Horror Flicks?

[HankScorpio]

Let the Right One In is a Swedish vampire flick that scared the pants off me. Easily my favorite recent horror flick.

Also the Hills Have Eyes (both versions) were gory, disturbing and got to me.

Two others that surprised me were 2 recent Stephen King remakes, The Mist (everything was great except the dismal ending) and 1408 were great horror movies.

Most have of the best have been mentioned: Shining, 28 Days Later, Exorcist, the Omen, etc.

[HankScorpio]

Hopefully, Eraserhead lives up to the hype.

Oh yeah, Eraserhead is a thoroughly fucked up and bizarre film. Wow.

[blackhand]

Hopefully, Eraserhead lives up to the hype.

If you are expecting Eraserhead to be a horror film you will be very disappointed. I found it to be a really hard movie to watch start to end because of how, for lack of a better word, awkward it was. Let me know what you think.

Back to the movies:

If you are a person who can picture yourself in a character's place very easily you will find Wolf Creek really fucking scary. Same goes for Saw I.

[dookeyXXX]

I was lucky enough to see Wolf Creek in London about a year before it was released Stateside. All I had to go on was a small blurb review in Time/Out. Hit up a midnight matinee in Notting Hill and i gotta say, that flick was intense. makes me not want to go to Australia, at least not to drive around the Outback by myself. While that film may have drawn upon the Texas Chainsaw Massacre mythos, it did a good job of updating it, wrapping it around a different culture, and kicking it up a few notches.

Greg Mclean's (the director) sophomore effort, Rogue, does the same thing to the killer crock/angry alligator sub-genre. the key here is that Mclean has a solid grasp on creating and maintaining tension onscreen and then transferring that tension to the audience; he's what i would call an "intelligent genre director" following in the footsteps of early Cronenberg, vintage Carpenter, and classic Craven.

sadly, too many of the genre directors these days aren't capable of doing that (capturing that tension, transferring it to the audience, and wielding a smart and scary story), especially in the slick, MTV obsessed rehashes (TCM w/J. Beil, both The Hills Have Eyes remakes, Zombie's Halloween remakes, etc).

Honestly, perhaps the only rehash/remake that may have equaled the original was the recent Last House on the Left adaptation. the original is an exploitation classic. the new one keeps a lot of that edge, updating it for 2009. that said, i'd still recommend the original, it's got some harrowing material (as in gag/choke reflex moments).

[Poop~Ghost]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinea_Pig_(film_series)

Pretty sure this is the most fucked up "Horror Film" stuff imaginable... all brought to you by the Japanese.

American/western cinema has yet to come close to the exploitation and gore that is created by the Japanese.

These movies will fuck you up.

[minimal]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinea_Pig_(film_series)

Pretty sure this is the most fucked up "Horror Film" stuff imaginable... all brought to you by the Japanese.

American/western cinema has yet to come close to the exploitation and gore that is created by the Japanese.

These movies will fuck you up.

Granted, the Japanese had a stranglehold on the intense horror/gore in the past. Guinea Pig, Naked Blood, Ichi the Killer, etc were all the top dogs of their day. But Guinea Pig is pretty tame compared to some stuff that is out now. The previously mentioned L'Interieur (Inside) is far more disturbing than any of the Guinea Pig installments. Martyrs (the French are really going for it in the gore/disturbing department) is another one that utterly trumps Guinea Pig. The main thing that Guinea Pig had going for it was the snuff mystique. But since it's obviously been outed as fake and the fact that the effects are pretty dated, it just doesn't have the same impact. Plus I think there's a disconnect with Guinea Pig because it's just mindless torture. There's no reason other than simple human sympathy to feel anything for the victim. There's no storyline, no character development, just torture and death. That's where the French seem to be taking over. They combine the intense gore of the Japanese with actual storylines. There are characters that you can actually empathize with. It makes for a far more horrific movie.

But for over the top gore and gut wrenching disturbing, I have to go with August Underground's Mordum. I have no problems watching any kind of horror/gore you can think of. L'Interieur, Martyrs, Guinea Pig etc were intense, but I could easily watch them again. Mordum? I'm not so sure I'd watch it again. It's just that intense and insane. If you ever wanted to have a glimpse into a serial killer's life Mordum will give you just that. It's the only movie to actually make me feel nauseous while watching it and it had nothing to do with the shaky cam.

[Poop~Ghost]

I'll definitely be NOT watching L'Interieur or Mordum. I've seen enough wacked real life shit for more than one lifetime.

[dookeyXXX]

a former co-worker who is a huge horror fan--pretty much rents everything that comes out regardless--rented Teeth and turned it off 1/4 through and returned it. when i showed him the trailer for Inside, he said "I ain't watching that." not sure where i stand, having not see either one yet.

that said, and keeping in mind that i don't put too much stock in trailers, this one looks kind of disturbing:

http://www.apple.com/trailers/independent/grace/

[Jer]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinea_Pig_(film_series)

Pretty sure this is the most fucked up "Horror Film" stuff imaginable... all brought to you by the Japanese.

American/western cinema has yet to come close to the exploitation and gore that is created by the Japanese.

These movies will fuck you up.

In total agreement.

When I think of great horror films I think of Nosferatu, Night of the Living Dead, The Shining, Halloween - stuff like that. All of which were creepy, but nearly gore-free.

The Japanese stuff isn't horror, but it does make you feel pretty uncomfortable. People who actually think the Saw movies are really groundbreaking need to watch Flowers of Flesh and Blood. The latter makes the former look like Little House on the Prairie. When you fool the guys in Skinny Puppy (who themselves used extremely disturbing imagery) you're doing a pretty good job. When you actually feel compelled to produce a documentary on how you filmed your fictional snuff film just to prove it actually wasn't real you're doing a pretty good job.


Does anybody else here think Roman Polanski's The Tennant was pretty freaky? Always really liked that one.

[Poop~Ghost]

In total agreement.

When I think of great horror films I think of Nosferatu, Night of the Living Dead, The Shining, Halloween - stuff like that. All of which were creepy, but nearly gore-free.

The Japanese stuff isn't horror, but it does make you feel pretty uncomfortable. People who actually think the Saw movies are really groundbreaking need to watch Flowers of Flesh and Blood. The latter makes the former look like Little House on the Prairie. When you fool the guys in Skinny Puppy (who themselves used extremely disturbing imagery) you're doing a pretty good job. When you actually feel compelled to produce a documentary on how you filmed your fictional snuff film just to prove it actually wasn't real you're doing a pretty good job.


Does anybody else here think Roman Polanski's The Tennant was pretty freaky? Always really liked that one.

Yep, I LOVED The Tennant. That's just great film making, and the sense that Polanski was coming unglued was just perfectly portrayed.

[dookeyXXX]

In total agreement.

When I think of great horror films I think of Nosferatu, Night of the Living Dead, The Shining, Halloween - stuff like that. All of which were creepy, but nearly gore-free.

Does anybody else here think Roman Polanski's The Tennant was pretty freaky? Always really liked that one.

a classic in the creepy/scary category is the original The Haunting, 1963 b/w joint by Robert Wise that makes excellent use of shadows and light and sound to create a truly freaky atmosphere. watch it alone, in the dark, on a stormy night and it's a nail-biter.

as for The Tenant, yeah it was pretty bugged. Along those lines you should check out Repulsion with Catherine Deneuve.

i think the way that horror films of today are going (looking mostly at the Hollywood ones) is remaking once deemed classics (Halloween, F13, Nightmare on Elm Street) and just basically slicking them up with CGI and new-fangled FX and known hotties to appeal to the MTV glued masses.

i also feel that quite a bit of the foreign horror films (Frontier(s), Haute Tension, a lot of the Japanese numbers like Ringu) get "a pass" because they are foreign; people seem to put a little too much praise on these films because they are "exotic" (at least that's my take on it). sure, the French make some fine looking films, but Frontier(s) really wasn't that great (it just rehashed TCM twisted cannibal family mythos) and the ending of Haute Tension was utter crap. Meanwhile the whole sub-genre of Japanese horror that includes Ringu and Ju-On aren't that great, either (other than introducing the world to pasty-faced creepy ghost kids that lurk in the shadows and have evil thoughts, but seriously, how many times can you see that in a film and think it's cool?). Additionally, all the Hollywood remakes of The Ring, The Grudge, Pulse, etc. are kinda crappy, as well.

I may have mentioned it before, but one of the last horror films i thought exceeded my expectations was Quarantine. i still haven't seen the original Spanish version [rec], but it just came out. while Quarnatine mined familiar terrain, it did it well and with a certain amount of panache.

as for the Saw films? meh. i didn't think the first one was that great and i've rented each subsequent one and just can't believe that people continue to pay to see those flicks. that may be one of the most pointless franchises in a long, long time.

in the end, however, if you get scared by it and it provides you with a modicum of escapism and enjoyment, so be it.

me, i want a slightly intelligent story, compelling characters, and a high fright quotient, which i don't think is too much to ask for.

i think the saddest thing is that Hollywood still looks upon the horror film as a lesser genre, thus they never feel like spending the time, energy, and money to cultivate a good script, attach decent actors, and a solid director. they see something like The Grudge, made for less than 50 mill, grossing close to triple that and then churn out more of the same.

while i'm thinking of it, Splinter wasn't a bad low-budgie that had some twisted FX and a few edge-of-your-seat moments.

[Meanfruit]

I can't really call myself a horror buff, because I find the torturing and killing of humans repugnent,seriously. I mean, I barely got through the torture killing in Number One Gangster, and it only lasted a minute or so. A movie that has men, not monsters,spending90 mins torturing and butchering folks qualifies as fact, not fiction. I am a fakkin puss

[pappag]

Eraserhead - excellent film and very bizarre, but disturbing it is not unless I have a finer appreciation for the extremely twisted. The turtle-head-shaped baby was a nice touch and the overall theme of marriage and fatherhood was done very graphically but more true to home than most attempts at it.

[pappag]

No one has mentioned "Inside."

It's a French gore flick that came out last year. Tops the list as the most brutal horror film I've ever seen.

7.5 out of 10 on the scary meter.
10 out of 10 on the graphic/disgusting meter (Nothing to compare it to. Pretty much sets a new standard for gore).

It's really a great movie, well done in a all aspects.

I won't even begin to describe it. Just go see it. It's a powerhouse display of brutality!! A must-see if you like horror movies. Totally fucking disgusting!!

Edit: It's a little harder to find than most. You may have to consult Newbury Comics or a shop that carries indy material.

I concur.

Not a whole lot on the scary front and I thought the director could have done a better job presenting some of the characters more intensely, but man did this have gore and some queasy moments. The last scene was amazing and the ending was perfect with a quality twist.

[dookeyXXX]

No one has mentioned "Inside."

Edit: It's a little harder to find than most. You may have to consult Newbury Comics or a shop that carries indy material.

Dunno if we're talking about the same Inside (aka A l'interieur), but if we are, it's readily available at blockbuster:

http://www.blockbuster.com/browse/catalog/movieDetails/371433