soggy
Sophomore
@soggy
Posts: 732
Likes: 1,219
|
Post by soggy on Jul 31, 2022 7:29:47 GMT
A good film but a difficult to watch one. Can't say I "enjoyed it" but it certainly succeeds in what it sets out to do. 8/10
|
|
|
Post by gspdude on Jul 31, 2022 13:29:58 GMT
The Devil's Rain(1975) A solid cast wandering around in a movie about Devil worship and soul selling that makes little sense. Only Ernest Borgnine as the antagonist seems to be having any fun at all. Didn't much care for this movie when I saw it many years ago, and didn't much care for it now. 4/10.
|
|
|
Post by Captain Spencer on Jul 31, 2022 14:45:55 GMT
The Devil's Rain(1975) A solid cast wandering around in a movie about Devil worship and soul selling that makes little sense. Only Ernest Borgnine as the antagonist seems to be having any fun at all. Didn't much care for this movie when I saw it many years ago, and didn't much care for it now. 4/10. I haven't seen this one in a long time and I don't remember much about it, so I ought to check it out again. A hell of a cast! They must have been promised some pretty big paychecks.
|
|
|
Post by telegonus on Jul 31, 2022 18:48:21 GMT
I enjoyed it, rate it a notch above average for its production values and cast. It's worth watching for this alone, otherwise, seems pointless to me. There's something almost self-parodic about it that made it impossible for me to respond to the film as anything much more than a romp. If it had even attempted to take the issue of Evil, not the Devil so much, seriously, it might have offered some food for thought, but it was just silly. The Devil was just the bad guy. Since I find rain to be a positive thing, especially in these scorching times, I was hoping, early on, that the title, if spelt differently, might have led to a different payoff, as in The Devil's Reign, but it didn't go there.
|
|
|
Post by forca84 on Jul 31, 2022 18:59:55 GMT
1/10I was looking forward to seeing this new found footage horror film called Dashcam. I seen a lot of awful found footage films but I do like the sub genre. The Blair Witch Project is a favorite of mine. But this film disappointed me to the highest degree. So much so that not only the worst films I seen so far this year but one of the worst films in general I have seen in a while. The film is about a blogger named Anna. She has to be the worst protagonist ever. She is extremely annoying, rude and has the vocabulary of a dirty minded teen. Its also a thing that she is a strong anti liberal and a Trump supporter. Is there some kind of political message here? If so it was heavily lost. Anna visits her friend in London who is works as a delivery driver. Anne goes out on a food delivery herself and instead of a delivery she gets paid to transport an elderly woman to some location. I dont recall them saying where they were going but they stop at a dinner because the old lady defecates all over the back seat. And they get pretty close up on the fecal matter. After that the film is a total mess of running around, yelling, chases and just random nonsense. There is not a shred of redeeming value in this film. Its not scary at all. It extremely annoying. Its really gross and not if a fun horror film kind of gross, its a spit/puke/urine/feces kind of gross. And thats coming from me! And I liked The Human Centipede films. At least its short. Minus the credits and end credit scene the film only clocks in at 68 minutes. I was so disappointed in this movie... Awful main character.
|
|
|
Post by telegonus on Jul 31, 2022 19:09:06 GMT
Jagged Edge, 1985, dir. Richard Marquand. This is just another one of those generic legal thrillers with the exact same twist as a million other legal thrillers, the client who seems innocent and is supposed to get our sympathy and actually is the killer. What started this trend, Witness for the Prosecution? (Which, incidentally, is better, cleverer, and trickier than any of the others with this twist.) I wish Suspect (1987) were better: It’s not good, but at least its twist is novel. I know people really like this one, but I’m not sure why: To me it just seemed dull and formulaic, with precious little visual or narrative invention. It doesn’t help that I found the antagonist, DA Peter Coyote, somehow more likable than intended-to-be-likable defendant Jeff Bridges—not even sure why. Glenn Close is fine, but… Just fine. The baffling thing to me is that the fondness for Jagged Edge is nothing new. Roger Ebert and Pauline Kael—!—both liked it. Kael noted that it “doesn’t offers the pleasures of style” but said that “when it’s over you feel a little shaken.” I am, again, baffled: I didn’t feel anything when the movie was over, except “Oh, geez, this again?” All in all I feel like I watched a different movie from everyone else. I genuinely looked it up to make sure I was watching the same Jagged Edge as in all the good reviews.
|
|
|
Post by FridayOnElmStreet on Jul 31, 2022 20:07:03 GMT
I was so disappointed in this movie... Awful main character. Even the positive reviews I read for this film all said how much the main girl was awful.
|
|
|
Post by gspdude on Aug 1, 2022 1:33:41 GMT
Orphan(2009) A couple with 2 children adopt a 9 year old girl, who is mature and intelligent (and evil) far beyond her years. Not a good ad for an adoption agency. 6/10.
|
|
|
Post by politicidal on Aug 1, 2022 2:32:01 GMT
|
|
|
Post by theravenking on Aug 1, 2022 14:18:37 GMT
Out Of Order (1984; Carl Schenkel) Friday evening after work four people enter an elevator in a high-rise office building thinking they are on their way to some well-deserved rest from work. There's advertising man Jörg (Götz George, one of the biggest stars in Germany at the time) and his colleague Marion (Reneé Soutendijk, best-known for starring in a couple of Paul Verhoeven's Dutch films), a rebellious young man Pit (Hannes Jaennicke giving his film debut) and an elderly accountant (Wolfgang Kieling). Little do they know, that the maintenance man, who'd been working on the elevator made a tiny little mistake leaving one of his work tools behind, which will cause dammage to the machinery, trapping them inside the lift. There's a great Edgar-winning short story by William Irish (Cornell Woolrich) about a group of people who get stuck in an elevator inside an office building, which I often thought would've made an excellent episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Now, I don't know whether director Carl Schenkel and his screenwriter were familiar with this story (most likely not), but they could've learned a thing or two from the way Woolrich kept the story believable without having to resort to over-the-top hysterics or the creation of artificial tension between the characters. It must be said, that for a German film the movie looks stylish, with fine camerawork, and the first act sets things up nicely. However there's just not enough plot here for a longer feature film, and so as the story goes on, the film has to manufacture some artifical conflict between the characters which leads to some unintentionally comical scenes, such as two characters having sex in the elevator cabin or the two rival males getting into a fight on top of the lift. So what had started out as a gripping chamber play, sadly turns into a hokey B-movie struggling to do justice to its concept. Nevertheless Downwards (to give it its more literal title) became a solid financial hit in its native country also providing director Carl Schenkel with an entry into Hollywood (its actually a bit sad, that this might be Schenkel's best picture considering the dreck he would make in America.) Watch it, but only if you are curious about how Germans lived in the 1980s or if you have a thing for killer-elevators. 5/10
|
|
|
Post by politicidal on Aug 1, 2022 15:49:28 GMT
|
|
|
Post by Nalkarj on Aug 1, 2022 15:54:48 GMT
Showed Scream 2 to a friend (he’d only seen the original and 5). No surprise, I still think it’s great. This time around, I particularly admired Wes Craven’s direction. This may be the best-directed movie of his I’ve seen (at least on par with Red Eye), with one great set piece after another: the opening; the Agamemnon sequence, to Danny Elfman’s pounding music; Randy’s death; the Hitchcockian suspense sequence with Sidney in the car. The big problem remains: It’s not as good a whodunit as the first one, and it doesn’t even have as good a whodunit concept as the fourth one (which fumbles that good whodunit concept, but still). Funnily enough, the problem isn’t even the choice of killers as much as how little role the killers play in the story. Laurie Metcalf is so extraneous that when she revealed herself as a killer, my friend said, “Who?”
I said, “The reporter who’s been pestering Gale the whole movie.”
And he said, “Oh, yeah, OK.”
But even Timothy Olyphant, as fun as he is as the killer, isn’t in the movie that much more than Metcalf. I know about the leak; writer Kevin Williamson said the leaked draft—with, ahem, four killers—was a dummy. But the solution in the movie we got also needed work. Still, if 2 is not a satisfying whodunit, it’s such a satisfying slasher. I have a fondness for the genre, but I can’t help wishing more slashers were like this—not so much in the self-referentiality as in the good writing, great acting, and thrilling directing. By the way, my friend thought the twist was going to be that the two sorority girls who keep popping up as comic relief would be the killers. At the party scene, he tapped his forehead Columbo-style and said, “Aha, so that’s why they wanted Sidney to go to the party so bad.” I think that would have actually been more satisfying.
|
|
|
Post by politicidal on Aug 2, 2022 15:34:18 GMT
|
|
mgmarshall
Junior Member
@mgmarshall
Posts: 2,052
Likes: 3,304
|
Post by mgmarshall on Aug 3, 2022 1:59:37 GMT
Boy, Michael Madsen's name over the title can't be a good sign...
|
|
|
Post by gspdude on Aug 3, 2022 14:27:29 GMT
The Black Castle(1952). An old Universal horror I hadn't see. Started out with some Universal horror music over the title sequence, so I got right into it. Richard Greene who I remembered from the old Robin Hood TV show(showing my age!), traveling incognito in medieval Europe, visits the castle(complete with dungeon and crocodile pit) of an obviously evil count to investigate the disappearance of 2 friends. Greene falls for the Count's wife, gaining his displeasure. Boris Karloff and Lon Chaney Jr have supporting roles. 6/10. Available on YT.
|
|
|
Post by gspdude on Aug 5, 2022 1:27:02 GMT
Bloodbath at the House of Death(1984). British Horror-Comedy with the emphasis on the comedy. Unfortunately I found the comedy more silly than funny. I did have a few laughs, but not many. Vincent Price as a Devil worshiper can't save it. 3/10. For those curious, it's available on Tubi.
|
|
|
Post by teleadm on Aug 5, 2022 16:55:57 GMT
House at the End of the Street 2012 directed by Mark Tonderai and based on a story by Jonathan Mostow (who once had the idea of directing this story himself around 2003) and starring Jennifer Lawrence, Elisabeth Shue, Max Thieriot and others. A mother and her teen daughter movies to small village, mother us a nurse and daughter to conclude her schooling. Just across is a house where a daughter murdered her parents, the only survivor, and now a teen son, inhabits the house. When that is established we move forward at a very slow pace, the daughter befriends the surviving son by chance (?!). After about 30 minutes we know that surviving son has some kind of secret hidden in the cellar...I don't wan't to give up too much since a few might like to figure things out themselves. What I can promise is that there is nothing supernatural here. I hate to admit it but I did fall for two jump scares. For me there was a bit too many loose ends at the end to satisfy me...
|
|
mgmarshall
Junior Member
@mgmarshall
Posts: 2,052
Likes: 3,304
|
Post by mgmarshall on Aug 5, 2022 21:24:42 GMT
Bloodbath at the House of Death(1984). British Horror-Comedy with the emphasis on the comedy. Unfortunately I found the comedy more silly than funny. I did have a few laughs, but not many. Vincent Price as a Devil worshiper can't save it. 3/10. For those curious, it's available on Tubi. Or, alternatively, you could just watch this compilation of Vincent Price swearing in the movie and save yourself suffering through 90 minutes of Kenny Everett...
|
|
|
Post by Nalkarj on Aug 7, 2022 3:24:43 GMT
The Cursed, 2021, dir. Sean Ellis. Well, this is a disappointment. It has some nice sequences: One long take of a burning village, with strong similarities to a shot in Robert Eggers’s (far superior!) The Witch, is the best thing in the movie. And the acting is good: Kelly Reilly is as good as ever, and I was impressed by young Amelia Crouch’s performance. And the movie is mostly just boring, sorry to say. The dialogue is interminable, and it’s weak dialogue—lots of exposition, no wit or surprise. The characters are all cardboard, with the werewolf hunter—a steal from homage to Clifford Evans’s vampire hunter in the Hammer Horror Kiss of the Vampire—particularly coming off as packing material. There is gothic atmosphere, which is always welcome, but it’s intermittent: Too many shots have this odd gray color scale that I’ve seen in a lot of relatively recent English horror pictures (cf. The Awakening, Malevolent). The plotting is also poor: A last-minute twist is both pointless and obvious, and the script spends so much time setting up a moral—which the characters never learn. What’s his name, the landowner, never has a realization that killing the gypsies was wrong. The Clifford Evans clone solves the problem just by shooting the werewolf. Too bad. I couldn’t help comparing this with Scream 3, which I recently rewatched in light of my Scream 2 rewatch. That’s not a great movie, much weaker than the first two Screams, but at least it’s fun (and nicely directed). This, by contrast, is stately, forgettable, and dull.
|
|
mgmarshall
Junior Member
@mgmarshall
Posts: 2,052
Likes: 3,304
|
Post by mgmarshall on Aug 7, 2022 6:08:08 GMT
Candyman (2021) I think it's a pretty worthy successor. It's a damned sight better than those two direct-to-video pieces of crap they made in the interim. Strongly acted, atmospheric, and gorgeously shot (the murder scenes in particular are impressively, intricately choreographed and staged); it builds on the original movie's themes of the appropriative nature of anthropology, the transformative, undying nature of myth and folklore, racial and class struggles, and the lingering horror of institutional injustices. I quite like the look of the new Candyman, too. That grimy yellow coat and more modern hook prosthesis are really eye catching. Sure, he never quite has the personality that Tony Todd did; but the choice to make him a mostly silent, creeping figure only visible on the other side of the mirror makes for a lot of subtle, unsettling moments and adds a lot to the aforementioned death scenes. It helps that the movie's new additions to the Candyman mythos and just what Candyman is and how he works are quite fascinating and in keeping thematically with the first movie (Plus the brief cameo we get from Todd's OG Candyman is just awesome and the perfect money shot to end the movie on.) Yeah, I really can't see what some folks were complaining about. This is a fine sequel and a damn good movie in its own right.
|
|