The All Things HORROR thread~!

[MonteCarl]

Watched "Hush" on Netflix the other night with the wife based off of the prior discussion and recommendations from earlier in this thread. Really good horror/thriller and features one of the most brutal attacks to a protagonist I've seen in a long time. Haven't squirmed that much due to something in a movie in years. Good stuff, and just the perfect length for this sort of thing at an hour and 20 minutes. Check it out.

[J.T.]

On ‎4‎/‎22‎/‎2016 at 6:18 PM, Curt McGirt said:

This might've already been posted, I dunno. Anyway it's the director of the absolutely fantastic Cop Car and the upcoming Spider Man reboot who's behind this, which has been in limbo for awhile. Looks super freaky. 

I watched the entire movie on Youtube last year.  I think it was taken down pending a possible DVD release.  Surprisingly effective body horror movie if you can get past the clown motif.

Speaking of body horror, you guys can skip Bite unless you are morbidly curious:

It is the not quite so bright cousin of The Fly. 

OTOH, I have heard nothing but good stuff about Don't Breathe coming out of SXSW.

[RIPPA]

It's technically horror though it is based on the Stephen King novel so you can just really file it under shitty

[nate]

Samuel Jackson is no longer a selling point for films anymore, to me.  He's pretty much one of two characters in everything.  The one character he plays most is "Samuel Jackson;" in the other films, he wears an eyepatch.

[J.T.]

Cell was like Under The Dome and the other King novels that started off really strong and just ran off the rails at the ending so with Sam Jackson in it, I've really got no hope that it will turn out like The Mist and actually be better than the prose.

For those of you with premium cable, It Follows is now in the rotation on the Showtime Network of channels.  It comes on tonight @8PM EST on SHO2.

[J.T.]

JT's Guide to It Follows aka You Are Not A Dumbass, It Is A Complicated Movie.

Even though they are spoilerized, most of my comments won't make sense unless you've seen the movie.

Spoiler

1.  It has monster rules it has to follow just like zombies and vampires and werewolves do. 

• It can only kill the most recent recipient of the curse..  This kinda works like the Sadako rule, but Sadako can go after anyone who has seen the Cursed Videotape.  It can stalk all of its victims but only the newest victim of the curse is marked for immediate death.
• It can be hurt by conventional means.  It is long lived and resistant to injury and has great physical strength  but it is not invulnerable.  Bullets can harm it and another weakness is alluded to below.
• It only travels by walking and climbing. 
• Only people that have the curse can see it.  It is invisible to everyone else.
• Even though it only kills victims of the curse, It can still defend itself against attackers.

2.  Yes.  During the scene where Jay and her friends finally find Jeff / Hugh and confront him about the curse, Jay is placing grass leaves on her wrist in a  cutter's pattern.  She is contemplating suicide as a means to escape the curse.

3.   Greg has sex with Jay when she is in the hospital.  We assume that Greg does this for altruistic reasons but this may not be true.  Having sex with Jay makes Greg the next victim.  However there is a latter scene where Greg is in the hospital cafeteria surrounded by other teen girls.  Is he planning to sleep with those girls to pass the curse along, or is he just horn dogging around?  The fact that It easily catches Greg off guard by taking the form of his own mother and kills him (apparently by draining his lifeforce during a sexual assault!  while using the form of his mother!  ICK!!!) seems to indicate that Greg does not really believe Jay's story about the curse despite evidence to the contrary (ie. the attack at the beach).  Greg may have been only interested in getting into Jay's pants the entire time and uses her fear to gain her trust..

4.  When Jay witnesses It kill Greg, she is spurred to action.  She plans to kill herself or pass the curse on. 

5. The scene where Jay sees the boys in the boat is pretty significant.

• Jay ponders swimming out to the boat and having sex with one (or maybe all ) of the boys out on the boat as a means to give her some distance from the curse.   Her morality finally gets in the way as either she cannot bear condemning someone else to Greg's fate or she's figured out that she really does love Paul and does not want to betray his feelings for her with yet another casual hook-up.
• Since she does not want to pass the curse on, Jay seems to choose suicide (remember the grass leaves) and possibly attempts to drown herself.

8. It the course of suicide, Jay ponders the It rules and has an epiphany.

• It can be hurt (ie. early in the movie, Jay shoots It with a gun and it bleeds), so it is possible that It can also be killed.
• It only travels by walking.  It does not try to cross large bodies of water because it may drown!  Hence the use of the swimming pool as a trap / defense mechanism.
• Her friends can help her trap and kill It because It will only go after Jay

7. The friends are unsure if It is truly dead.  This is why Paul stares intently at the hookers as he drives past them.

8. It is assumed that the figure walking behind Jay and Paul at the end of the movie is It.  Note that the guy raking leaves in the same scene does not seem to notice the figure.

 

[Roman]

Last night I watched The Serpent and the Rainbow. Up to the last couple of scenes, it was a pretty good movie. Unfortunately it got really silly near the end. Is the book worth reading?

[The Unholy Dragon]

On 28/04/2016 at 2:13 PM, J.T. said:

JT's Guide to It Follows aka You Are Not A Dumbass, It Is A Complicated Movie.

Even though they are spoilerized, most of my comments won't make sense unless you've seen the movie.

  Hide contents

1.  It has monster rules it has to follow just like zombies and vampires and werewolves do. 

• It can only kill the most recent recipient of the curse..  This kinda works like the Sadako rule, but Sadako can go after anyone who has seen the Cursed Videotape.  It can stalk all of its victims but only the newest victim of the curse is marked for immediate death.
• It can be hurt by conventional means.  It is long lived and resistant to injury and has great physical strength  but it is not invulnerable.  Bullets can harm it and another weakness is alluded to below.
• It only travels by walking and climbing. 
• Only people that have the curse can see it.  It is invisible to everyone else.
• Even though it only kills victims of the curse, It can still defend itself against attackers.

2.  Yes.  During the scene where Jay and her friends finally find Jeff / Hugh and confront him about the curse, Jay is placing grass leaves on her wrist in a  cutter's pattern.  She is contemplating suicide as a means to escape the curse.

3.   Greg has sex with Jay when she is in the hospital.  We assume that Greg does this for altruistic reasons but this may not be true.  Having sex with Jay makes Greg the next victim.  However there is a latter scene where Greg is in the hospital cafeteria surrounded by other teen girls.  Is he planning to sleep with those girls to pass the curse along, or is he just horn dogging around?  The fact that It easily catches Greg off guard by taking the form of his own mother and kills him (apparently by draining his lifeforce during a sexual assault!  while using the form of his mother!  ICK!!!) seems to indicate that Greg does not really believe Jay's story about the curse despite evidence to the contrary (ie. the attack at the beach).  Greg may have been only interested in getting into Jay's pants the entire time and uses her fear to gain her trust..

4.  When Jay witnesses It kill Greg, she is spurred to action.  She plans to kill herself or pass the curse on. 

5. The scene where Jay sees the boys in the boat is pretty significant.

• Jay ponders swimming out to the boat and having sex with one (or maybe all ) of the boys out on the boat as a means to give her some distance from the curse.   Her morality finally gets in the way as either she cannot bear condemning someone else to Greg's fate or she's figured out that she really does love Paul and does not want to betray his feelings for her with yet another casual hook-up.
• Since she does not want to pass the curse on, Jay seems to choose suicide (remember the grass leaves) and possibly attempts to drown herself.

8. It the course of suicide, Jay ponders the It rules and has an epiphany.

• It can be hurt (ie. early in the movie, Jay shoots It with a gun and it bleeds), so it is possible that It can also be killed.
• It only travels by walking.  It does not try to cross large bodies of water because it may drown!  Hence the use of the swimming pool as a trap / defense mechanism.
• Her friends can help her trap and kill It because It will only go after Jay

7. The friends are unsure if It is truly dead.  This is why Paul stares intently at the hookers as he drives past them.

8. It is assumed that the figure walking behind Jay and Paul at the end of the movie is It.  Note that the guy raking leaves in the same scene does not seem to notice the figure.

 

I love that movie.

 

To point 5.

 

I and everyone I saw it with took the swimming out and subsequent anguish to mean that she *did* seduce one or more of the boys and thus basically murdered someone with intent to buy herself time.

 

Either reading works with the presentation, but yeah.

[J.T.]

Danish zombie epic, What We Become, will get a limited release on May 13th.... which is a Friday.

It will also be available via PPV Video on Demand distributed via IFC MIdnight. 

Check the Horror genre folder in your On Demand service.

[Curt McGirt]

*sigh* More zombies... I'll check it out if IFC plays it I guess. 

[J.T.]

30 minutes ago, Curt McGirt said:

*sigh* More zombies... I'll check it out if IFC plays it I guess. 

Vampires and werewolves were making a brief comeback but yeah, more zombies.

[Curt McGirt]

It's better than another exorcism!

[J.T.]

So here's what we have on this new Universal Monster "revival" dealie.

• Johnny Depp will play the titular role in The Invisible Man which will supposedly be set in the same time period as the 1933 Claude Rains classic..
• Tom Cruise has signed up for The Mummy and Sophia Boutella is credited simply as "Mummy" (not The Mummy) and the film is set in present day Iraq (it is amazing how many people assume that Eqyptians are the sole creators of mummies).  If the titular monster turns out to be a woman and setting not withstanding, this movie sounds more like an adaptation of The Jewel of the Seven Stars by Bram Stoker than it does The Ring of Thoth by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, which is rumored to be the literary inspiration for the 1932 Boris Karloff classic..
• Russel Crowe has singed up to appear in The Mummy as a "Jekyll / Hyde" figure that will eventually get his own movie.

Looks like Universal is choosing to avoid Dracula and Frankenstein for now and is ignoring that Wolf Man redux with Benicio Del Toro.

I'd love to see a Creature From The Black Lagoon modern reboot.

[Brian Fowler]

Man, the inspiration for the 1932 Karloff Mummy was the Dracula movie the studio made a few years earlier. It follows the plot of that film pretty damn closely (although I would argue it's actually the better film overall, Lugosi's performance aside.)

[(BP)]

I kind of wish we could just skip to the inevitable Tatum and Hill Meet Frankenstein movie. 

Actually...21 Elm Street! I need to contact someone at Sony right now. 

[J.T.]

12 hours ago, Brian Fowler said:

Man, the inspiration for the 1932 Karloff Mummy was the Dracula movie the studio made a few years earlier. It follows the plot of that film pretty damn closely (although I would argue it's actually the better film overall, Lugosi's performance aside.)

The script for The Mummy had several inspirations including the script from Dracula (playwright John L. Balderston contributed to the scripts of Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Mummy) as well as the Egypt-mania that took hold after the opening of King Tut's tomb.

Early versions of the script for The Mummy bore a strong resemblance to The Ring of Thoth so it had to be cleaned up.

[Jingus]

On 4/26/2016 at 2:32 PM, RIPPA said:

It's technically horror though it is based on the Stephen King novel so you can just really file it under shitty

The words "starring John Cusack" are all I needed to hear to file it under shitty.  I can count on one hand the number of movies I've seen where that guy actually impressed me at all, I've never understood his appeal.  

Although Cell might still be good, because it was made by... oh... aw, fuck.  Directed by the guy who did Paranormal Activity 2, written by the guy who did the Last House on the Left remake.  Nevermind.  

 

As for Mummy/Dracula comparisons, it's important to remember just how much those two were practically made by the exact same people.  Same producers, same writer, same editor, same costume designer, same makeup designer, same matte painter... hell, same assistant cameraman.  And the exact same actors playing "the whitebread hero guy" and "the elderly mentor dude".  AND depending on who you believe about whether Karl Freund was actually in charge on the set of Dracula, maybe even the same director.  So of course the two films are gonna look remarkably similar.  For the record, I probably like The Mummy better; it's a bit less memorable than Dracula was, but it's missing the various embarrassing low points which really weighed down the vampire picture.  

[Curt McGirt]

Anybody else like The Wolfman with Del Toro? Thought he made a bang-up Oliver Reed impersonation (see: Curse of the Werewolf)

[nate]

Me.

[Jingus]

I liked that one too.  Hardly the greatest film ever made, but it was a perfectly acceptable werewolf flick.  Nicely R-rated too, it really got across the "unstoppable murder train" aspect of werewolves in a graphic manner.  And the HEAVILY overqualified cast of damn fine character actors certainly didn't hurt; this is one of the rare times I've ever seen Anthony Hopkins actually looking like he wanted to be there in any movie after the turn of the century.  Werewolf makeup by Rick Baker, music by Danny Elfman, and no less a living legend than Walter Murch as the editor.  Aside from a bit too much obvious CGI, I thought it all worked pretty well.  Yet the reception was insanely negative when the movie came out, everyone just buried the living shit out of this movie as if it was The Howling part 9 or An American Werewolf in Amsterdam or Team Jacob: The Motion Picture or some damn thing like that.  

[Curt McGirt]

No less than the president of Universal Studios called it "crappy" and "one of the worst movies we've ever made". Seriously? 

[Curt McGirt]

 

Yeah, that's Al Snow. 

[J.T.]

On 5/7/2016 at 0:59 AM, Curt McGirt said:

No less than the president of Universal Studios called it "crappy" and "one of the worst movies we've ever made". Seriously? 

I can think of worse Universal movies than The Wolf Man.  It wasn't great, but it wasn't the shitburger it was made out to be.

[Jingus]

For real.  I mean, looking at the list, this is the same studio which has made: 

• Jem and the Holograms
• 50 Shades of Grey
• A Million Ways to Die in the West
• Identity Thief
• "Dr. Seuss's" The Lorax
• The Thing remake
• Hop
• Little Fockers
• The Fourth Kind
• Land of the Lost
• Death Race
• I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry
• Doom
• The Chronicles of Riddick
• Van Helsing
• "Dr. Seuss's" Cat in the Hat
• Hulk
• The Life of David Gale
• The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas
• Patch Adams
• the Psycho remake
• Blues Brothers 2000
• Waterworld
• Street Fighter
• Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot
• Cool as Ice
• Howard the Duck
• Dune
• The Sting 2
• Xanadu
• 1941
• The Concorde: Airport '79
• Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
• and finally Jaws 4: The Revenge (this time it's personal!)

 

AND THEY HAVE THE BALLS TO CLAIM THAT THE GODDAMN WOLFMAN IS WHERE THEY SOLD OUT?!  

[(BP)]

Looking at that list makes me mashup titles and imagine more awesome terrible movies: The Flinstones Die in the West, I Now Pronounce You Jaws and Lorax, 1941 2000, Land of the Waterworld, Stop! Or My Mom Will Hulk...