL STATEMENT: IMO, the SAW franchise is the best top-to-bottom of all the major franchises. The only low-light is V, and is doesn't hit the lows that sequels in other franchises did. I like that they took steps to make it all a single, follow-able (although non-linear) narrative, and were smart enough to realize that a feeble cancer patient couldn't do it all on his own. What I didn't like was the lack of any semblance of a happy ending in any of the movies, not enough people calling "bullshit" on Jigsaw (Amanda goes on a rant before she dies, Hoffman is more direct during a flashback in VI to the setting up of "The Rack" from III) and I would have liked more exploration of his network being a lot bigger than originally shown, which was teased a bit, especially before the release of THE FINAL CHAPTER. 

For me I don't feel that iconography with SAW that I do Jason, Freddy, and Michael. You may very well be right that SAW has a better consistency from first to last. But to me, outside of the first one none of them are particularly memorable to me and bleed together. Each Nightmare on Elm St. (maybe my favorite franchise) is distinctly memorable. Even when they're bad they're lots of fun. I don't feel the same is true with Saw. When it's bad, it's just squishy noises and gore explosions. I can't say I remember any of the kills and I never actually felt scared in any of the Saw movies. It may not have the lowest lows, but it doesn't even come close to the highest highs. I'm not comfortable saying it's the best franchise, but I can actually see your perspective of it, and not think you're crazy for saying it.

[Newb82]

For me, the best parts of watching a SAW movie are 1.) trying to put the pieces together not just for that invidiual movie, but where everything fits in the overall story (this is especially true for the later ones) and 2.) trying to put myself in the characters' place and think about how/what I'd do (anwer: most of the time, I'd be completely fucked).

I like the NOES series myself for the most part, but after DREAM WARRIORS they stopped even pretending to try to be scary until Craven came back for the horrifically underrated NEW NIGHTMARE.

[Newb82]

Also, thinking about you iconagraphy point, it is very valid, and I think there's two main reasons for it.

1.) Freddy, Jason, Michael, and the like are visually more memorable than John Kramer. Freddy is a crispy-fried motherfucker with a claw glove. Jason & Michael are generally physically imposing dudes that are indestructable and have a signature mask. John Kramer is a shriveled-up cancer patient who is rarely physically present during the kills. I would think, for people who aren't fans of the movies, that the garbled voice on the tapes and possibly the "Billy" doll are more easily identifiable than Jigsaw himself.

2.) For our generation, watching some of these was part of our transition from childhood to being a teenager. If you're like me, you had older relatives that loved putting one of these on and seeing how bad little you would get fucked up. As our generation gets older and introduces their children to the genre, I can see parents getting talked into letting their pre-teen try out one of the slasher flicks we grew up on. No sane parent is letting their kid watch SAW until probably at least their mid-teens.

EDIT: 3.) There's also marketing. Those 80s slasher series, as much as the studios tried to deny it, definitely were marketed towards children (there were Freddy pajamas for fuck's sake). If Lion's Gate tried putting out a Jigsaw lunch box, they'd get ripped to shreds by parents groups and unsympathetic media outlets. Point being, I knew who Freddy, Jason, Michael, & Chucky were long before actually watching one of their movies.

[jaedmc]

New Nightmare brought back that vibe that Freddy was a child molester, with he way he was after he boy. It wasn't explicitly talked about, but Englund kind of went back into that place. Once Dream Warrior was done, they went less dark and made full tilt on the wise cracking villain you love to hate. However 4 and 5 also have some of the coolest special FX of the whole series that are worth checking out again, if you get a chance. There's also some memorable kills and a couple of good characters. they're not total garbage, they just don't have the same edge as the first and second did.

 

And man, that second one. I'm gonna have to write my essay on what that film is about, because it's got some deep rooted issues.

[Newb82]

Have you ever seen the NOES doc NEVER SLEEP AGAIN? I know I've pimped it recently (and even started another thread because of it), but I seriously cannot recommend it highly enough to you if you haven't.

[jaedmc]

I don't think I have. I really should. I love those movies like crazy.

[Newb82]

If you buy it or get it off NetFlix, make sure you have almost a whole day to watch it.

The main doc is 4 hours, and the bonus disc has a ton of stuff, including interview pieces that got cut out of the main portion. The drama on the set of DREAM MASTER is the best part of the cut stuff.

[Jingus]

The Resident Evil series is weird because it's mostly crap (shitty action flicks with a shitty Mary Sue hero, plagued by shitty acting and shitty CGI, and they're all a REALLY shitty "adaptation" that mutilates the RE games' storyline beyond recognition) but it has one outlier which is SO much better than the others: part 4, Afterlife. That one was WAY better than it had any right to be, with some moments (like the slo-mo fight with the giant axe guy) coming close to being moments of expressionistic beauty. There were a lot of bits that surprised me by being genuinely intense and smart, like trying to land the plane on the roof, or the kick-in-the-nuts plot reveal about the truth behind the "sanctuary" they were looking for in the previous movie, or the creepy dialogue on the ship which reminded me of Gandalf reading from the doomed dwarves' diary in Moria. Taking Alice's powers away was a good idea (shame that she's still such an improbably invincible action hero afterwards). And that one moment where they shoot the axe guy in the head and it doesn't even notice is a great "...oh SHIT, now what?!" moment. Plus:

Wesker finally gets his. I mean, they SLAUGHTER THE EVERLIVING FUCK out of Wesker and triple-kill him SUPER dead.

The next sequel Retribution tried to live up to it, with a gorgeous opening scene and some rather ambitious ideas about cloning, but it had a much more generic plot with some terribly nonsensical twists and wasted too much time with an entire B-team of heroes that the audience just doesn't care about.

As for Saw... well, sorry Newb, I pretty much always hated that series. The first one tried, but they got worse and worse with all the torture-gore porn and the consistently lousy casts and the constant "but you didn't know the full story!" retcons and the hideously immoral death-worshiping attitude that tried to paint Jigsaw as some kind of a god-damned righteous avatar of vengeance.

And, well... here, this will sum it up pretty nicely:

Saw VII: 1/10

Well, here we are, finally at the end. I’ve never liked this fucking series, and have never exactly hid my distaste and contempt for it. But even I was shocked by just how amazingly bad this final entry is. Saw VII (aka Saw 3D) is a lazy, stupid, soulless piece of trash which at times seems to be actively spitting at its own fanbase. It gives the series something which most horror franchises never get: a clear, unequivocal worst installment. I racked my brain trying to think of any other big horror series which had one film which was so much disgustingly worse than all of its brethren; the only one I could come up with was Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation. And we are indeed playing on that level of quality here, folks.

How bad is it? So bad that I’m gonna dust off my old Dissection Of Doom~! style for one more go-round.

-The plot is basically identical to the previous several films: the cops hunt for Jigsaw’s dark apprentice Detective Hoffman (Costas Mandylor), while Jigsaw’s widow Jill Tuck (Betsy Russell) puts more of her husband’s ever-growing posthumous game into practice. Meanwhile in a totally unconnected B plot which acts like it’s the A plot, an opportunistic self-help speaker (Sean Patrick Flannery) is punished for the crime of lying about being a Jigsaw trap survivor and is subjected to a lethal obstacle course wherein he must save his friends and family from grisly fates. If you change the motivation behind that last character’s trap, you would essentially have parts V and VI all over again, they’re the exact same goddamn movie!

-One aspect which is particularly recycled is the nature of the trap dungeon. Just like in part 6, the main guy's buddies have all been placed in traps and the only way to save them is if the main guy either manages to complete a difficult task or submits himself to an excruciating torture. But this time around, he doesn't save any of them. Every single trap in this film goes off as planned and kills the victim. It turns into a marathon of repetitive kill scenes, and feels incredibly nihilistic and pointless.

-What the hell is Hoffman’s motivation for playing the game anymore? The only thing he seems to care about is taking revenge on Jill. He never shows the slightest aptitude for doing ye olde force-them-to-appreciate-life routine. Not one single word of dialogue is spent explaining why he targeted the self-help conman. Similarly, there’s never any reason shown for the trap which opens the movie, a particularly nasty affair involving a glass booth in the middle of a crowded park with a huge crowd of spectators. Hoffman appears to have left Jigsaw’s work behind him long ago; why is he doing any of this? His character has literally degenerated to the level of Jason Voorhees, killing for no other reason than because the script says so.

-Furthermore, how does he do all this shit? The traps in Saw VII are the most elaborate in the entire series. It would take an entire construction crew weeks to put all this shit together. Hoffman is just one guy, without any help, no apprentices he can call on. How does he manage to build all this? (I pray with every ounce of my being that there will never be a Saw VIII which answers these questions.) Hoffman doesn’t have Jigsaw’s background in mechanical engineering, so how does he have all the technical knowledge to construct this incredibly complicated Rube Goldberg shit? Where does he get the materials, and how does he pay for it? How does he manage to get his hands on a military-issue heavy machine gun? How does he manage to single-handedly kidnap and transport all the victims, and have them wake up at the exact right time? How does he pull off that stunt at the end, where he apparently uses psychic precognition powers and a knife to pull a Terminator on an entire police station? These plans are so ridiculously fucking complex that you’d need an army of Jokers to pull it off, but we’re expected to believe that this one guy can somehow do it all by himself.

-This movie commits one lazy sin which is more common in slasher sequels: vastly inflating the body count. Saw VII ends with a higher percentage of the characters dead than King Lear. The film repeatedly throws in a bunch of nobodies which have nothing to do with the main plot, just in order to show us more kills. Hell, one character is killed twice, once in a dream-sequence fakeout and then later for real. That sort of padding doesn’t speak well to how the filmmakers see the audience. They think their fans are such attention-deficit morons that they’ll walk out of the movie if there isn’t a hideously gory death every five minutes.

-And make no mistake about it, these are hideously gory deaths. Saw VII is far and away the bloodiest film in the franchise; and christ, think about that for a minute. I thought you couldn’t go further than the previous entries did, but they proved me wrong. It’s such a vomitorium that the movie frequently turns into an endurance test, and I’m not ashamed to say I looked away several times. This also raises my contempt for the MPAA even more for letting this torture porn (and I’ve never seen a film which fit that definition better than Saw VII) get away with an R rating. If this isn’t rated NC-17 for violence, then they should never ever demand that any film ever cut any violence ever again in order to receive an R. Children should not be allowed to watch this movie, period.

-But even the gorehounds might be pissed off, since there are several makeup effects which look decidedly fake. Some of the effects are just plain dodgy. Especially the pathetic scars on the lying motivational speaker, who looks like he nicked himself a couple of times while shaving his chest.

-Where the fuck is everyone getting all these pig masks from? I know you can probably make most of Jigsaw’s signature stuff with a simple trip to Home Depot, but where the hell do you get that specific kind of pig mask? And why do people keep wearing them? You wouldn’t want to be caught with one of those things, since it’s basically admitting “hi, I’m a Jigsaw killer!” to the whole world.

-If I could give one bit of grudging praise to the series, it might be that Saw tends to mostly avoid the misogyny which permeates a lot of violent horror films. Well congratulations part VII, you broke the streak. This movie has issues with women. A disturbingly high number of the nastiest deaths are committed upon female victims, high enough that it really sticks out in comparison to the other films. And the film casually treats women as garbage, helpless whining lying whores who are nothing but pawns in a game played between male opponents. The opening trap in the glass booth is probably the worst example, where the film acts like a woman deserves to be cut in half because she’s a two-timing tramp. But there’s plenty of other worrisome hatred for the vag, such as when you realize that one of the trap victims is a completely innocent and good person who doesn’t “deserve” her fate even by the offensive standards of this series’ twisted “moral code”.

-The acting blows. Saw has always been known for shitty acting, but we’ve never had such a bunch of useless miserable performers as here. I mean, seriously, they expect Costas Fucking Mandylor to carry the entire film, along with a bunch of anonymous spear-carriers who mean nothing to the plot. Cary Elwes and Tobin Bell’s incredibly brief cameos easily blow away all the other actors in the film, and those two aren’t exactly Marlon Brando in the first place. And speaking of which, why were those cameos so incredibly brief?

-Let’s go back one more time to that public glassed-in trap. That’s where the movie practically tells its audience that they’re horrible people. This trap features a giant crowd of hundreds of spectators, and the film gives us some incredibly feeble subtext about how it’s wrong to be a voyeur. There’s a bunch of jackasses filming the carnage with their cell phone cameras, and the obvious message is “people who enjoy watching this suffering are wrong”. How dare they. How fucking dare they. I agree, it is wrong, but it’s not as wrong as presenting all this suffering for our enjoyment in the first place. The movie is trying to pass the buck to its audience: “Why yes, this is a bunch of staggeringly immoral sadism, but we only do it because people want to see it!” That’s the same excuse used by paparazzi as they hound Brangelina for pictures of their latest adopted black baby.

-I rewatched the first Saw right before this one. I’d never properly seen the entire thing in one sitting, snd I had the Rifftrax, so why not. Seen back to back like that, it sharply hilights just how low the artistic standards have sunk. The cinematography is the best example: the film is slackly shot and flatly lit in the most don’t-give-a-fuck manner possible. They basically just plunked the camera down in the most obvious place, turned all the lights on bright, and sometimes had the operator shake it around for no real reason. Nobody gave a damn if this film looked good or not, and it looks like crap.

-In fact, the whole film feels like it was made by people who didn’t want to make this movie. As it so happens, that’s exactly what occurred. Director Kevin Greutert was literally forced to make this film. He was the editor for parts 1-5 and directed 6, but he wanted to go make Paranormal Activity 2 next. That one is Saw’s only competition as a now-traditional Halloween horror franchise, so the studio somehow exercised a clause in his contract to literally make him direct a film that he wanted nothing to do with. It’s reported that he didn’t read the script until the first day he arrived on the set. It explains a lot.

-I notice that the screenwriters for Saws 4-7, Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan, also wrote the Feast trilogy. Well, it’s nice to know that I shouldn’t waste my time on those. I’d kinda wanted to check out the first one, but not after discovering this piece of information.

-After all this bitching and moaning, you might wonder why I rated this as highly as a 1 instead of the old 0. Well, I must admit, I liked the ending. Hoffman’s eventual fate is a bit anticlimactic, but how it goes down is absolutely fitting. It’s predictable, but it’s predictable because it’s the one conclusion which obviously makes the most sense in terms of closing out the series. So thank god for small favors. Yet even this is marred by plot holes, of the “how did they find him” and “why didn’t they do anything before now, it’s already too late” variety. Man, this movie fucking blew.

[Niners Fan in CT]

Any Leprechaun fans in here? I haven't seen the original in so long but it was one of my favorite horror films as a kid. The last one I watched I believe was the one in outer space and it was fucking terrible. Most of the sequels I've seen sucked but I really need to see if the original holds up.

[Newb82]

It wasn't Hoffman doing the traps in VII. Like I wrote in the OP, I wish they had done more with Jigsaw being full of shit and him having more associates.

The part that explains how the opening trap in VII connects to everything else stupidly got cut (not the first time something that made one of the movies plot clearer got cut).

I don't think the message of the people watching the opening trap was "you're terrible for watching this" as A.) a couple people do try to help and B.) there wasn't any thought to it other than "we haven't done a trap in public before" and it was supposed to tie into the "His Disease is Spreading" theme from the advertising that didn't translate to the movie at all. People record the scene on their cell phones because sadly, in that situation, some people would.

V is clearly the worst of the series.

[Newb82]

I've only seen the first LEPRECHAUN and hated it.

Jingus, you also want to avoid THE COLLECTOR & THE COLLECTION, which were written by the guys who wrote the last 4 SAWs. COLLECTOR was originally meant to be a SAW prequel.

I've only seen COLLECTION, and it's terrible. It's everything you hate about the SAW movies with even less logic (ex: a night club becomes a couple of huge traps that no one notices until they're sprung, the villain's lair being an abandoned hotel that somehow still has power).

[Justin877]

When it comes to low budget franchises, I am a super fan of the Puppet Master franchise.  I am trying to decide if I want to delve into the world of Gary Busey with the The GingerDead Man series as well

[Burgundy LaRue]

The Collector bothered me because I kept asking How did he set all those traps? as I watched the movie.  it ruined the viewing experience for me.  Too bad, because some of the traps are pretty good.  But it was too unrealistic, even for a horror movie.

[Newb82]

Yeah, I haven't seen that one, but I'm not surprised it's the case, given the sequel.

[jaedmc]

When it comes to low budget franchises, I am a super fan of the Puppet Master franchise.  

Love Puppet Master. Well the first few anyway. I also thought they handled the job of turning the killers face(which kind of happens in all horror franchises where the antagonist becomes the fan favorite, which is kind of like how Steve Austin became a star) by having the Puppets go up against Nazis. Good call to whoever came up with that one.

 

Any Leprechaun fans in here? I haven't seen the original in so long but it was one of my favorite horror films as a kid. The last one I watched I believe was the one in outer space and it was fucking terrible. Most of the sequels I've seen sucked but I really need to see if the original holds up.

I think I watched most of the Leprechaun's. May have missed one or two. I stuck it out because WILLOW UFGOOD FOR LIFE. If you haven't seen Leprechaun: In the Hood you're really missing out on life. It's the equivalent of not seeing the Grand Canyon or a Pamela Anderson Playboy.

[Newb82]

Thanks to me getting curious and looking up the CHILD'S PLAY series on wikipedia, I found out there's a movie called CURSE OF CHUCKY from the creator of the series (who I didn't realize wrote all of them) coming direct-to-video on 10/6.

Since it's a direct sequel to 3, I might just check it out.

Anyone elese ever read any novels or comics based on any of these series?

I've managed to track down the novelization for HALLOWEEN which is alright (if you can get behind the more mythic take on the Michael character) and one of the FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 3 novelizations, which is also readable.

I remember reading a couple teen NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET novels way back when that were OK.

The FREDDY VS JASON VS ASH graphic novel is good, but the sequel too often reads like bad fan-fiction.

The NIGHTMARE comics I've read are pretty middle of the road. The FRIDAY comics all suck, as does the one FINAL DESTINATION comic I read. The HALLOWEEN comics are generally pretty good, but get depressing as fuck.

[Jingus]

Anyone elese ever read any novels or comics based on any of these series?

Chucky shows up as a guest star in the awesome Hack/Slash series, which can be succinctly described as an off-brand "Buffy Summers and the guy from Splatterhouse versus all the slasher villains" comic which rocks pretty goddamn hard. ("I HAVE HAD THE SEX!")

The FRIDAY comics all suck

Yes sir they sure do. A couple of 'em are kind of interesting, like the one where Jason befriends a deformed kid, but the majority are just braindead exercises in copying the movies and seeing how big a body count they can rack up. Which is a shame; comic adaptations are supposed to be where you experiment and take chances with the stories, not just doing the same old shit we've already seen and doing it worse.

[Newb82]

JASON VS JASON X may be the worst FRIDAY THE 13TH "story" ever written.

[Curt McGirt]

Are any of the Hatchet films any fun? 

[piranesi]

Fun, yes.  Scary, no.

[Burgundy LaRue]

FINAL DESTINATION started off strong for me.  The first one was decently acted and the story flowed pretty well.  But I gave up after the second one, because it was obvious that the franchise was veering in camp terrority.  I love campy movies, but not the way it was presented with FD 2.  But the first one was solid, really enjoyed it.

[Newb82]

FD 3 is OK, but a step down from 2. 4 (or THE FINAL DESTINATION) is terrible. 5 is pretty good though, aside from the boss character and everything he does.