Curt McGirt Posted October 10, 2018 Share Posted October 10, 2018 Yeah, sometimes dead is better. Like that series. It is funny how much John Lithgow looks like Nick Nolte now. I honestly thought it was Nolte gonna be showing up until I heard Lithgow's voice on the trailer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.T. Posted October 10, 2018 Share Posted October 10, 2018 Okay, so here is my attempted 31 Days of Halloween watch list so far: Death Spa The Stuff Evilspeak The Blob reboot Southbound (finally watched it all the way through). Kolchak: The Night Strangler (Thank you, YouTube.) Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead (FUCKING AWESOME~!) Night Shadow 1989 (Yeah it was kinda bad, but it had a werewolf in it.) Scalps (Good ol' 80's cheesy gorehound stuff with demonic Native Americans attacking poor, defenseless white people) Not sure what I am going to watch tonight. I may have to suffer through Insidious: The Final Key since it is on HBO and my mom wants to see it. My movie watching will only be as good as the premier date and airing schedule for Channel Zero on Syfy. My movie watchlist will include the one I have to review for HH this year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt McGirt Posted October 10, 2018 Share Posted October 10, 2018 I always liked the gnarly VHS box art for Scalps but never rented it The trailer, however, makes me happy I didn't. MST3K/Rifftrax looks like they'd have a field day with it. EDIT: Oh shit, I just noticed it's a Fred Olen Ray film! That says it all. Now I might actually HAVE to watch it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt McGirt Posted October 10, 2018 Share Posted October 10, 2018 I found the Subspecies movies in full on Youtube if anyone wants to indulge in some gory vampire watching. Two and three are actually pretty solid, and Radu is a badass looking vampire. You should at least check out the reanimation sequence at the beginning of the second one which is awesome. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt McGirt Posted October 11, 2018 Share Posted October 11, 2018 Speaking of vampire reanimation scenes, I forgot that there's a pretty good one in Dracula, Prince of Darkness where they hang a victim upside down and drain his blood on the ashes of Dracula in his crypt below. And here I always remembered this one as being bloodless... It also has one of the most inventive Dracula deaths: Spoiler Drac is stuck on a patch of frozen ice and the hero shoots holes in it until he falls in and ends up drowning. Remember, vampires can't cross running water (well, the water isn't running, but it is water), so he can't escape. I suppose he could always fly off but only directly up? Okay so there are some holes in this theory but they get credit for inspiration however flawed. Finally saw the second half of The Devil's Bride/The Devil Rides Out. The giant tarantula was freaking me out. EDIT: Now Horror Hotel/City of the Dead is on, in beautiful black and white -- I mean, a really, really gorgeous restored print. And Sir Lee doesn't have an English accent! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.T. Posted October 11, 2018 Share Posted October 11, 2018 Insidious, The Last Key was a movie. Number 10 for the month. I think it is hilarious that this franchise has had two prequels straight. Leigh probably wanted the first film to stand alone, but the ending had enough wiggle room to warrant a sequel despite a major character being killed off in the last act. This is not an entirely bad movie, but it is lacking in the tension that made the first film so good. The boss demon is a great concept and there is mad chemistry between Elise and her doting duo of nerdy paranormal experts.. I kinda wish Elise had survived the first film because I believe that further sequels focusing on the new adventures of the Ghost Hunters probably would've turned out much better. Elise, Tucker, and Specs are the most interesting characters in the franchise and it is a shame that they finally get showcased in such a by the numbers piece of work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FluffSnackwell Posted October 11, 2018 Share Posted October 11, 2018 22 hours ago, J.T. said: Okay, so here is my attempted 31 Days of Halloween watch list so far: Kolchak: The Night Strangler Night Shadow 1989 (Yeah it was kinda bad, but it had a werewolf in it.) Scalps (Good ol' 80's cheesy gorehound stuff with demonic Native Americans attacking poor, defenseless white people) I'll see your Night Strangler and raise you The Norliss Tapes. Yes, Night Shadow is a fucking joke, Scalps might be fun to laugh at once you've already drank all your booze watching something better, and remind me to kick my own ass for still having not seen Dead Snow 2. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.T. Posted October 11, 2018 Share Posted October 11, 2018 I've been meaning to watch that Norliss Tapes pilot movie ever since I found that and a playlist of old episodes of THE DARKROOM WITH JAMES COBURN on the YouTubes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt McGirt Posted October 11, 2018 Share Posted October 11, 2018 Syfy is playing four of the Texas Chainsaws today and I just watched Leatherface: TCM III again (you'd have to pay me to bother watching 3D or the other Leatherface; the first remake that's on isn't bad though. Dunno why they didn't weasel The Beginning or The Next Generation in there). III had its David Schow script gutted and reconstituted along with the original negative in the editing room so it doesn't make much sense, but it still has some of his inventiveness. That isn't enough to save the movie's bacon though, nor is a solid, exasperated role from Ken Foree. I'm guessing this has the theatrical ending which doesn't make any damn sense; I'm pretty sure I saw the DVD version with the original ending and that was better. At least Leatherface looks fairly cool, his chrome chainsaw is baller, and there's a very young Viggo Mortensen as one of the killers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
driver Posted October 11, 2018 Share Posted October 11, 2018 On 10/10/2018 at 10:23 AM, J.T. said: Nothing in that reboot will be as awesome as the Ramones track in the final credits of the original movie. Dee Dee wrote that song in an hour sitting in the basement of Stephen King's' house. Don't worry, they've got it taken care of. Post Malone and Florida-Georgia Line are collaborating on the soundtrack. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FluffSnackwell Posted October 11, 2018 Share Posted October 11, 2018 Leatherface went from frightened guard dog to sexually confused frustrated teenager to full fledged rapist. Although there's no reason to believe the Leatherface in TCM 3 hanging out with the remaining members of Creedence Clearwater Revival in some bog marsh is the same wacko that was part of Drayton Sawyer's family of deranged barbecue wholesalers. As badly as TCM 3 was butchered, I still like the whole mess. I actually get a bigger kick out of the sleazy little weasel bastard Fredo than I do Chop Top. The ending was definitely fucked six ways from Sunday by the studio though. It's really just an excuse for the characters to get out a couple of more one liners, the movie to puss out on its own plot and of course the obligatory stinger. Just checked out the original ending on YouTube. It falls perfectly in line with the ending of the previous movies. Spoiler It's even something of a logical progression. Sally goes nuts after merely surviving the ordeal. Stretch goes nuts after outcrazying the bugfuck crazy little bastard of the bunch. Michelle gets to be the one that finally bashes in Leatherface's skull but still ends up just as cracked as the other two. If you consider Tourist Trap a spiritual cousin to the original movie, Molly ends up more batshit than any of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt McGirt Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 Thing is, Dave Schow originally wrote Leatherface as a rebellious teenager in the film, or at least wanted it to come off like that in subtext. He even had him wearing a leather jacket IIRC and they drew up some badass sketches that slowly got simplified... and simplified... and simplified, to where all that was left was the idea of the leg brace (which was initially made out of chromed bones). He wrote a two-part article about the making of the film for Fangoria that went into his woes over the production. He'd get fresh scripts in with entire pages taken out and replaced, which you could tell by the different page colors. At the end there were about five different colors including the original white. If you've ever read anything by Dave back then you'd trust him to come up with something probably as crazy if not crazier than The Next Generation. Turns out that ended up being the nuttiest one; even when they gave him a second chance with the script for TCM: The Beginning it seemed like only the pre-credit sequence, and the torture scenes, were up to his standards sadly. I still like that one but hey, gotta call it like I see it. Spoiler Oh, and killing Leatherface with a rock is pretty weak sauce. EDIT: Okay, I'm wrong; 2 is the nuttiest (and the best sequel). 4 is out there, but in a totally different way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.T. Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 Watched The Norliss Tapes on YouTube before my ill fated Xbox One game time and it was pretty good. So far, I am 11 for 11 on watching scary shit every night for the month of October. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dolfan in NYC Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 So... My friends and I have a weekly movie night. We all go to each others places rotating on a weekly basis and roll a dice to see who gets to pick the movie for that week. My friend Andrew (from the GTA crew @J.T.) won the roll this week, so for the first time ever, I watched HELLRAISER. So, I'm not really sure what I was expecting, but it was definitely more gross than scary. Practical effects and make up were great. But there were definitely some eyerolling moments ("Jesus wept" gtfoh) I liked the story, but I dunno. I was never scared. And the Cenobites were dispatched WAY too easily. Also, I guarantee you more than a few people's erotic awakenings happened during this movie. I get why it's a classic, but I was sort of middle of the road, leaning towards liking it. (Also, Cenobite ABSOLUTELY sounds like something you'd get at a Cinnabon, which makes me very hungry.) 2 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FluffSnackwell Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 5 hours ago, J.T. said: Watched The Norliss Tapes on YouTube before my ill fated Xbox One game time and it was pretty good. So far, I am 11 for 11 on watching scary shit every night for the month of October. The undead guy looked like the end result if Bryan Ferry was transforming into the Incredible Hulk instead of Bill Bixby. Also Sargoth looked like he could've easily fought the Hulk in a random episode much more convincingly than that old fart hulk. Damn shame Norliss Tapes didn't get picked up as a series. I'm sure multiple shows from much more ridiculous genres than paranormal investigator ran concurrently during the seventies. The recent Night Stalker series seemed to have more in common with the grizzled Norliss than the original Kolchak. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FluffSnackwell Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 The new Leatherface ended up not being anywhere near as awful as that Texas Chainsaw 3D garbage it was a prequel to. Spoiler The reason for him having a mask though doesn't seem that much different from the one given in the remake. Before The Beginning prequel showed that a chick actually hacked off his nose (now that was fucking weak) he was shown as a hideously deformed little baby with a cleft palate. However the 2003 movie implied he was once normal but that some flesh eating virus had destroyed his face. In the case of both the remake and the 2017 Leatherface, him getting his pretty face ruined and going catatonic does seem a little emo. The original Leatherface being a severely mentally challenged man who hated his own image because of how much he was bullied remains the most frightening incarnation. Next Generation sucked and doesn't even deserve inclusion because it totally disrespected Leatherface by turning him into Leather Shelly Winters. Its only real value is as a prime display of early Matthew McConaughey batshittery the way Deadfall or the cockroach eating vampire movie was for Nicolas Cage. Confused and frightened by puberty is probably a better description of Leatherface in Part 2 than a sexually frustrated teenager. It would have been interesting to know what Leatherface in Part 3 was actually supposed to be like. As it is, that version is the meanest motherfucker from the original franchise. He may have still gotten called an idiot by the father figure of the clan but unlike the previous two incarnations he definitely knew his own strength and became the bully instead of the bullied. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FluffSnackwell Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 Me and an idiot buddy have been making the Cinna-Mini-Bites joke for years. Also I'm surprised "Jesus Wept!" never got any run as a similar type of meme to the George C. Scott Hardcore reaction to godawful cinematic atrocities. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaedmc Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 2 hours ago, Dolfan in NYC said: So... My friends and I have a weekly movie night. We all go to each others places rotating on a weekly basis and roll a dice to see who gets to pick the movie for that week. My friend Andrew (from the GTA crew @J.T.) won the roll this week, so for the first time ever, I watched HELLRAISER. So, I'm not really sure what I was expecting, but it was definitely more gross than scary. Practical effects and make up were great. But there were definitely some eyerolling moments ("Jesus wept" gtfoh) I liked the story, but I dunno. I was never scared. And the Cenobites were dispatched WAY too easily. Also, I guarantee you more than a few people's erotic awakenings happened during this movie. I get why it's a classic, but I was sort of middle of the road, leaning towards liking it. (Also, Cenobite ABSOLUTELY sounds like something you'd get at a Cinnabon, which makes me very hungry.) I am not a fan of The Hellraiser flicks in general. I like the box and I like the look of Pinhead, but like you, I never felt scared. I think my issue was that I didn't know what ground we were standing on. Jason is a guy with a machete. I get how to deal with that. Freddy is in your dreams, control your fear, control the monster(or bury his bones on holy ground in the third one). I get those rules. In Hellraiser, I don't even remember or understand what is going on or what is stopping it from happening. It's just a collection of fucked up images(which I understand can scare people in itself) but without an idea of how this could affect ME, I can't put myself in it, and am thus never scared. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FluffSnackwell Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 My dad let me watch Hellraiser late on a Sunday school night when I was six. Freaky ass skinless people were sufficiently scary. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
piranesi Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 I love the sexual politics of Hellraiser. The idea that the lead lady is instantly hypnotized and enslaved by the first dude who could really lay proper pipe to the point that she is murdering fools. I really think Clive Barker thinks that's how ladies' insides work. 2 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 In a way, Andy Robinson almost more scary than Pinhead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swift Posted October 13, 2018 Share Posted October 13, 2018 Hey, I've watched some horror movies this month... The Unknown (Tod Browning, 1927) Lon Chaney stars as a guy on the run who has disguised himself as a circus freak with no arms (his arms are always strapped to his torso in a straightjacket type contraption) and has learned to throw knives with his feet (among other tasks) He falls for the daughter of the circus owner (a young Joan Crawford) who hates men's hands, in particular the gropey variety. He realises that he has been able to function very well with just his feet in everyday tasks so he pays a visit to some crazy surgeon to remove him of his arms. While he's away recuperating, his girl has learned to not hate hands so much after all and is schmoozed by his rival. Quite an odd, twisted movie. Hellraiser (Clive Barker, 1987) I never saw any of this but I remember being terrified by the imagery of this as a kid, so even though I don't find horror movies particularly scary, I felt an unusual sense of dread as I began this. In the end, it was quite goofy though. As mentioned above, the make up effects are top notch (I'll always prefer practical over CGI) but the film itself is quite convoluted and not horrific in the slightest. Nightbreed (Clive Barker, 1990) Later research told me this was the long pined for director's cut with 40 mins more footage. I can't imagine how awful the theatrical release was because this was awful. The only interest it held was, again, the practical effects and the bizarre choice to set the thing in Calgary so it was fun to see a couple of second unit shots of the city. He Knows You're Alone (Armand Mastroianni, 1980) Early slasher movie probably only known now for being the first onscreen role for Tom Hanks. He shows up midway through the movie as a character's new boyfriend but then weirdly never appears again. For a slasher, it was actually lacking any gore with very little blood. The only scene that would qualify (a decapitated head in a fishtank) actually made me laugh out loud for its cheap waxiness. Dracula (Terence Fisher, 1958) 45 year old Peter Cushing was quite sprightly wasn't he? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted October 13, 2018 Share Posted October 13, 2018 I remember reviewing Nightbreed back in the day and not really digging it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FluffSnackwell Posted October 13, 2018 Share Posted October 13, 2018 The only other noteworthy thing about He Knows You're Alone is the final girl would later play the English teacher in Three O'clock High. Between this and The Slumber Party Massacre, nondescript forty-something balding guys with salt and pepper hair were early default slasher prototypes. What I mean to say is they were lame as all hell. Still that really fake head in a fish tank is more memorable than anything in Slumber Party Massacre. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt McGirt Posted October 13, 2018 Share Posted October 13, 2018 I'm not delving into talk of Hellraiser until I read The Hellbound Heart again. And I might just start that right now. Nightbreed is great fun with a supervillain performance from David Cronenberg, at least IMO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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