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2021 HORROR MOVIES


J.T.

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My cable guide says that In Fabric is available on Xumo but every time I try to launch the movie on Xumo, I keep getting error message saying that the product failed to launch on my device (cable box and 4K television).

I might try later on my laptop, but that would defeat the purpose of me wanting to watch the movie on a large screen.

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So my daughter and I watched Come Play and The Wretched over the weekend.   The Wretched was a pretty decent movie with a tidy little twist right before an ending that left a little to be desired.  Come Play wasn't entirely horrible, but it wasn't as scary as I hoped it might be.  It felt like a better story was waiting to be told, but the movie never got around to it.

I watched In Fabric on Sunday night.  It was excellently weird.  I did not expect Gwendoline Christie to play the role of a vamp that was into black dudes.   Bonus.

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For those of who don't know, "kuso" is Japanese for excrement.  When used as an expletive, the English equivalent for "Kuso!" is  (duh!) "Shit!"  Kuso Limitless (yep. it's scat porn) is not to be confused with Kuso, the strange and rather stupid experimental film directed by Flying Lotus.

Sadly, having worked for the Japanese for so many years, I have actually seen copies of the Mai-Chan's Daily Life manga while shopping in Shinzuku and flipped through them. To say that it is not for everyone is like saying that the Pope is Catholic.  It doesn't get much more obvious than that.

Interesting premise which I am sure didn't translate well to a live action movie and I am sure most of the social satire from the manga did not make it into the film, so it ended up being straight torture porn I'd imagine.

I'm shocked that both August Underground and Guinea Pig so high on that scale.  I figured they be down there with Girl Hell 1999 TBH.  These dudes have gag reflexes and gore tolerance levels that are much better than mine..

I'm surprised by the omission of Bottled Vulva:  Bank Teller Noriko and The Red Room.  The folks that made that scale must not have gotten around to watching them.

Edited by J.T.
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My first thought was "are some of those even movies?" The lowest I've gotten was Banned from Television and I wish I'd never watched it. I have seen Nekromantik in the theater so it's not like I don't have experience in these areas, but mixing sex in with your gore is where I say no, and it looks like a bunch of these titles do that.

Looking at it again the last six levels could easily be one level. I'm not sure what Pink Flamingos or Tetsuo are even doing on there but whatever.

Edited by Curt McGirt
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I'm guessing that Men Behind The Sun would've been stuck there with Philosophy Of A Knife if there had been room.

Are mondo documentary films like Mondo Cane, Faces of Death, and Africa Addio really considered to be horror films?  Horrifying and gross? Definitely, but horror films per se?  Ehhhh.

I certainly would not consider the aberrant porn movies like the Genki Genki films (don't ask what they are about..... just...don't) or Gusomilk (what is it about the Japanese and scat fetish movies?) to be "horror movies."

Edited by J.T.
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I'm not Googling any of those fucking titles

Anyway, In Search of Darkness Part II is out, and apparently won't be streaming anywhere and who knows if it's even gonna have a cheap release beyond the $66 Die Hard Edition that the donors got. So, I found it anyway. Jericho is on there talking about Mother's Day, Cannibal Holocaust, and Faces of Death? Okay... It does seem like he's seen them too so it's not just a talking head deal. There seems to be only one of those on here though I already read a review whining about it. Said review also complained about '80s Argento not getting a fair read even though the doc literally starts out with Inferno, there is an entire Italian horror segment (where they complained about footage from Suspiria and Deep Red being used, jeez), Tenebrae is featured, and surely Opera is featured later (haven't finished it yet). Nancy Allen and Linnea Quigley both get personal segments. The Savini stuff is nothing new if you've seen his doc so I skipped that. It looks to be as good as the last one only with deep dives. 

EDIT: Oh and if you're wondering how far those deep dives go, they cover The Boogens and Night Beast

Edited by Curt McGirt
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One day I will make it through the entire 2 1/2 hour runtime of the Suspiria reboot on Prime.  Every time I think about firing it up, I remember that I also need to get caught up on The Expanse and I haven't watched Blade of the Immortal yet.   It took me forever to get to Midsommar.

There are a few days left for me to pick up 2000 MS Reward points if I rent or by $30 of horror content during their March Into Horror promotion.  I think my daughter and I will rent Freaky next weekend.

Edited by J.T.
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That tier list is specifically about what is and isn't Torture Porn (from the perspective that a lot of what gets called Torture Pron doesn't actually resemble porn in any way).

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2 hours ago, AxB said:

That tier list is specifically about what is and isn't Torture Porn (from the perspective that a lot of what gets called Torture Pron doesn't actually resemble porn in any way).

Nor should it.

Torture Porn movies that are actually porn films and are sexually exploitive as well as violent have to be the worst things ever made.  Anyone that finds anything arousing about something like the Genki Genki movies probably needs to be locked up or have their asses beat.

The "porn" in Torture Porn usually refers to the gratuitous and exploitive nature of the subject in question and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with sex per se.  It's not "porn" in the literal sense of the word. 

It's almost it's own subcategory of Bloody Hilarious trope given the absurd nature of the violence.  

Take the infamous scene in Suicide Club for example. 

Spoiler

If you're watching the movie for the first time and suddenly you see a bunch of cute, smiling school girls link hands and cheerfully dive onto the rails in front of an oncoming transit train, your first reaction is one of shock and horror.  But then, when you see the unrealistic amount of blood splattering onto the train as it runs over the girls, the scene becomes darkly humorous.

You know in your logical mind that the bodies of those girls don't have enough blood to nearly paint the entire train red.  The violence is the joke, or in the case of Suicide Club, it's symbolic as Suicide Club is a scathing satire of Japanese pop culture (think Japanese version of Heathers where only the cool kids off themselves) and the dangers of niche society life.

Sion Sono ran away from home at 17 and joined a cult.  Both Suicide Club and Love Exposure explore the perils of allowing religion or some other social group define your identity for you.  

"But, Mom.  All of my friends are going to that party!"

"If all of your friends jumped off of a bridge into the river, would you jump too?"

See also: Disaster Porn - movies where cities are casually wiped off the map via natural disasters, superhero fights,  giant monsters, or whatever.

It's funny but Torture Porn movies like Saw & Hostel remind me of the old Batman series from the '60's in that they constantly have to come up with new deathtraps or fiendishly innovative ways to mangle the human body if they want to expand the idea into a franchise.  It is morbidly fascinating.

Edited by J.T.
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23 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

I'm not Googling any of those fucking titles

Anyway, In Search of Darkness Part II is out, and apparently won't be streaming anywhere and who knows if it's even gonna have a cheap release beyond the $66 Die Hard Edition that the donors got. So, I found it anyway. Jericho is on there talking about Mother's Day, Cannibal Holocaust, and Faces of Death? Okay... It does seem like he's seen them too so it's not just a talking head deal. There seems to be only one of those on here though I already read a review whining about it. Said review also complained about '80s Argento not getting a fair read even though the doc literally starts out with Inferno, there is an entire Italian horror segment (where they complained about footage from Suspiria and Deep Red being used, jeez), Tenebrae is featured, and surely Opera is featured later (haven't finished it yet). Nancy Allen and Linnea Quigley both get personal segments. The Savini stuff is nothing new if you've seen his doc so I skipped that. It looks to be as good as the last one only with deep dives. 

EDIT: Oh and if you're wondering how far those deep dives go, they cover The Boogens and Night Beast

I was going to ask how much they covered Fulci until I clicked on the Daily Grindhouse review. An actual gripe was two Fulci films getting covered at the expense of other more obscure films from the early 80's. Fine by me, as long as one of the films isn't just guys taking the piss out of the stupid Donald Duck-voiced killer in New York Ripper. On the Argento segments, Phenomena should at least get a quick mention for its batshit insanity.

I've seen the Boogens several times, but it barely left any kind of impression on me. Googling the movie just now, I barely remembered what the monsters looked like. Night Beast is something that popped up on Roku's B-Zone channel recently. I caught a few minutes of it, and I really need to watch the rest of it. Seen some of Dohler's other movies (Alien Factor has usually been the Rifftrax version) and they are vintage pieces of shit. The review on Daily Grindhouse mentioned The Keep as the type of obscure movie that was overlooked in favor of talking about multiple Fulci movies (or "shining the spotlight on a single director" as they put it)..... but I'd say anything that features The Boogens and Night Beast is leaving very few stones unturned. 

I find it hard to believe it won't eventually end up on Shudder. It might be September or October before it's on there, but I'm sure it will land there eventually.  If it is around Halloween when it finally finds its way to Shudder, that still gives them time to spring up 2 or 3 more 48-hour flash sales. I'm actually probably going to end up blowing $40 bucks on the Psycho Goreman: Hunky Boys Limited Edition, even though I'm sure the movie itself is also going to end up on Shudder by the end of next month.  I just can't do $70 bucks for In Search of Darkness II though. 

Edited by FluffSnackwell
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I finished it last night, and I kind of get Daily Grindhouse's complaints a bit more now. For one there are more talking heads then I thought. For another yeah, we don't need to hear more about Savini or even Robert Englund (who does have an interesting segment). They could have used that time to talk about magazines and fanzines, or the rise of video unless that was already covered in the first one. There is a segment about horror video games at least. The unmade films one really is interesting. There's no Opera or Phenomena btw. 

Honestly you could pick it apart at your heart's content to remake it in your own fashion but I think it's still good as is. 

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5 minutes ago, FluffSnackwell said:

Clancy's character in The Mortuary Collection was definitely a nod to Angus Scrimm.

My daughter and I watched it last Fall.  I thought it was pretty good, but I am a sucker for anthologies.

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On 3/6/2021 at 8:58 AM, Curt McGirt said:

I finished it last night, and I kind of get Daily Grindhouse's complaints a bit more now. For one there are more talking heads then I thought. For another yeah, we don't need to hear more about Savini or even Robert Englund (who does have an interesting segment). They could have used that time to talk about magazines and fanzines, or the rise of video unless that was already covered in the first one. There is a segment about horror video games at least. The unmade films one really is interesting. There's no Opera or Phenomena btw. 

Honestly you could pick it apart at your heart's content to remake it in your own fashion but I think it's still good as is. 

Yeah, Savini got his own documentary, which I watched. To the average hardcore horror fan, he's a household name; especially compared to a lot of obscure directors. I saw the unmade films segment mentioned in the Grindhouse review, and that's what has me the most intrigued. I don't know when I'll see the thing, so I have no idea if Superstition or Ghosthouse is featured, but if it was me, I would have done a back-to-back segment of those two movies, since the latter swipes a handful of kills from the former. They're both highly enjoyable trash. 

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Let's see... they talked up The Keep, Angel Heart, Maniac Cop, Night of the Demons, Demons, Evilspeak, Waxwork, The Boogens, Night Beast, The Beast Within, Razorback, Alligator, Nightmare (AKA Nightmares in a Damaged Brain), Nightmare on Elm Street 2 (which also already had its own doc), Tenebrae, Inferno, City of the Living Dead, The Beyond, The Bride, The Funhouse, Slumber Party Massacre, Graduation Day, The Being, Cannibal Holocaust, Mother's Day, Vamp, House, April Fool's Day, Little Shop of Horrors, Creepshow 2, Blood Diner, Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers, Prince of Darkness, Beetlejuice, Poltergeist 3. and probably some more I'm forgetting. There was one point where they zoom in on a film title and it's sandwiched between two GREAT films, one of which was Lair of the White Worm and the other was something I can't remember, and I just thought "those two films are so much better! Talk about them instead!" It's still got that feel, just like the first one. 

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Gun to head I'd probably have to say Inferno, The House by the Cemetery, and Black Sabbath. 

EDIT: Oh yeah I forgot, the last film on the list IIRC was Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. I was real happy that got a spot, and it was a nice place to leave off. Kinda pointed to the direction of horror in the beginning of the '90s (true crime/"psychological thrillers" like Silence, Seven, etc.). 

EDIT II: Just remembered, the other film across from The Lair of the White Worm was Society. They even had brief footage of that so they definitely should have talked it up.

Edited by Curt McGirt
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8 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

Gun to head I'd probably have to say Inferno, The House by the Cemetery, and Black Sabbath. 

Suspiria, Black Sabbath, Don't Torture A Duckling

8 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

EDIT II: Just remembered, the other film across from The Lair of the White Worm was Society. They even had brief footage of that so they definitely should have talked it up.

Two of the movies I watch on the regular every few months or so.  They should be coming back into rotation in the Spring.

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In Them, a Black family moves into an all-white Los Angeles neighborhood in the 1950s, and you can probably guess that the move doesn’t go smoothly. Not only will the family have to deal with racist neighbors, but it looks like something supernatural is lurking about as well. The new horror anthology series (or terror anthology series, as they’re officially calling it) is headed to Amazon in April.

The cast includes Deborah Ayorinde, Ashley Thomas, Alison Pill, Shahadi Wright Joseph, Melody Hurd, and Ryan Kwanten. 

For those of you concerned about maybe not getting a second season of Lovecraft Country..

 

 

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