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Post by Nalkarj on Sept 5, 2022 4:16:24 GMT
First up tonight was La cérémonie, 1995, dir. Claude Chabrol. I haven’t seen much Chabrol, but what I’ve seen I’ve liked. And La cérémonie is probably the best thing I’ve seen of his. The movie is based on the Ruth Rendell novel A Judgement in Stone, and while I’m a Rendell fan I haven’t read the book. But Chabrol’s film is splendid—a slow-burn thriller in which the tension builds until the characters seem about to explode. (It’s also one of the few Rendell adaptations the author said she was happy with.) All of the performances are excellent, particularly Jacqueline Bisset’s as the protagonist’s employer. Chabrol is often compared to Alfred Hitchcock, but here he lingers over the quotidian—the groceries, the housework—more than Hitchcock would have. All that works, though, because of how skilled his direction is. Chabrol’s camera movements—like those of Fritz Lang, whom he always cited as an influence—are subtle rather than sweeping, but his camera is almost never staying still. It’s always making those movements, always catching the viewer off-guard and suggesting that something is up, something is building, some danger is waiting just around the corner. Just as great is how Chabrol visually depicts the film’s first big secret. My only complaint is that the ending doesn’t tie in to Sophie’s illiteracy. From what I’ve read, Rendell’s book fits that element into how the police catch the equivalent character. While Chabrol’s ending is an “AHA!” moment, I think it could have been even more “AHA!”—more cohesive, more satisfying—if it had to do with the illiteracy. That said, still highly recommended. The last 10 minutes—including the end credits, as TCM host Eddie Muller pointed out—in particular are tense, disturbing, and effective. One more thing: Chabrol called this “the last Marxist film”—jokingly, according to Wikipedia. If it says anything about me, I found Bisset and her bourgeois family far more sympathetic than the proletarian Sandrine Bonnaire and Isabelle Huppert. ____________________________________________________ Then, on a different note, Tormented, 1960, dir. Bert I. Gordon. I found out about this one because William K. Everson, the first film critic I ever read (and still a favorite), offers some interesting comments on it in his seminal Classics of the Horror Film (1974). Tormented is low-budget and cheesy, but it’s better than Night Tide, that’s for sure. It has some good sequences—the scene of the ghost walking up the aisle at the hero’s wedding is so well done, it deserves to be in a better movie—and a surprisingly good performance from the director’s 11-year-old daughter. (A young Joe Turkel—he of Blade Runner and The Shining—is in this, too.) I don’t want to overhype this: It’s far from a great, or even good, movie. But it has a decent premise and good special effects, and with better scripting, better acting, and more imaginative directing it probably could have been something. As is, though, it’s just an unmemorable little b-horror.
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soggy
Sophomore
@soggy
Posts: 718
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Post by soggy on Sept 6, 2022 22:33:05 GMT
The Vampire Doll:
Interesting Japanese horror film that was clearly more inspired by the Hammer horror films of the 60s than traditional Japanese horror stories. A vampire tale with classic gothic manors, graveyards and mysterious family histories. It's not a great movie, but it's an interesting take on the sub-genre. 6/10
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Post by Anonymous Andy on Sept 7, 2022 14:36:37 GMT
I've seen this movie at least 100 times and only just now am I learning what a complete and utter shitlord Tom Holland was, thanks to the new Scream Factory material. Looking back at his post-'80s career and it's apparent the dude got rightfully cancelled for his shitty behavior before it was cool. Still love this movie, though. Perfectly paced, lots of tension and drama throughout and the "Fuck You!" line in the elevator still makes me chuckle. 9/10
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Post by FridayOnElmStreet on Sept 7, 2022 19:41:52 GMT
7/10I seen this film once before. Gutterballs is beyond crazy. Its nasty as hell and incredibly sleezy. I like it. Its about a slasher in a bowling bag turned mask stalking and killing a bunch of young people at a bowling alley after hours. 4 of the guys sexually assaulted one of the girls the night before. Is it revenge or just a ol' fashioned mad man? Its like a slasher film on steroids. The blood and gore are crazy and really cool. Great soundtrack as well.
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Post by FridayOnElmStreet on Sept 7, 2022 19:44:18 GMT
3/10I seen this film like twice before and thinking it was alright. I dont think that now. Wishmaster 3 is a dull mess that takes a cool premise and does very little with it. Andrew Divoff is sorely missed here.
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Post by FridayOnElmStreet on Sept 7, 2022 19:46:31 GMT
2/10
Yikes. This film is all over the place. Its about a group of internet ghost hunters who rent a haunted place from Tom Sizemore. Haunting and death ensues. Nothing interesting though.
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Post by teleadm on Sept 9, 2022 19:46:13 GMT
Scream 4 2011 directed by Wes Craven Ten years have passed and Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) has written a best-seller about her experiences with Ghostface, and now it all starts again and a new Ghostface is on the rampage, slashing victims as usual, but who can you trust? I'm not the right person to judge this movie since I like older horror movies, but it did have a rhythm and pace that I liked. Sadly this was Wes Craven's last movie as director before he passed away in 2015.
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Post by politicidal on Sept 9, 2022 22:59:21 GMT
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Post by theravenking on Sept 11, 2022 13:59:08 GMT
Ghost Story (1981, John Irvin) So, I watched this too and thought, that it was a rather ordinary, ahem, ghost story. The more modern elements such as nudity and gruesome make-up effects (which I found rather silly though) seemed to clash with the classic horror story vibe this tries to emulate, and I think it would've worked better, had they kept it more subtle, although I'm unfamiliar with the source material. Apparently Alice Krige later claimed that the movie was ruined in the editing room, and indeed it seemed like there was a good movie in here, but it sadly felt more like a lacklustre arrangement of rather tired horror tropes. Not even the first scare which comes rather unexpectedly worked for me. The four veterans were also under-used and could've done with some better written characters. Overall not terrible, just forgettable. 5/10
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Post by Captain Spencer on Sept 11, 2022 15:44:23 GMT
Ghost Story (1981, John Irvin) So, I watched this too and thought, that it was a rather ordinary, ahem, ghost story. The more modern elements such as nudity and gruesome make-up effects (which I found rather silly though) seemed to clash with the classic horror story vibe this tries to emulate, and I think it would've worked better, had they kept it more subtle, although I'm unfamiliar with the source material. Apparently Alice Krige later claimed that the movie was ruined in the editing room, and indeed it seemed like there was a good movie in here, but it sadly felt more like a lacklustre arrangement of rather tired horror tropes. Not even the first scare which comes rather unexpectedly worked for me. The four veterans were also under-used and could've done with some better written characters. Overall not terrible, just forgettable. 5/10 It was a very diluted adaptation of Peter Straub's great novel. It relied on cheap boo scares with the rotting corpse apparitions jumping out at the audience. Too bad it was such a misfire, because it had a great cast of old-time veterans. It needed a better director and better script.
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Post by politicidal on Sept 11, 2022 16:56:33 GMT
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Post by politicidal on Sept 15, 2022 16:09:08 GMT
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Post by teleadm on Sept 15, 2022 18:10:42 GMT
Tentacles aka Tentacoli 1977 directed by Ovidio G. Assonitis (billed as Oliver Hellman) Watched this movie purely for nostalgic reasons, since I was a sucker for these kind of movies in my teens. It's an Italian production that was made in and around San Diego, with a few name actors like John Huston (billed first), Shelley Winters, Henry Fonda, Claude Akins and Bo Hopkins. It's a Jaws clone, but this time it's an angry octopus that goes on a killing spree, disturbed by illegal ultra sounds during a tunnel construction. They spent a million dollars constructing a mechanic octopus for this movie, but it never worked, it only sank to the bottom. Seeing it again after many years, well it wasn't especially good, with awful special effects.
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Post by politicidal on Sept 16, 2022 4:12:51 GMT
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mgmarshall
Junior Member
@mgmarshall
Posts: 2,032
Likes: 3,283
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Post by mgmarshall on Sept 16, 2022 20:43:17 GMT
To the Devil a DaughterYou know, I try to be diplomatic when I don't care for a movie, but this has easily got to be the worst f*cking thing Hammer ever produced. Dull, slow-moving, cheap, uninspired and just unpleasantly sleazy. It's no wonder this was Christopher Lee's last movie for Hammer, he looks unenthusiastic and humiliated to be there all throughout (but especially so in the Satanic rape scene and the finale where he slaughters a baby [or the sh*tty-looking baby doll prop they used, anyway...]) And why shouldn't he? This piece of crap is an indignity for all involved. For Richard Widmark, who seems tired and bored from the first scene. For poor 14-year-old Nastassja Kinski, who appears fully nude (real classy, assholes...) and gets molested by a ridiculous demon fetus puppet. The only person here who emerges with some dignity intact is Denholm Elliott, who has the good fortune to spend most of his scenes cowering away from the main action. As I understand it, the story bears no resemblance to the Dennis Wheatley novel it's adapting; and whatever that book was like had to have been better than this nonsense. Satanic ex-priest Lee wants to bring about the birth of the Antichrist (or a demon, or Satan, or something; they're not very clear about this), and all he has to do is baptize an infant in her dead mother's blood, raise the girl in seclusion as a nun, impregnate a different woman whom he also kills, kill that baby, and then re-baptize Devil nun girl in baby blood, thereby making her into the demon. It's convoluted horesh*t. The absolute bottom of Hammer's barrel, and a disgraceful note for the studio to exit on.
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Post by Nalkarj on Sept 16, 2022 20:49:32 GMT
mgmarshall, this is a line for the ages: “Satanic ex-priest Lee wants to bring about the birth of the Antichrist (or a demon, or Satan, or something; they're not very clear about this), and all he has to do is baptize an infant in her dead mother's blood, rase the girl in seclusion as a nun, impregnate a different woman whom he also kills, kill that baby, and then re-baptize Devil nun girl in baby blood, thereby making her into the demon.”
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Post by theravenking on Sept 17, 2022 13:17:43 GMT
Scream (2022; Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett)I didn't expect anything groundbreaking from this latest Scream movie, but I didn't expect to dislike it this much either. This is the first time a movie in this series almost put me to sleep. In fact I had originally written a much more vitriolic review, but I feel that there is already too much hate in today's world. Let's just assume, that everyone involved gave it their best effort and that they tried to be respectful to the original quadrilogy. I'm not saying they failed or anything, but you would have to prod me long and hard with an especially vicious knife, to make me declare my love for this movie. A few loose observations I made during watching: Is it just me or does Jack Quaid look more like Colin Firth than like his own daddy? How does the Ghostface killer survive getting shot in the chest multiple times by Dewey? What did Kyle Gallner do to deserve starring in both the Nightmare On Elm Street reboot and this one? It's dedicated to Wes Craven, but something tells me, the only way Wes would get to see this movie, was if after his death somehow he had ended up in hell. At the devil's movie theatre there must be room for a special screening of Scream (2022) among other classic horror sequels such as Exorcist II - The Heretic or Jaws IV - The Revenge.2.5/10
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Post by theravenking on Sept 17, 2022 16:23:03 GMT
The Internecine Project (1974; Ken Hughes) This movie has a great concept: Former secret agent Robert Elliot (James Coburn) will be promoted to government advisor. In order to make sure no-one will ever know about his dirty past, he has invented a very ingenious plan to get rid of his four helpers: he gets them all to unknowingly kill each other in the course of a single night. What sounds like an exciting inverted mystery is sadly not that interesting to watch. Coburn was a charismatic actor, but here he is handed a rather flat character who is neither colorful enough to root for, nor unpleasant enough to make us want him fail. The result is a movie that feels as mechanical as its elaborate plot. Inerestingly according to the review on Mysterfiles the novel Internecine by Mort W. Elkind this was supposedly adapted from doesn't seem to exist. Screenwriter Jonathan Lynn wasn't happy with the changes made to his script. Considering that he was also responsible for Clue (1985) and mostly worked with humorous material I can imagine that his treatment of the plot could've been more playful and self-ironical. As it is the movie is rather dry and not very cinematic. It plays out more like a chamber piece which large parts taken up by Coburn sitting in his office waiting for the phone to ring. Lee Grant plays a journalist and former love interest to Coburn, but she's largely wasted, even though her character does see through Coburn's machinations, but fails to do anything about it. There's also a late twist, call it poetic justice, which however is handled in the same somewhat unspectacular manner as the rest of the film. I wish someone would use this concept and turn it into a Knives Out type light mystery. 5.5/10
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soggy
Sophomore
@soggy
Posts: 718
Likes: 1,205
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Post by soggy on Sept 18, 2022 4:02:51 GMT
Lake of Dracula (1971)
Second part of the Bloodthirsty trilogy of films (though it's more a thematic trilogy being that the only connections are Japanese vampires and an obvious love of classic Hammer Horror films). This one is more fun than the Vampire Doll, and an interesting take on classic vampire myths and how to rework all their tropes in Japan. 6/10
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Post by Nalkarj on Sept 18, 2022 16:19:43 GMT
On Friday I watched Friday the 13th Part III, 1982, dir. Steve Miner. I don’t like these movies, so I don’t know why I keep watching them. Hope springing eternal? The closest I came to liking a Friday the 13th was the sixth movie, Jason Lives, which is equal parts self-parody and Universal Frankenstein ripoff. I don’t think I’m holding these movies to unfairly high standards; I like fun unpretentious slashers, including the extremely goofy Halloween 4. And I was expecting the Fridays to be like that, but all the ones I’ve seen (except Jason Lives and Freddy vs. Jason) I’ve found flat-out boring. Part III is no exception. For the first few minutes—well, after Jason machetes a laughably superfluous couple in their cabin—I thought this might be the first “real,” non-parodic Friday I liked. The pace was decent, and some moments were (unintentionally?) hilarious, particularly the Crazy Ralph substitute who has nothing to do with the movie but thrusts a 3-D eyeball towards the camera. ( Brr, scarrrry, kids!) And then we just go back to boring people doing boring things until Jason kills them, and then the movie ends. Ehh. _________________________________________________________________________________ And last night I rewatched Scream 4, 2011, dir. Wes Craven. I didn’t like this much the first time I saw it, but I wondered if I’d warm up to it it in light of Scream 5, which I disliked almost as much as theravenking did. My answer: Not really, no. This one has a bunch of good stuff and a great concept for a murder-mystery twist. It’s the only series entry other than the original with a genuinely good idea for a surprise twist. (The second one is an excellent slasher but a weak mystery.) But it fumbles the execution of that twist. (Major spoiler.) The whole movie hinges on tricking the audience into believing that Sidney is passing the protagonist torch to Jill—just for Jill to be revealed as Ghostface. That’s a wonderful idea for a mystery twist—inspired by an Agatha Christie book but all the more effective because series reboots do exactly that kind of torch-passing.
Unfortunately, the script never convincingly presents Jill as the protagonist. Instead, Sid clearly remains the lead: Once she’s onscreen, the movie centers on her. Jill just comes off as an uninteresting side character. And the more the film presents this uninteresting side character as sympathetic, the more the audience will be suspicious of her.
Worse, the whole film is based on that one surprise—which would be fine, except that Craven and the writers never lay the groundwork, so the one big surprise is no surprise at all. I hated the opening when I first saw the movie, and I still hate it. I’m not sure why—maybe because it’s so cutesy, as if in love with its own trickiness. (I felt the same hatred about Halloween 2018.) The first two Screams—and even the third, to a lesser degree—are smarter about preventing the meta jokiness from getting too clever by half. As I said, though, this movie does have some good things. I’ve long praised the shot of Sidney on the porch as the wind whips up and the chimes tinkle. Such a nice little atmospheric sequence, such a good piece of direction. The ending has some of the dark comedic bite that writer Kevin Williamson originally intended. The Weinsteins brought in Scream 3 scribe Ehren Kruger to do—reportedly extensive—rewrites to Williamson’s script. This series was always Williamson’s baby, and I would have liked to have seen his original script. I have a feeling he would have done a better job of setting up the twist. (Speaking of Williamson, why oh why didn’t he write Scream 5? James Vanderbilt, one of the writers on 5, always strikes me as a guy who doesn’t know how to write mysteries but thinks he does.) So, yeah, Scream 4 is a mixed bag. I think I’d even rate it under 3, which isn’t that good but is amusing and has some even more impressive sequences on Wes Craven’s part. (Sid running through the movie set is more thrilling than anything in 4.) But it’s much better than the Cravenless Scream 5, which is everything 4 is making fun of.
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