The Horror Thread - Part 5

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[Heretic]

Let me ask all you horror buffs out there - Can a vampire still be scary? How can vampires still be scary? Or has pop culture de-fanged the movie monster?

It can be...it's just a matter of whether Hollywood wants to make them scary. There is too much of a pull to make it an action movie or something that is sexy or cool (even one of my favorite films this year, Only Lovers Left Alive is guilty of basically existing to show how cool these vampires are).

If they can just say screw it and go for a Horror vibe, then it can be done.

 

[Mrs. Wayne]

The last Horror movie that has made me feel uneasy and terrified for a few days, was Sinister.

 

[Jesse]

Always meant to watch that, but never did. I'll put it on my list.

The first one is pretty good. There's also a sequel and a mini series prequel that were alright.

 

[Jesse]

Was anyone else as bummed as I was when FEARnet went off the air? It used to be my go to for horror movies and series. Too bad we don't get Chiller TV here.

 

[Kane52630]

Also Matt...if you want a good new spin on vampires, check out Afflicted.

 

[Heretic]

Watched Come Back To Me (2014), which is on Netflix instant streaming and apparently is based on a book.

I don't want to reveal anything...but the official synopsis reveals most of the things that are supposed to be surprises. Don't get me wrong...you won't exactly be shocked by most of these "surprises"...it's pretty obvious...but the movie acts like they are supposed to be surprises. Also, you'll know who the bad guy is in their first scene...and then like an hour later it gives the big dramatic music when the movie finally reveals what you knew the entire time.

Fortunately, there is a kind of fun take on the concept. Nothing that will change the Horror world...just something I haven't seen before. I actually kind of dig the concept once it kicks in (too late for me to really care about the film itself).

The production values are kinda low, but I'm used to that. The acting is passable for the most part, but not great. I wish the movie was good enough to pay off the concept...or maybe they could have at least focused more on the concept instead of making us wait so long for the payoff.

 

[Loki882]

I felt like 30 Days of Night did a pretty decent job of giving Vampires their balls back. They're not charming, they're not brooding, they're not tortured, and they certainly don't sparkle in the sunlight. They're land-sharks who exists to consume and will rip your throat out.

 

[Matt Mortem]

Also Matt...if you want a good new spin on vampires, check out Afflicted.

Heard that one was good too. Thanks for the recommendations.

 

[redhawk23]

It can be...it's just a matter of whether Hollywood wants to make them scary. There is too much of a pull to make it an action movie or something that is sexy or cool (even one of my favorite films this year, Only Lovers Left Alive is guilty of basically existing to show how cool these vampires are).

If they can just say screw it and go for a Horror vibe, then it can be done.

Even though Only Lovers Left Alive presented their Vampires as super cool and suck I still found a lot of that film to be quite unnerving. [BLACKOUT]Them disposing of Anton Yelchin's body in a vat of acid in an abandoned parking garage in particular. [/BLACKOUT] Much of the atmosphere of their presentation of Detroit as well. Living in St. Louis, it often feels like we're just the worst parts of Detroit on a 20 year delay.

 

[chamber-music]

Only Lovers Left Alive reminded me of The Hunger in a way.

I liked the vampires on Penny Dreadful.

 

[redhawk23]

Was anyone else as bummed as I was when FEARnet went off the air? It used to be my go to for horror movies and series. Too bad we don't get Chiller TV here.

I'm also very sad that even their web presence is gone. They streamed a lot of great movies for free and had good writers working for them.

Damn shame.


In other news, I finally tracked down a theater that is playing the Babadook!

I enjoyed the movie very much. Very good atmosphere and acting. I really appreciated how the filmmakers stayed away from pretty much any musical stings. There a few moments that lesser films absolutely would have tried to drive home with loud stabs of music but this film just kind of lets happen. Which is quite unnerving because even when its a matter of someone covered in blood, it takes a moment to realize what you're looking at.

Also, as my fiance said early on in the movie, the true horror is having children.

Highly recommended if you can find it. Also its on video on demand.

 

[Naked Shia]

it's not having children. It's being the single mom of a special child.

 

[kvz5]

The last Horror movie that has made me feel uneasy and terrified for a few days, was Sinister.

It's not perfect but I thought the "home video" parts were very well done. They were simple yet very disturbing especially once they're showing who were doing the murders. Those parts stayed on my mind more than I'd like.

I felt like 30 Days of Night did a pretty decent job of giving Vampires their balls back. They're not charming, they're not brooding, they're not tortured, and they certainly don't sparkle in the sunlight. They're land-sharks who exists to consume and will rip your throat out.

Yep, IMO 30 Days of Night is one of the better, scarier vampire films. I remember getting chills in that scene where the victim said "please god" and the vampire responded with "no god".

 

[Mrs. Wayne]

It's not perfect but I thought the "home video" parts were very well done. They were simple yet very disturbing especially once they're showing who were doing the murders. Those parts stayed on my mind more than I'd like.

Those home videos were pretty eerie and the soundtrack did not help. I also thought Bughul? (whatever the thing's name was) looked pretty terrifying.

 

[redhawk23]

Those home videos were pretty eerie and the soundtrack did not help. I also thought Bughul? (whatever the thing's name was) looked pretty terrifying.

Weirdly the Bughul design came from a random person on the internet's Halloween costume. The filmmakers paid them for it.

 

[Mrs. Wayne]

Is that so?...that's pretty neat.

 

[redhawk23]

Is that so?...that's pretty neat.

Yeah I tracked down a quote from the director Scott Derrickson.

I spent a lot of time online looking for images for inspiration. I went to Flickr and typed in the word "horror" and got hundreds of thousands of horror photography images. I looked through tens of thousands of pictures and created a folder of images that I thought would be good jumping-off points for Bagul. I whittled it down to maybe 15, and sent those to Cargill, and he picked out one that he really liked. And the more we looked at that image, the more we liked it. It suddenly occurred to me, what if "it" was exactly this. So we bought the picture for a couple hundred dollars. And gave the guy a concept design credit, and that's the look of Bagul/Mr. Boogie.

http://io9.com/5951007/how-internet-art-inspired-the-monster-in-ethan-hawkes-sinister

 

[Mrs. Wayne]

Oh that's pretty awesome. Thanks for the link. I heard they were making a second Sinister? Hopefully if they are making a sequel, they tackle more on the origin of Bagul. The snipets of the legend they explained in the film really intrigued me. And the score was spine chilling awesome.

 

[Motown Marvel]

i recently watched a french horror movie from 2007 called INSIDE. i'm almost never impressed with modern horror, but this one was very very good!!! watch it. creepy and brutal.

 

[Naked Shia]

i've seen we are what we are (the remake). It's very well shot, the acting is superb and so is the photography. The soundtrack is also beautiful. A pity the story is so badly written. You can expect everything that happens. And the last part is really stupid, while it thinks it's clever. I get what they were aiming for, but it's so over the top, not only doesn't it work in the context of the movie, but it's also one of those instance where the writer thinks he has a great idea, and decides to do it, whether it fits the character development or not. I was really disappointed in the end.

 

[chamber-music]

i recently watched a french horror movie from 2007 called INSIDE. i'm almost never impressed with modern horror, but this one was very very good!!! watch it. creepy and brutal.

The directors of Inside also made a underrated Guillermo del Toro style Horror fantasy film called Livide.

 

[Heretic]

Watched Cam2Cam (2014), a new movie that thinks its about the dangers of internet chatting, but is about a decade behind the times and loses focus completely.

I'll try to avoid spoilers, but I have a lot to say. I won't say anything specific like "and then Jason cuts off the black guy's head" or anything though...it's just difficult to talk about this movie since it is so disjointed.

Spoiler

It starts with a woman having a sexy chat in an online video type site.

I'll say now that the typing dialogue is ATROCIOUS! They seemed to want to show "text" style typing, but boy did they strain almost every word with that nonsense.

Also, the woman is apparently a moron, because it took her WAY too long to realize that something was up.

Anyway...about midway through the scene I get an I Spit On Your Grave type vibe. There is certainly room for exploitative Horror...but this was weird. They seem to be afraid to show nudity when it would make sense (taking great care to not show the woman nude, except in a brief view of her laptop screen where her face is not shown, so it could have been a body double)...but then throughout the film they show nudity and other "shocking" things when it serves no purpose at all to the plot...including one head-scratching moment later in the film that I won't spoil, but...uh...what??

Aside from the text talk and the overall stupidity of the woman, the opening sequence is BY FAR the best part of the movie and was actually pretty darn effective.

Regardless, about 25 minutes into the feel of the film COMPLETELY changes. In fact, this movie was initially a short film...and I wouldn't be surprised if the opening 25 minutes was the original release, and then they just tacked the rest of the movie on later when they got the budget. It ends up being a terrible mystery thriller, but with a third of the movie already gone there's no time to actually develop anything.

It ends up being a story you didn't want to see starring characters you barely know with motivations that are unexplained and a resolution that makes no sense (including an absurd tacked on final scene that makes no sense given not only what we saw before, but what had just happened immediately before that). Plus, as I mentioned, the makers don't seem to understand the internet or how social networking sites work.

The lead character is as dumb as a bag of bricks. Overly committed to a stupid, really kind of bizarre goal, yet naively trusting everyone she meets despite clear evidence that she shouldn't.

On the plus side, the shots of Thailand look great! All the neon and stuff makes for a cool, if unnecessary setting. The way the movie handles the locals is kind of racist...and it makes the city they are in look like a horrible place with incredibly stupid police.

 

[Heretic]

i've seen we are what we are (the remake). It's very well shot, the acting is superb and so is the photography. The soundtrack is also beautiful. A pity the story is so badly written. You can expect everything that happens. And the last part is really stupid, while it thinks it's clever. I get what they were aiming for, but it's so over the top, not only doesn't it work in the context of the movie, but it's also one of those instance where the writer thinks he has a great idea, and decides to do it, whether it fits the character development or not. I was really disappointed in the end.

No kidding! It's great until that stupid ending. Love the casting in that though (Julia Garner should be in more things, and I'd like to forget Sin City 2).