The All Things HORROR thread~!

[Curt McGirt]

That reminds me of the great USA Network/Something Weird Video show Reel Wild Cinema hosted by Sandra Bernhard where they would cut movies down to fit within the hour time frame along with other stuff. I'm sure fanboys are doing this to Marvel and DC movies now and sharing them amongst themselves. 

And of course, all the episodes are up on Youtube

 

RIP Mike Vraney

[J.T.]

For you folks that wait for stuff to come on cable, both The Boy (Showtime Networks) and The Purge:  Election Year (Cinemax) debuted this weekend.

Lights Out (Cinemax) debuted last weekend.

Rabid has swapped rotation from Showtime to The Movie Channel.

Everything should be available On Demand.

[HumanChessgame]

The Void was a good watch.  It was a little thin on plot and explanation, but the overall atmosphere, visuals, and rising tension were well done.  Probably the best early 90s John Carpenter movie that never saw the light of day with a healthy dose of Hellraiser thrown in.

[J.T.]

10 minutes ago, HumanChessgame said:

The Void was a good watch.  It was a little thin on plot and explanation, but the overall atmosphere, visuals, and rising tension were well done.  Probably the best early 90s John Carpenter movie that never saw the light of day with a healthy dose of Hellraiser thrown in.

I am envious.  The limited release doesn't have this thing showing in a movie theater anywhere near my house or my parent's house.

I'm going to assume that the new limited release + cable distribution dealie is still intact and this thing is located somewhere in the PPV Movies On Demand queue of Xfinity and FiOS.

[OSJ]

On 4/3/2017 at 10:41 AM, Curt McGirt said:

That reminds me of the great USA Network/Something Weird Video show Reel Wild Cinema hosted by Sandra Bernhard where they would cut movies down to fit within the hour time frame along with other stuff. I'm sure fanboys are doing this to Marvel and DC movies now and sharing them amongst themselves. 

And of course, all the episodes are up on Youtube

 

RIP Mike Vraney

Indeed. Mike was a friend of mine back in the day... Another great for obscure films in Seattle was the late Bob Clear of Vertigo Video. Good times....

[S.K.o.S.]

On ‎09‎/‎04‎/‎2017 at 2:40 AM, J.T. said:

I am envious.  The limited release doesn't have this thing showing in a movie theater anywhere near my house or my parent's house.

I'm going to assume that the new limited release + cable distribution dealie is still intact and this thing is located somewhere in the PPV Movies On Demand queue of Xfinity and FiOS.

You may be right.  It's supposed to be on VOD somewhere, but I can't figure out exactly where.

[Roman]

I watched Horsehead. Don't make the same mistake, friends.

[RIPPA]

The Mist TV Series

One can imagine that the ending won't be as fucked up as the Movie

[Curt McGirt]

So is this a total revision that's basically ripping off The Crazies? Are we not getting badly CGI'd monsters? 

[Roman]

On 10/4/2017 at 8:53 PM, Roman said:

I watched Horsehead. Don't make the same mistake, friends.

The same goes for Apartment 143.

[OSJ]

2 hours ago, RIPPA said:

The Mist TV Series

One can imagine that the ending won't be as fucked up as the Movie

One can only hope that they don't fuck it up this time, "The Mist" remains one of the ten best things King has ever written. If there was ever a guy that should be on a word-count limit restricting him to novellas, it's Big Steve. Left to his own devices as he has been for decades, he will overwrite worse than anyone else in the business. On the other hand, I could easily fill two volumes of about five-hundred pages each of novellas and shorter pieces that would be among the best books in my library. One volume for horror, one for general fiction... Just for shits and giggles I made such a list a long time ago, I'll try and find it and update it a bit, I think it's out of date by about six or seven years.

[HumanChessgame]

2 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

So is this a total revision that's basically ripping off The Crazies? Are we not getting badly CGI'd monsters? 

This was pretty much my reaction as well.  The story is one of my favorite pieces of King's work and I thought the movie did it justice, but this looks marginally related at best. I guess they saw the success of Under The Dome and figured they could milk something else?

*I never actually read Under The Dome and only watched 3 episodes or so of the show so I can't say how accurate a translation it is, just going by what I heard.

[Brian Fowler]

I know we've debated it before, but the film ending to The Mist is basically the best adaptation change ever.  Just heartbreaking and perfectly nihilistic.

[Technico Support]

The Under the Dome TV series quickly went from "this is okay I guess" to "oh man this is just hot garbage."  I can't believe I ended up hate-watching it all the way through.  The third season was so aimless and ridiculous, it was really obvious the show creators didn't expect it to be renewed and had to rush to put something together. 

I'm right there with @OSJ's critique of King.  I've enjoyed all his novella and short story collections except the last two, which were just far too grim and depressing.  His longer works?  Start with a cool idea, take way too long with too much extraneous bullshit, then wrap up with an awful ending.

[J.T.]

The ending of The Mist was fucked up in an awesomely good way. 

I am not thrilled about this rage zombie revision. 

The Mist is about legit monsters; human and otherwise.  The lack of giant insects spitting acid and blood drinking floating octopods does not fill me with confidence.

[Brian Fowler]

Specifically, it's monsters from the Crimson King's dimension, coming in through a thinny...

[J.T.]

4 hours ago, Brian Fowler said:

Specifically, it's monsters from the Crimson King's dimension, coming in through a thinny...

He ties all of that in later when he decided that everything that happens in the Derry Extended Universe evil comes from the Crimson King though, right?

[Technico Support]

3 hours ago, J.T. said:

He ties all of that in later when he decided that everything that happens in the Derry Extended Universe evil comes from the Crimson King though, right?

All you're doing now is making me desperate for the Dark Tower movie/TV series/whatever to fix the bullshit that made the book series ending come off worse than a popcorn fart.

I'm about to go Annie Wilkes here and force King to write an ending that doesn't include 1) Stephen King as a character 2) a late addition deux ex machina character who literally erases the big bad from existence with zero build 3) an ending that doesn't need to be set up by the author actually saying "this ending is going to suck but it's your fault for wanting a good ending because it's the journey, not the destination."

[Technico Support]

Split idea I stole from a coworker

 

 

[J.T.]

Funny you should mention Split. 

I watched it a second time yesterday on DVD before zoning into Mass Effect Andromeda multiplayer and I found myself liking it far more on repeat viewing.

I was prepared for the "big reveal" so I didn't have that corny "Oh, no," reaction.

Kevin is also a lot more frightening if you are able to vacate the "I'm watching an M. Night" thought out of your head, but the build really doesn't work without the payoff moment at the end.

The reviews that criticize Split for having bad science in it now annoy me.  M. Night is no more trying to comment on mental illness than any other director of a slasher movie.  

I think that critics are missing the point that Dr. Fletcher's insistence that Kevin has DID is probably a misdiagnosis.  His personalities could be a result of how his powers are choosing to manifesting themselves. 

Funny how the creators of Legion get this point across better than M. Night did, but M. Night is working under the handicap of trying to conceal Kevin's true nature until the final act.

[Cyanide]

On 4/18/2017 at 11:54 AM, Technico Support said:

All you're doing now is making me desperate for the Dark Tower movie/TV series/whatever to fix the bullshit that made the book series ending come off worse than a popcorn fart.

I'm about to go Annie Wilkes here and force King to write an ending that doesn't include 1) Stephen King as a character 2) a late addition deux ex machina character who literally erases the big bad from existence with zero build 3) an ending that doesn't need to be set up by the author actually saying "this ending is going to suck but it's your fault for wanting a good ending because it's the journey, not the destination."

Man, I plowed through the core seven books in a short span a few years back and you hit all my main gripes.  I'm not as down on King in general as many are (read a lot of his stuff when I was younger, loved The Dead Zone and the uncut The Stand was a summer ritual read, ambivalent now for the most part but dug Full Dark, No Stars), but the depths of self-insertion that series ended up slogging to was borderline unforgivable.  It was just about literally diminishing returns with every book for me (though I'd probably but Wolves of the Calla over Wizard and Glass).

I think the ending would fit for a one-off parable on the consequences of mindless obsession, but I could not imagine the feeling of being invested in the story for more than two decades and getting that as your reward.  Woof.

[Brian Fowler]

Wait wait wait wait... You did not just rank any of those final three books over Wizard & Glass, the best thing Stephen King ever wrote, did you?

[Curt McGirt]

The series lost me as a kid when I was reading The Waste Lands. I also never finished It, and am amazed I finished Needful Things. That has to be one of the most convoluted, multiple-character/storyline driven novels ever written. It ends pretty nice but jeez. 

I know this sounds bizarre but my favorite piece of work he ever wrote was Danse Macabre. 

[Brian Fowler]

The story in the story of Wizard and Glass is my favorite thing he's written. Otherwise, Road Work.

[Technico Support]

12 hours ago, Cyanide said:

Man, I plowed through the core seven books in a short span a few years back and you hit all my main gripes.  I'm not as down on King in general as many are (read a lot of his stuff when I was younger, loved The Dead Zone and the uncut The Stand was a summer ritual read, ambivalent now for the most part but dug Full Dark, No Stars), but the depths of self-insertion that series ended up slogging to was borderline unforgivable.  It was just about literally diminishing returns with every book for me (though I'd probably but Wolves of the Calla over Wizard and Glass).

I think the ending would fit for a one-off parable on the consequences of mindless obsession, but I could not imagine the feeling of being invested in the story for more than two decades and getting that as your reward.  Woof.

That's pretty much me.  Book 1 was literally the first book I ever read for pleasure as opposed to books I was forced to read for school.  I was 14 or 15 so that would have been around 1989/90 and it turned me into a King fan.  So yeah, 14-15 years of this series, through high school, college and into adulthood, literally half my life, reading it and all the books that tie in to it, to end up with that?  Dirt worst.  Just like you said: that ending would have been fine for a one off, like a short story, novella or standalone book.  But as the final chapter of a decades-long series a lot of people were hanging on?  Damn.  It literally tuned me off to King.  I read just about everything he wrote before that, but only a handful of his books since.

King famously said (somewhere around the late 90s maybe) that this series would be his CanterburyTales -- that, like Chaucer, he'd die before finishing it.  I think his accident caused him to realize that was no joke, and he rushed out the final three books.  Because, while they do have some decent parts, as a whole they're seriously not good.