|
Post by gspdude on Jan 4, 2022 14:35:37 GMT
Curse of the Faceless Man(1958) Another FTV 50s B&W horror! How have I missed these? A man encased in stone at the destruction of Pompeii by Vesuvius is unearthed by archaeologists and goes in search of the reincarnation of his lost love, who happens to be engaged to our scientist protagonist. Sounds a lot like a Mummy movie. Has a narrator to move the plot along (and save time and money) and has some obvious goof-ups, still, I have a fondness for these kind of movies. 5.5/10.
|
|
|
Post by politicidal on Jan 4, 2022 14:37:14 GMT
|
|
|
Post by FridayOnElmStreet on Jan 4, 2022 21:55:53 GMT
5/10Scream like teen slasher film has its good bloody moments but it looks like this was trying to have some sort of message to it but I think that was a lost one. Basically, its very watchable but not great.
|
|
|
Post by FridayOnElmStreet on Jan 4, 2022 21:58:14 GMT
2/10Highly nasty film about a sick girl...self-explanatory there. Usually, I dig the gross and disturbing but this one I didnt.
|
|
|
Post by FridayOnElmStreet on Jan 4, 2022 22:00:16 GMT
1/10Really boring and pointless film that I really cant say anything good about. I got the DVD for like 3 bucks. Its a Troma film. The Troma extras on the DVD were far better than the actual film.
|
|
|
Post by FridayOnElmStreet on Jan 4, 2022 22:02:07 GMT
5/10The new Charels Bronson stars in this home invasion thriller thats a mix of horror and action. Pretty basic but an amusing enough watch.
|
|
|
Post by FridayOnElmStreet on Jan 4, 2022 22:05:19 GMT
2/10
Seriously what in the living hell happened to Bruce Willis? I just re watched the first two Die Hard films and he is so damn good in those. Now hes just a cranky guy who seems to hate acting but does it for the bucks. This is just a very generic film. Forgettable. Nice to see Shannon Doherty again though.
|
|
|
Post by FridayOnElmStreet on Jan 4, 2022 22:10:23 GMT
3/10Low budget filmmaker Bill Zebub made this really bizarre, dirty and just flat out crazy film about a guy who uses a genital growth lotion and turns his penis to a shark. It would be a crazy fun film it id didnt have a run time of 2hr. 29 min. Seriously its 2 and a half hours. Anyway its cool to see Erin Brown again. Haven't seen her in a while.
|
|
|
Post by FridayOnElmStreet on Jan 4, 2022 22:15:23 GMT
5/10Decent found footage horror about a woman giving birth to a demon child. Seemed kinda slow and points but the ending is rather shocking.
|
|
|
Post by FridayOnElmStreet on Jan 4, 2022 22:17:41 GMT
3/10Kevin Pollack and Mena Suvari. star is this generic ghost film.
|
|
|
Post by theravenking on Jan 5, 2022 18:23:53 GMT
The House with Laughing Windows (1976; Pupi Avati) This movie has quite a reputation for being one of the best Italian horror films of the 70s. Here's the short plot summary from wikipedia: The film begins with a blurry sequence of a man being hacked to death accompanied by the monologue of the clearly deranged murderer. But already the next scene presents a stark contrast to this disturbing experience as we witness the arrival of young artist Stefano in a remote town, which as it seems can only be reached by ferry. It's a sunny day, Stefano catches the glance of a beautiful young woman, the music is more fitting to a sentimental romance movie and it's almost like the first minutes were just a bad dream. However this seemingly tranquil paradise slowly starts revealing its more disturbing aspects. Stefano receives threatening calls at his hotel urging him to abandon the restoration and to return home. And when his friend, who recommended him for the job, reveals to him, to have discovered something horrible, before falling to his death from a window, Stefano can make out a shadow of a person behind the curtains, suggesting that his friend was pushed, even though the police files the case away under suicide. Nevertheless this is a slow-burn of a movie and for long stretches nothing particularly eventful happens. Stefano keeps exploring the area, has sex with the local school teacher and begins a relationship with her pretty young replacement, while working on the mural inside the church. However from the beginning there is a sense, that there is something horribly wrong with this place. Although the inhabitants seem superficially friendly, they seem to be harbouring a disturbing secret. Director Avati proves himself to be a master of suspense as he keeps building a sense of almost unbearable dread with the simplest of methods. The creepy voice-over from the intro can be heard again later as Stefano plugs in a recording device he found in an attic, resulting in a short circuit plunging the room into darkness and the jabberings of the madman are as effective as the first time around, conjuring up images of incredible depravity and suffering. The above summary talks of brutal killings, but most of these take place off-screen and are really nothing particularly excessive. It's not until the end that The House with Laughing Windows opens the gates of blood so to speak, but even then we are far away from the most graphic gialli. The downside, as is so often the case with Italian genre pictures, is sadly the plot. There have been too many similar stories of this kind and as a whodunit or even dark conspiracy thriller The House with Laughing Windows allows itself too many plot-holes and implausibilities. I noticed some similarities to Don't Look Now as both movies are about the restoration of an old church and there's a midget character here as well. But a certain British horror classic would be an equally fitting comparison. Just like there the protagonist's failure seems inevitable from the beginning. We can sense he's heading towards his doom, and yet once it comes the (more emotionally than graphically) brutal finale is devastating. Just when you think that everything has been cleared up, House adds another late twist to its tail, and it's this finale scene which might make or break the movie for some. It could be called too much, destroying the carefully created atmosphere and going a bit over the top. Now, at first I was quite annoyed by this late revelation, since it seemed to turn a rather grim and serious movie almost into a sort of self-parody, but the more I've been thinking about it, the better I think it fits the film. Especially since there still remain several flaws in logic and things that are unexplained or make little sense, but it might be the best to think of The House with Laughing Windows as one of those bizarre nightmares operating somewhere on the borderlands between comedy and tragedy. While logic tells you, you shouldn't be scared, it's malignant influence proves difficult to escape.
|
|
|
Post by Nalkarj on Jan 5, 2022 18:41:27 GMT
Now I’ve gotta see The House with Laughing Windows, theravenking. Great review. I’m woefully underacquainted with gialli; I’ve really only seen a few early Mario Bavas (liked Black Sunday and The Girl Who Knew Too Much, wasn’t crazy about Black Sabbath). Also, I just love these lines:
|
|
mgmarshall
Junior Member
@mgmarshall
Posts: 2,081
Likes: 3,343
|
Post by mgmarshall on Jan 5, 2022 19:48:16 GMT
5/10The new Charels Bronson stars in this home invasion thriller thats a mix of horror and action. Pretty basic but an amusing enough watch. Gee, that just kinda makes me sad that the real Bronson never did a home invasion movie. That would've been kickass.
|
|
|
Post by lostinlimbo on Jan 5, 2022 21:56:34 GMT
She Walks the Woods (2019) A group of young adults who host a survival show head out off the grid to film their next episode, but encounter something unimaginable. Better than expected low-budget found footage horror. Still follows the standard sub-genre staples. Slow build-up with a focus on the banter between cast, but it all ends in a quick-fire of hysteria and grisly jolts. Still it had me engaged more so than most others, probably due the chemistry between the two hosts, mostly steady camerawork and the monster fx looks quite good from the small glimpses we see of it.
|
|
|
Post by theravenking on Jan 6, 2022 12:20:54 GMT
Now I’ve gotta see The House with Laughing Windows, theravenking . Great review. I’m woefully underacquainted with gialli; I’ve really only seen a few early Mario Bavas (liked Black Sunday and The Girl Who Knew Too Much, wasn’t crazy about Black Sabbath). Also, I just love these lines: I'm hardly a giallo expert myself, having only seen perhaps a couple dozen of them, and it's only in recent years that I began exploring this sub-genre as more and more previously obscure titles are becoming available in good quality. I've also been learning Italian, so watching these films in their original language I can even pretend I'm doing something for my education
Sometimes watching them can be as frustrating as fascinating though, occasionally I wish as much care would've gone into the construction of the plot as into the visual presentation, because as whodunits they aren't particularly plausible.
However there are even a few which were losely based on mystery novels from British or American crime authors such as The Bird With The Crystal Plumage adapted from The Screaming Mimi by Fredric Brown, or The Fifth Cord from a novel by the more obscure D.M. Devine.
|
|
|
Post by gspdude on Jan 6, 2022 13:32:07 GMT
Book of Fire(2015). A pretty girl on her 19th Birthday is beset by images of being trapped in a fire, and executions and torture in Purgatory(or Hell, I'm not sure)brought about by a cursed book from Roman empire days. Then she goes to a toga party, I guess at 19 that's your priority. Jason Mewes has a small, somewhat amusing role. 3/10.
|
|
|
Post by teleadm on Jan 6, 2022 19:10:11 GMT
Species 1995 directed by Roger Donaldson. An odd secret bunch were each has special skills, played by Ben Kingsley, Michael Madsen, Alfred Molina, Forest Whitaker and Marg Helgenberger, chases a result of an experiment gone awry. Mixing an Alien DNA with a Human DNA, creating "Sil", a sensual but deadly creature who can change from a beautiful woman to an armor-plated killing machine in the blink of an eye. The reason the scientists made it into a woman was, they thought, that a woman would be easier to handle (ha ha), but "Sil" should have been killed when the experiment was over, but she manages to escape, and they must eliminate her before she finds a suitable mate. It starts rather good, but when the chase is on it felt a bit flat, nearly like an old B-movie, but with a bigger budget. There are some scenes with female nudity, see it as a reason to watch it or as a warning, depending on your taste. The movie wasn't what I hoped it would be, since it sounded interesting, but I was a bit disappointed by the end. Popular enough to spawn a sequel and two direct-to-video sequels.
|
|
|
Post by politicidal on Jan 7, 2022 17:24:34 GMT
|
|
|
Post by Captain Spencer on Jan 8, 2022 3:59:00 GMT
The Premonition (1976) After a woman's adopted child is nearly abducted by the real mother, the foster mother begins to have scary visions. I remember when this obscure horror movie played on the CBS Late Show back in the 80s, but I didn't bother to watch it. Good thing too because I likely would have ended up falling asleep; it's prettty boring. It's now streaming on Shudder and I watched earlier this evening. Just seemed like a couple of neat ideas that didn't quite gel together. Too mild to be terrifying in spite of a few intense moments, and too slow-paced to hold one's attention. Plus a weak ending, to boot.
|
|
|
Post by politicidal on Jan 8, 2022 16:10:33 GMT
Surprised this wasn't made during his coke years.
|
|