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2019 HORROR MOVIE THREAD


Dolfan in NYC

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On ‎4‎/‎9‎/‎2019 at 5:36 AM, HumanChessgame said:

I'd heard nothing but bad reviews from everyone I know who had seen the Pet Semetary remake and they were right. The pacing is bad, the most important aspects of the story are glossed over or left out (Jud and Louis' surrogate father/son relationship, Zelda, Timmy Baterman, Louis' relationship with Rachel's family, etc), and the previews really do give everything away.

I went to see it last night.

The pacing is quite slow.  I was a bit disappointed that Jud's relationship with Louis was blunted because the cascading disaster of logic that leads to the tragic events of the novel was superb and the comedy of errors that led to disaster in the movie rang  a tad hollow.

Also, the movie doesn't really go into detail about the seductive nature of the Wendigo as the root of the problem.  Louis didn't just do dumb shit in the novel because he was batshit crazy with grief, although that was a big part of it.  The Wendigo's gradual influence subtly affects all of the action in Pet Semetary just as the dark nature of the Overlook Hotel slowly but surely drove events in The Shining to sad conclusion.

The switching of antagonists from Gage to Ellie in the movie fucks this up because King highly implies that Ellie is a Shiner and is sensitive to the vicious nature of the thing the forest and her latent psychic power allows her to communicate with Victor Pascal.  All of this supports the general universe King had built up to that point and also helps Victor's role in the greater plot seem less tacked on..

With Ellie transformed from spiritual antennae in novel to antagonist in the movie,  the Wendigo is reduced to McGuffin status which is a real shame.  It's nothing more than a noise in the dark that may or may not be significant.

The ending of the movie was fairly satisfying and supported the events of the movie in a logical manner.  Even so, the switch of "villain" from Gage to Ellie bothered me a little.  Mostly because after she came back from the dead, she was more annoying than anything.  IMO, Gage as walking contradiction between innocence and malevolence was a far better servant of implacable evil than Ellie the jaw jacking zombie child.

I prefer the cherub faced, silent malevolence of Gage to Ellie as little girl turned trash talking demonic entity.  I've already seen that movie, guys, and as I mentioned before, Ellie's psychic powers help us (audience / reader) navigate the murky waters that the novel trudges through.  You can see the story devolve a bit from the story to the movie when things transform from orchestrated tragedy to mere sad happenstance.  

It makes you appreciate the invisible and deliberate onslaught on the Creed family as detailed in the book.

Overall, I liked the movie as a shortened ADD fable version of the novel, but it really does lack the nuances that made the novel great.  I have always appreciated King's knack for portraying evil as a force that actively tries to destroy good and that light must always be on guard against darkness.  

The movie, Hereditary, takes a lot of cues from Pet Semetary.  Evil sees an avenue in something as remote as a parent's unresolved grief and uses it to devastating effect to consume multiple lives.  The sad thing is that these wounds are self inflicted.  Evil does not always impose itself on us to wreck happiness..  We often destroy ourselves by inviting it into our lives.

I'd love to see Pet Semetary get the limited series treatment on Netflix or Amazon so that the tragic nature of the tale can be truly fleshed out.

Edited by J.T.
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So there way WB/New Line/Atomic Monster all keep wanting to have their cake and eat it with regards to La Llondra and The Conjuring universe is just weird.

On one hand, it's using at least one character from The Nun, and they are marketing it as being "from the creators of The Conjuring" but on the other, they say it's not a Conjuring universe movie because it's but from the con files of the con artists the other movies are.

Which, ironically, would make me feel better about supporting it, because, seriously, fuck the Warnens.

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7 minutes ago, Brian Fowler said:

So there way WB/New Line/Atomic Monster all keep wanting to have their cake and eat it with regards to La Llondra and The Conjuring universe is just weird.

On one hand, it's using at least one character from The Nun, and they are marketing it as being "from the creators of The Conjuring" but on the other, they say it's not a Conjuring universe movie because it's but from the con files of the con artists the other movies are.

Which, ironically, would make me feel better about supporting it, because, seriously, fuck the Warnens.

I kinda hate the whole Conjure-verse thing, actually. 

I don't mind name dropping The Conjuring as a way to drum up ticket sales, but La Llorona could be kept as it's own entity rather than mixing everything into the Conjure-verse with the fucking Warrens and associated supporting characters in the role of The Ghostbusters.

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Unfriended 2:  Dark Web is now on heavy rotation on Cinemax and should be available on MAX GO..

I will try to check it out once shit at work settles down and I get this new slug of IAVAs and functional software updates done.

You don't know how close I am to being an active shooter today.  Fucking co-workers are really grinding every shred of patience I have left in my cranium because they think this shit works like magic and have no concept of software load time or configuration prep.

Edited by J.T.
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The Little Stranger will debut on Cinemax on May 10th. 

Check your MAX GO queues for availability.

If I can stop myself from playing Destiny 2 PvP until one in the morning, I will check out Unfriended 2.  If I don't watch it by the 10th of May, that will be two movies on my Premium Cable Pile of Shame.

Edited by J.T.
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Man, I forgot just how batshit crazy (and crazy good looking, set- and effect-wise) Event Horizon was. It's still way derivative of Hellraiser but what other movie is? If you're gonna steal from something you might as well steal from something nobody else has.

Also, that decompression scene really got to me. Gah...

EDIT: According to Ebert it ripped off Tarkovsky's Solaris, too, which I did not know.

Edited by Curt McGirt
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Petscop uploaded a shit ton of content on it's YouTube channel over Easter.

Check out the new vids and then dive into Nick Nocturne's analysis on the Night Mind channel.

 

Edited by J.T.
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Crawl

Director: Alexandre Aja

Starring: Kaya Scodelario and Barry Pepper and a giant fucking CGI alligator

In the story I saw in this it said that this movie is the first in a "deliberate attempt by the studio" to make lower budget Horror movies to piggy back off the success of A Quiet Place

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6 hours ago, RIPPA said:

In the story I saw in this it said that this movie is the first in a "deliberate attempt by the studio" to make lower budget Horror movies to piggy back off the success of A Quiet Place

So here is the thing, during big floods occasionally people do have the misfortune of gators in and/or on top of their homes. I never had that misfortune, but I know one of my father's friends had one in her house during Harvey. Feels like this is trying to build off of that idea just looking at the trailer.

Edited by Eivion
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Aja has been hit and miss since Haute Tension.  I think I enjoyed Horns, Maniac, and Mirrors more than I should have and Piranha 3D was great, but The Other Side of the Door and P2 were pretty weak.

His reboot of The Hils Have Eyes was a perfectly acceptable sequel that no one really asked for.

I hope that Crawl is decent.

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Got in some horror movies over the last month. Most of them were apart of the Joe Bob Briggs marathon I'm trying to finish up.

A Quiet Place - This was okay. The shotgun ending was a good "HELL YEAH" moment. I think there were two big moments (the nail, and the water leak) that I felt were too contrived. The nail, in particular, was one of those crappy moments that required characters to act against their established behaviour in order to set it up. The logistics of it also didn't make much sense. This is a huge pet peeve of mine.

There was also another moment where they aped one of the BEST moments in Jurrasic Park, (the kids and the T-Rex separated by plexi glass) which kinda made me laugh. It was so blatant it took me out of it. I still had a lot of fun, and thought the concept was fun. Emily Blunt was great. 

Daughters of Darkness - I loved this. I think if I made a horror movie it would be more like this. Where it's not exactly scary, but it's more just gothic and uncomfortable. 

Re-Animator - I actually got my wife to watch this. Actually I didn't. The Intro by Joe Bob Briggs did. I think this movie is one of the most crowd pleasing films ever. If you can't watch this and have fun hoot n hollerin' at the madness on the screen, then I feel sorry for you. I think after nearly 15 years together I've finally converted my wife to enjoying horror films, because she thought this was fucking awesome.

Demons - Wasn't super into it, but the sheer absurdity of it has to be seen to be believed. I think every male on this board had a dream when they 15 that day they'd go to the movies to see a horror picture, pick up a hot chick, and buy the end of the night they'd have that chick hanging on to them as they rode around on a dirt bike slicing open demons from hell with a samurai sword they found in the lobby.  

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Well, whatever I was trying to write here initially, let me rectify. 

I woke up about an hour or so ago and The Haunting was on TCM. 

I don't think I've ever caught a more perfect moment to watch a specific film in my life. 

This was like watching the best Twilight Zone episode you've ever seen. Every note was perfect. Every underlying tone (the lesbian subplot, Eleanor's personal anxiety/depression cocktail), every incredibly subtle scare (the face in the wall still fucks with me), just knowing, knowing that there is only one way out of this -- it's perfect. My number two horror film ever, period. And I barely even like ghost movies.

Edited by Curt McGirt
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I watched Unfriended:  Dark Web the other night.

I thought it was okay but I also think it tried to be too smart for it's own good.  As a tech guy, I appreciated the attempt to portray legit hacking techniques in the movie, but some of that shit was pure magic.

Believe it or not, I also think that it was a bit too mean spirited. 

Given the rather efficient, ruthless and merciless nature of the dark web antagonists,  I think the end could've benefited greatly from a bit of mercy. 

Perhaps not a resoundingly happy ending, but at least some sort of cathartic resolution for one or two of our dipshit protagonists who clearly were no match for the people they were trying to fuck with.

I've seen both of the alternate DVD endings and have no idea why they didn't go with the "they earned it" route rather than the totally bleak theatrical conclusion.  They could've at least left things up in the air and gone with the Does He / Doesn't He dark cliffhanger ending.  I'm guessing that the test audiences totally hated the characters, so that's why they went with the super sinister plot.

It's still on rotation on Cinemax On Demand, so check it out if you are curious.  All of the alternate endings should still be on YouTube, but I would not be surprise if they were taken down at some point.

I'm also going to try to watch Truth or Dare on Cinemax On Demand sometime tomorrow provided that I don't get too hemmed up in doing shit in Destiny 2 before the Tuesday hard reset.

Edited by J.T.
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Oh and in case you were curious:

Starcrawler covers the Ramones's Pet Sematary for the ending credits of the new joint.

To say that I was happy to hear the track is an understatement.  I stuck around just to listen to the song play out and I caught quite a few audience members actually singing along.

Edited by J.T.
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Truth Or Dare (2018) is on heavy rotation on MAX Go aka Cinemax On Demand.

I watched it yesterday while Destiny 2 was patching.  It wasn't great, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

I kinda struggled with the ending.  I usually expect my horror movie protagonists to be a bit more altruistic, but I was rather impressed with the creative and very Millennial manner in which the Final People found a way to live to fight another day.

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On 5/5/2019 at 8:07 PM, J.T. said:

Oh and in case you were curious:

Starcrawler covers the Ramones's Pet Sematary for the ending credits of the new joint.

To say that I was happy to hear the track is an understatement.  I stuck around just to listen to the song play out and I caught quite a few audience members actually singing along.

Finally listening to this. Pretty good, but then it's hard to fuck up the Ramones (cue someone now showing me someone fucking up the Ramones)

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18 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

Finally listening to this. Pretty good, but then it's hard to fuck up the Ramones (cue someone now showing me someone fucking up the Ramones)

 

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21 minutes ago, RIPPA said:

The IT: Chapter 2 trailer is supposed to drop today

Don't yell when it gets posted in the main thread

Not asking me to yell is just more likely to make me yell.

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