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Post by Nalkarj on May 11, 2021 18:00:38 GMT
The Final Girls (gutsy premise to which the flick never lives up: not scary enough to be a slasher, funny enough to be a spoof, ’80s enough to be an ’80s homage, or emotional enough to be a drama) Oh yeah I saw the trailer for that one, and immediately lost all interest after that. I mean, it’s not terrible… There are quite a few things I liked about it. But its biggest miscalculation is ye olde hoary show-don’t-tell problem: It tells us the heroine grieved for her mom’s death but never shows her grief. That’s really an inexplicable choice. And it’s all the more annoying because both Happy Death Days successfully pulled off the drama-slasher-comedy blend this movie tried and failed to do.Agreed. I like that there’s no Mikey; one of my complaints about the original (like it though I do) is that it, despite the title, doesn’t do much with being set on Halloween. It actually could’ve taken place on any night of the year. Halloween III, meanwhile, does a lot with being set on Halloween—but it’s just not that good of a movie. The screenplay’s choppy, and the directing looks so uninspired. If Carpenter really wanted a Halloween-themed, not Myers-themed, series of movies, he should have directed this one himself. I kinda loved April Fool’s Day as well, but yes, something seems missing. I think that’s because something is missing: The movie was supposed to end with an actual murder, but Paramount cut this last twist as too dark. That probably would have made the movie more satisfying.Partly I’m just annoyed producer Moustapha Akkad didn’t go with Dennis Etchison’s original screenplay. It’s one of the best screenplays for a slasher I’ve ever read—not perfect, but clever and well-written. Etchison came up with the self-referential slasher years before Wes Craven’s New Nightmare and Scream—and made it come off as more natural to boot. That said, I don’t hate the film we got… Actually, it’s probably the only Halloween sequel I like. My real problem with it is that the opening is so good, so autumnal and spooky, and the rest of the movie is a goofy haunted-house ride. A fun goofy haunted-house ride, but still.
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Post by HorrorMetal on May 18, 2021 2:18:19 GMT
Scarecrow (2002) - A bullied teen is murdered and comes as a killer scarecrow to get revenge on his tormentors, how can you go wrong? Short answer, you can.
Piranha 3DD (2012) - Stupid title for a stupid movie. I thought the 2010 film was really fun and looked forward to this sequel. Piranhas attacking people at a water park sounds like an absolute blast, but unfortunately this awful movie is anything but.
Frightmare (1983) - A deceased horror movie star similar to Vincent Price comes back from the grave to terrorize those who disturbed his rest at a mortuary. Sounds awesome but could have been way better.
Popcorn (1991) - A deranged madman who can disguise himself as anyone picks off victims one by one at a movie theater showing horror marathons with props and gimmicks that pay tribute to William Castle. That's an excellent premise but unfortunately the movie is plagued by an annoying villain with an unbelievable backstory, awful acting, and various things that don't make sense (like whether or not the killer is supernatural or an ordinary human).
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Post by nicktatler76 on May 21, 2021 18:02:02 GMT
Oof, yeah, no shortage there. Some that come to mind for me: The Final Girls (gutsy premise to which the flick never lives up: not scary enough to be a slasher, funny enough to be a spoof, ’80s enough to be an ’80s homage, or emotional enough to be a drama) Halloween III (the low budget and lackluster directing kill the great premise and first-rate Dan O’Herlihy performance) Scream 4 (the script touches on interesting ideas—fame, celebrity, heroine revealed to be villain à la Christie’s Peril at End House —but never delves into them. As usual, the producers should’ve stuck with Kevin Williamson’s original screenplay) Halloween 2018 (again, some interesting ideas here, especially with Curtis’ character’s obsession with Myers. But it quickly becomes a generic and overproduced slasher) Us (Jordan Peele’s poorly written screenplay ruins his excellent premise and pictorial sense) There are certainly more; these just came to mind. And this list doesn’t begin to touch on those horrors I like but think could’ve been even better ( April Fool’s Day, Halloween 4). Us was appalling. There was an episode of Hammer House of Horrors which dealt with doppelgangers much better.
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Post by Nalkarj on May 21, 2021 18:21:21 GMT
Us was appalling. There was an episode of Hammer House of Horrors which dealt with doppelgangers much better. Yeah, I was kinda shocked at how bad it was. And some critics actually liked it!
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Post by Nalkarj on May 21, 2021 18:35:48 GMT
Death Ship and Ghost Ship, and I'm sure others. The best of the people happening upon an abandoned and possibly haunted ship in the ocean movies that I've seen is Triangle, but that's not really what that one's about. It's a great setup and makes for incredible atmosphere but nobody has capitalized on it properly yet as far as I can tell. Ghost Ship I didn’t hate, but I didn’t like it either. Most people seem to love the opening, but as hilariously over-the-top as it is, it just gives too much of the plot away. And the movie steals its plot almost beat-for-beat from the Disney Channel movie Tower of Terror (1997), which I actually think is better in every way. I haven’t seen Death Ship or Triangle. As for sea-set ghost stories, I watched The Haunting of the Mary Celeste (2020) a few months ago. Not a bad idea, a story based on the Mary Celeste, but if the movie isn’t the worst horror flick I’ve ever seen, it may just be the most boring. Slightly better was The Block Island Sound (2020). I grew up on Long Island, so it was cool to see a movie set in an area I know. Some parts worked; some (in particular the father’s ghost) were unintentionally hilarious. But it’s another one with a better premise than execution.
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Post by Nalkarj on May 21, 2021 18:40:55 GMT
Oh! How have I not mentioned the House on Haunted Hill remake (1999)? Excellent opening 20 mins. or so. A brilliantly hammy Geoffrey Rush as a cross between Vincent Price and Walt Disney. Genuinely good dialogue (!!!). And then it goes to hell in a handbasket, and and not in a good, horror-movie way. Such a disappointment.
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Post by novastar6 on May 22, 2021 12:03:02 GMT
Death Ship and Ghost Ship, and I'm sure others. The best of the people happening upon an abandoned and possibly haunted ship in the ocean movies that I've seen is Triangle, but that's not really what that one's about. It's a great setup and makes for incredible atmosphere but nobody has capitalized on it properly yet as far as I can tell. Ghost Ship I didn’t hate, but I didn’t like it either. Most people seem to love the opening, but as hilarious over-the-top as it is, it just gives too much of the plot away. And the movie steals its plot almost beat-for-beat from the Disney Channel movie Tower of Terror (1997), which I actually think is better in every way. I haven’t seen Death Ship or Triangle. As for sea-set ghost stories, I watched The Haunting of the Mary Celeste (2020) a few months ago. Not a bad idea, a story based on the Mary Celeste, but if the movie isn’t the worst horror flick I’ve ever seen, it may just be the most boring. Slightly better was The Block Island Sound (2020). I grew up on Long Island, so it was cool to see a movie set in an area I know. Some parts worked; some (in particular the father’s ghost) were unintentionally hilarious. But it’s another one with a better premise than execution.
It's too funny that you said that, last month I saw Tower of Terror for the first time and the opening scene, Ghost Ship was what immediately came to mind, if you watch Ghost Ship first, you are jaded and expect everybody in the elevator to be dismembered instead of just zapped and disappear.
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Post by novastar6 on May 22, 2021 13:51:33 GMT
Oh! How have I not mentioned the House on Haunted Hill remake (1999)? Excellent opening 20 mins. or so. A brilliantly hammy Geoffrey Rush as a cross between Vincent Price and Walt Disney. Genuinely good dialogue (!!!). And then it goes to hell in a handbasket, and and not in a good, horror-movie way. Such a disappointment.
Definitely could've been better, but over the years I've actually come to like it. It probably would've been better had it stuck to the original script, which went into further detail what the darkness was and how it came about.
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Post by Mulder and Scully on May 23, 2021 23:28:12 GMT
Wishmaster - A great concept and a perfectly cast Andrew Divoff as the title character. The movie never lived up to it's potential. The cheap low budget look didn't help a lot.
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