The Horror Thread - Part 1

[Piper Maru]

John Carpenter's Halloween and Halloween II are my favorite slasher films. I like Jason and Freddy as well, I just prefer Myers.

 

[the_ultimate_evil]

i'm not talking in film quality i agree that halloween is better than friday, not nightmare though

i'm talking at the idea that myers is considered scarier and more effective as a supernatural slasher that he seems to top lists

 

[Heretic]

The Evil Dead remake also did pretty well for itself.

I was kind of bummed out that You're Next didn't take off. That film is tons of fun and far better than the Purge.

Yeah, Evil Dead as well...though I believe that had a higher than normal budget (just a guess) and it didn't perform up to what everyone hoped, since it is probably the 5th biggest Horror movie of the year so far (assuming that Insidious 2 makes a bit more after this weekend).

You're Next is a bad sign for slasher Horror. That movie was so cheap that it likely will make money anyway...but I really think that the general audience is no longer enamored by the killer-type movies hacking people up...we're definitely into the possession/haunted house stuff. I tend to prefer the stuff that has a creepy vibe/suspense type stuff...so I'd like to see some of that stuff given a shot at the box office.

 

[the last son]

I don't know I haven't watched any Friday films. I've seen most of the Halloween films. I watched Freddy vs Jason as a kid and that was all I needed to know about Jason. A guy stalking his sister with motives is more creepy than just a big teen slasher

 

[Piper Maru]

i'm not talking in film quality i agree that halloween is better than friday, not nightmare though

i'm talking at the idea that myers is considered scarier and more effective as a supernatural slasher that he seems to top lists

Michael will always be the scariest slasher to me. In the original film it may not be outright stated that he is supernatural, but he did get stabbed in the eye with a clothes hanger and shot 5-6 in the heart and survived that fall. For me he gives off that sense of impending doom. But hey, that's just my opinion.

 

[StarLord]

The Shape was a force of nature. Carpenter made an absolute horror classic.

I quite like Halloween II (1981) and H20 wasn't all that bad, but the rest are embarassing. A curse?, the 'man in black'? and then all that nonsense with his niece and ugh, whatever...

 

[Piper Maru]

I only care about Halloween 1 & 2. The sequels and remakes are Tommy Doyle's bad dreams as far as I'm concerned.

 

[NDX]

I watched Halloween III not too long ago. I actually really enjoyed what I was watching. If it wasn't named Halloween, it probably would have gone over much better with fans.

 

[Piper Maru]

I watched Halloween III not too long ago. I actually really enjoyed what I was watching. If it wasn't named Halloween, it probably would have gone over much better with fans.

Agreed! I like Halloween III a lot, as a stand alone film, it's fine.

 

[bullets]

I don't know I haven't watched any Friday films. I've seen most of the Halloween films. I watched Freddy vs Jason as a kid and that was all I needed to know about Jason. A guy stalking his sister with motives is more creepy than just a big teen slasher

I think Jason jumping out of the water in the original Friday the 13th was one of the creepiest things I've ever seen. Of course it's not as effective now because I've seen it a dozen times , but that got me good the first time I watched it.

The rest of the series I was just waiting for him to show up in every scene. Although the idea of someone stabbing me from under the bed stuck in my head for a long time. That was a good twist on a common fear of being afraid if something is under the bed.

I didn't bother with the Halloween films for years because it seemed like the same concept. So I was already desensitized by the time I reached Michael. I'd say Halloween is better on a technical level , but not as scary. I did get a couple nightmares from watching Nightmare on Elm Street , but enjoyed those films the most and got over that quickly.

If we're talking about concept alone I think Hellraiser's Cenobites are the scariest.

 

[NDX]

Agreed! I like Halloween III a lot, as a stand alone film, it's fine.

Tacking the Halloween name to it made people expect Myers to be in it. Just a mask in a commercial was not enough. That's where a lot of people I talk to get disappointed and can't get past to see a good movie.

 

[Thundarr]

It's mostly because Halloween is a far superior film. Holds up even today. It's probably the best movie I've seen at suspense.

Exactly! The suspense is always the best part of horror movies, and John Carpenter's Halloween utilizes it to great effect. It's like playing with a Jack In The Box when you were a kid . . . You know that the clown is gonna pop up out of the box when the tune gets to "Pop goes the weasel", but it still makes you jump when it happens.

Unfortunately too many of today's horror film makers don't understand this very basic and simple concept. If RZ's Halloween were a Jack In The Box, the monkey and the weasel wouldn't even make it around the mulberry bush.

 

[66 Face]

Insidious 2 is opening HUGE...with a 20 million dollar Friday and an expected 43 million dollar weekend (its budget was 5 million). This is DOUBLE what the studio expected, and if the numbers hold up, this will be the biggest debut of any movie that has ever opened in September. The Purge did really well too...so this studio is on fire right now...making mega-bank on tiny budgets (The Purge made 85 million worldwide off of a 3 million budget). Add in the mega-success of The Conjuring (which I also get mixed up and assume is from the same studio, but apparently its not), Mama and a few others that did well and Horror is having one of its best years in a long, long time.

While I didn't really like The Evil Dead... Thank God for that movie. Some sort of rated R horror needs to do well before all we get is this glorified Goosebumps crap that comes out every year.

Hands down the best horror movie I've seen this year is the Maniac remake. I wish that did better but I'm happy they went hard core with it... in the end I think that's what did it in.

 

[The Joker]

Exactly! The suspense is always the best part of horror movies, and John Carpenter's Halloween utilizes it to great effect. It's like playing with a Jack In The Box when you were a kid . . . You know that the clown is gonna pop up out of the box when the tune gets to "Pop goes the weasel", but it still makes you jump when it happens.

Good analogy since Michael literally pops up like a Jack in the box a couple of times in the movie, like in the back seat of Annie's car when he kills her.

 

[chamber-music]

I've never really found slasher movies scary.

I can find enjoyment in them sometimes but I don't find big silent dudes in masks scary. The fact everyone in slasher films acts like an idiot usually means I don't care if they live or die or I actively want the killer to off them because they are annoying.

I like when intelligent filmmakers and writers do a post-modern take on a slasher or horror film similar to Final Destination or Scream or Cabin In The Woods in which not only do the victims know the tropes of the genre but actually counters them. Its interesting to see the creators try and come up with ways to kill people when the victims and audience thinks they know the cliché ways the killer will get them and then they kill them in ways people completely didn't see coming.

 

[redhawk23]

Tacking the Halloween name to it made people expect Myers to be in it. Just a mask in a commercial was not enough. That's where a lot of people I talk to get disappointed and can't get past to see a good movie.

See everything would have been fine if Halloween II wasn't about Myers and the series just started off as anthology series as they intended.

 

[The Shape]

The Shape was a force of nature. Carpenter made an absolute horror classic.

I quite like Halloween II (1981) and H20 wasn't all that bad, but the rest are embarassing. A curse?, the 'man in black'? and then all that nonsense with his niece and ugh, whatever...

Love seeing others refer to Michael as The Shape. It's where my username is from, clearly.

And yeah, I very much enjoy H20 since it was a great epic showdown for Michael and Laurie Strode. It greatly benefitted from ignoring the majority of Halloween sequels which allowed them to keep it simple and bring the series back to its roots. Halloween II (1981) is alright, but somehow appears to be even more dated than the original Halloween. The characters (including Laurie) are much more annoying. I also did NOT like Dick Warlock taking over for Nick Castle as Michael Myers. His mask was all ****ed up and silly looking (I'm sure some of you know the story behind that), he was way smallers, and his robotic "walk" was more silly than creepy.

Having said that, I still own and appreciate all the Halloween sequels since I used to be way more of a Michael Myers fanatic than I am now. While most of the films suck as a whole, there are still a handful of cool Michael Myers moments peppered throughout the series. Halloween 6 has a few badass ones and also gave us the best Michael Myers mask since the original, whereas Halloween 5 has no redeeming qualities whatsoever

 

[StarLord]

It wasn't just the scripts that were bad about the sequels. I mean, most of the time the mask looked terrible.

I think it was Halloween 5, where he looked the worst. It was like they put shoulder pads in the jumpsuit.

 

[Rocketman]

May the Lord continue to shine his light on James Wan and his talents.

Spoiler

But seriously, best Horror Director of the 21st Century? Who else has beaten him in the 2000s?

 

[Rocketman]

It wasn't just the scripts that were bad about the sequels. I mean, most of the time the mask looked terrible.

I think it was Halloween 5, where he looked the worst. It was like they put shoulder pads in the jumpsuit.

That almost looks like a fan film that someone clobbered together for $20.

You know what's funny - that's an example of the other end of the spectrum that also doesn't please me. That's one poor take on the character, and so is this mess:

Please, for the love of God, just give me my classic Michael:

 

[The Shape]

It wasn't just the scripts that were bad about the sequels. I mean, most of the time the mask looked terrible.

I think it was Halloween 5, where he looked the worst. It was like they put shoulder pads in the jumpsuit.

That's from Halloween 4. Believe it or not, Halloween 5's is WAY worse...

 

[The Shape]

Halloween 6's mask is much closer to the original's and I like the way Michael was shot in that film. He was brutal, but not over-the-top brutal like Rob Zombie's abomination.

 

[StarLord]

That's from Halloween 4. Believe it or not, Halloween 5's is WAY worse...

Someone ran over his head. Lol.

 

[Man in the Suit]

Halloween 6's mask is much closer to the original's and I like the way Michael was shot in that film. He was brutal, but not over-the-top brutal like Rob Zombie's abomination.

I don't think Zombie's was over-the-top. If anything the violence was way more realistic and ugly.

 

[Heretic]

There was an anger in Rob Zombie's kills...he didn't just kill, he brutalized, grunting all the way. That is yet another issue that people have with the concept. The idea is that The Shape is just random evil, a force of nature in a sense. Having that anger changes the character in a way that many fans weren't willing to accept as a "legitimate" take on the character.