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2020 HORROR MOVIES


Dolfan in NYC

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12 hours ago, RIPPA said:

Final Trailer for the Fantasy Island re-imagining

I mean I would call Fantasy Island with a horror twist more re-imagining than reboot

The very first Fantasy Island pilot was rather sinister and there have been quite a few segments in the show that were really dark with a lot of ironic morality play stuff going on.  The show could only be but so dark though since if came on right after the fucking Love Boat.

In later seasons, there were a lot of episodes with heavy supernatural overtones and Mr. Roarke even had a running feud going on with Lucifer (Roddy McDowall) for one or two shows.   IIRC McDowall returned to the show to play Mr. Roarke in a late 90's revival of the show that didn't last that long.

I see this movie is more of a return to Fantasy Island's true roots rather than a horror overhaul, which is why I'm actually excited by this movie.

Edited by J.T.
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Gretel & Hansel - 56% RT.  

That's around the percentage that Underwater had and it was fairly decent, so I may check this out if word of mouth review is positive.

The Lodge starts on Feb. 7th.

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YouTube served me an episode of later season Fantasy Island (with Julie instead of Tattoo) 

1. genie Francis wants to meet her real father, against wishes of her mom (Carolyn Jones in a wacky wig) and stepfather (William windom). One of the possible fathers is Alan hale. 
 

2. Edward Winter is an archaeologist who wants fame. Rourke gives him an ancient dagger, but John Carradine and his friends have other plans. 
 

this could be a @piranesispecial.

 

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The Ebert reviewer and the Bloody Disgusting reviewer gave Gretel and Hansel 3 1/2 stars (even though said former reviewer did not like Underwater) and Daily Grindhouse liked it too, so I think it's another sleeper you might want to get out to before it vanishes. Apparently you shouldn't worry about the PG-13 either, because it's some pretty dark stuff. 

In other news, Shudder just got in Bliss, which I'm going to watch ASAP. They also have 3 From Hell coming soon, which btw totally stood up to a second viewing.

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I actually liked Underwater for what it was.  My mom, sister, and daughter went to see The Turning on Saturday afternoon and didn't care much for it.   They probably should've went to see the Gretel / Hansel joint instead.  I may take my kid to the G&H matinee tomorrow since I don't have night duty on Super Bowl Sunday.

I saw Bliss and thought it was pretty good albeit a bit overproduced and the plot is a tad too schizophrenic for my liking.  It's almost as if Abel Ferrara or Gaspar Noe wanted to make a movie critiquing the predatory nature of the art business using vampirism as a metaphor and then decided in mid-shoot to make an actual vampire movie.

I really enjoyed 31, Devil's Rejects and most of the other materiel set in the Zombieverse so I figure I'll probably like 3 From Hell.

Edited by J.T.
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9 minutes ago, Curt McGirt said:

I figure it's probably a Gaspar Noe version of The Addiction. That works for me. 

Yeah, it dawned on me after I typed what I did that Abel actually did make a vampire movie of sorts.  I totally forgot that I've seen The Addiction which indeed feels like a social critique disguised as a vampire movie.  I blame night duty and a jacked up body clock..

And yes, Bliss has a very Noe or Von Trier feel to it.  Works for some and probably not for others.

Edited by J.T.
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Horror peeps: are any of the Full Moon offerings worth checking out? I will probably get around to CASTLE FREAK and HEAD OF THE FAMILY someday, but I’m wondering if the  PUPPET MASTER or TRANCERS franchises have any redeeming qualities.

The only PUPPET MASTER I’ve seen is the RETRO PUPPETMASTER RiffTrax and if the rest of the series is of a similar quality, it’s probably a pass from me.

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3 From Hell was basically Rejects with no remotely likable characters (to dread eventually being slaughtered) and the Firefly clan showing no vulnerability whatsoever. It was good though. Standout moments include a face peeling scene (and ensuing chase down neighborhood streets) that outdoes the lone survivor from Banjo & Sullivan getting mowed down by a truck in Rejects.

Zombie will probably wait at least two more movies before offing the Firefly clan again, and when he does, I hope they get sent back to hell by Hungarian Charles Bronson, Robert Bronzi. To be honest, I haven't even seen any of Bronzi's movies but I heard his lines had to be dubbed in Death Kiss. What better way to end the series than having them killed by a Charles Bronson clone that has to be dubbed over? 

Edited by FluffSnackwell
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I remember Head of The Family being on par with something like The Granny. (I just looked up the latter on IMDB and saw that Shelly Winters was actually considered for the role of the Granny. What a strange trip that would've been.) Jacqueline Lovell gets naked in Head of the Family, if you're into that sort of thing. She was probably the most attractive of the 90's Skinemax actresses. 

Edited by FluffSnackwell
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The Devil's Rejects didn't have any likable characters either. Even Charlie ended up being a snake. The truth is the Fireflys themselves are the likable characters, which is why 3 From Hell is entertaining: you want to spend some more time with them. 

As far as Full Moon goes, going down the filmography up until I stopped watching, I liked: 

Spoiler

 

Puppet Master 1-5. I and III are actual Good Movies and III is probably the best film Full Moon ever came out with. 

Subspecies 1-3. Solid vampire trash. 

Dollman. Decent sci-fi/action pic. 

Crash and Burn. Solid sci-fi actioner in the Terminator mold.

Demonic Toys. Solid slasher/demon trash. 

The Pit and the Pendulum. Lance Henriksen as Torquemada? Are you kidding me?!

Trancers I-III. Solid sci-fi/horror/action stuff. III is the best IIRC. 

Lurking Fear. Another gory cheapie made in Band's Italian castle, don't remember much about this one.

Shrunken Heads. Higher production value and humorous. 

Oblivion. Same as above, a sci-fi western this time. Decent cast including Meg Foster! It was also written by Peter David of comics fame. 

Castle Freak. VERY dark, depressing, and super violent. Another castle offering but way better.

 

I think I saw some of the Vampire Journals pictures and those were okay, but that's around the time I moved/grew up/the video stores started dying out/I lost interest. Actually my favorite of this period were Dollman vs. Demonic Toys that at a whopping hour of runtime I probably saw a dozen times, and Puppet Master 4 and 5 which are totally kid-friendly instead of the slasher versions earlier. I never got to see Shadowzone, Meridian, Netherworld, Dr. Mordred, Robot Wars, Dark Angel or Invisible (all of which might be good), did see Seedpeople, Arcade, Bad Channels, Mandroid, and Trancers 4 and 5 all of which were the pits. Out of those I don't think Bad Channels even knew what kind of movie it wanted to be but either Seedpeople (hilariously bad) or Arcade (you really don't want to watch) are the worst.

Empire Pictures is for another post.

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Hey! Speaking of Empire: 

This is the "lost" H.P. Lovecraft segment from the Charles Band anthology film Pulse Pounders, starring the Re-Animator team of Jeffery Combs, Barbara Crampton and David Gale along with good old David Warner. The Trancers segment is on Youtube as well but I'm not sure about the Dungeonmaster one; if you have the Full Moon streaming service they have the whole movie. Oh, and apparently this is pretty NSFW.

Edited by Curt McGirt
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I guess you never saw her on whatever CBS soap she used to/may still be on (The Bold and the Beautiful?)

Interestingly, I know this because one day I walked in on my mom watching either Bold or Young and the Restless as a kid, saw her, and promptly had a long and hearty internal laugh at the situation. 

Edited by Curt McGirt
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I was referring to Banjo & Sullivan as the likable characters, or at least not scumbags like the warden in 3 From Hell, who was just asking for trouble. 

Barbara Crampton still looked mighty fine in Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich. I guess she wasn't into the same Jack Daniels, Bolivian marching powder, and cancer sticks regimen as other scream queens. 

Did anybody else ever watch either of the movies where Jeffrey Combs teamed up with Ashley Laurence from Hellraiser? Lurking Fear was an action/horror movie from Full Moon, and the other one actually starred Jeffrey Combs as basically an action hero. 

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Damn, I don't remember Combs or Lawrence being in Lurking Fear. I forgot that the Band castle was in Bucharest too, though there might have been an Italian one in the '70s/'80s? Charles Band's dad Albert owned it I think and they shot Mansion of the Doomed there. The Bucharest filming definitely was the Subspecies films and probably a ton of others. 

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14 hours ago, Control said:

Horror peeps: are any of the Full Moon offerings worth checking out? I will probably get around to CASTLE FREAK and HEAD OF THE FAMILY someday, but I’m wondering if the  PUPPET MASTER or TRANCERS franchises have any redeeming qualities.

The only PUPPET MASTER I’ve seen is the RETRO PUPPETMASTER RiffTrax and if the rest of the series is of a similar quality, it’s probably a pass from me.

FUCK YEAH. Full Moon was my a massive part of my VHS childhood.

The first 3 Puppet Masters are worth a look. The third one is where the Puppets stop being bad guys and start killing Nazis. After that...you're on your own.

You should also hit up Demonic Toys and Dollman vs. Demonic Toys. I guess you could/should fit in Dollman, but when I was a kid I'd already scene so much Making Of material on it from the Full Moon Studios featurettes that it wasn't necessary.

There's also the Doctor Mordrid and the Subspecies movies.

After somewhere around 1996/97, they started cutting even more corners. They went from standard B movies to "oh I think they ran out of film and just stopped" movies. I certainly wouldn't use "Retro Puppetmaster" as a reference to what the early Full Moon days were. 

 

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There are a couple reasons Full Moon went to shit, I think.

1. They blew their budgets trying somewhat bigger stuff like Oblivion, Shrunken Heads, and Castle Freak.

2. Most of that money probably came from the ridiculously large (for them) video success of Prehysteria! from their children-oriented Moonbeam sub-label, which had to dry up at some point with their release schedule. I mean they were running Full Moon, Moonbeam, and the softcore Torchlight label all at the same time so that bubble had to burst.

3. I also read somewhere a rumor that Charlie Band embezzled money from Paramount which may have been why they were dropped, thus the change from Full Moon Entertainment to Full Moon Pictures. 

There's a lot of info on the Wikipedia for them here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_Moon_Features

Anyway, I forgot all about Banjo and Sullivan. I guess there were some decent people in Devil's Rejects after all.

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Gretel & Hansel did not do well as it only made $6.1 million over the weekend (despite opening in over 3000 theaters)

At least its budget is only like $5 million and it won't be the disaster that Underwater was

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