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The Night Stalker. The original TV movie that spawned the series. Haven't seen it since I was a kid but it holds up well (despite marginal picture quality). Darren McGavin was great. Classic vampire tale. There was a second movie, The Night Strangler, that was just as good, maybe even better. Can't wait to watch that one. Awesome these are on YT for free!
KOLCHAK!!! Simon Oakland was the great a-hole boss. That series only lasted a year on TV but man, it scared the crap out of me a lot that year
Yeah Oakland was great. I see the one season is available on Prime for about twenty bucks. It's twenty episodes long, so that's a pretty good deal, I may have to purchase that. I recall some of those episodes being cool but I don't remember them well.Quote:
Originally Posted by mcski
The series is peak 70s for sure. I'm too cheap to pay for it but want to check it out again sometime. Oakland had a lock on the bad boss heavy roles in the 70s. It was on MeTV for a while, but they change rotation of their shoes pretty frequently.
Spiders always freak me out...not sure if this will be the next Arachnophobia, but it looks decently creepy...
Slowly picking my way though this list: https://www.pastemagazine.com/articl...vies-2019.html
The Hole In The Ground - 2.5/5
Meh.
Visually arresting and well acted, but it feels really incomplete; as if it needed another 30 minutes of exposition and a wee bit more character development.
I think the thing that rubbed me the wrong way was the glaringly obvious plot hole (yes, pun intended): when the protagonist discovers the titular hole in her backyard she doesn't feel the slightest bit compelled to ask her neighbors or anybody in the nearby town about it. There is a really short dinner scene where her friends (we have to guess who these people are as at this point in the filn we haven't seen the mom interact with anyone other than her son) tell her about a crazy woman who lives in the hills, but nothing is said about the hole.
The way the story unfolds provides for the faint possibility that the writer/director meant for the whole film to be a dream/nightmare, but even that allusion is weak and half-baked.
Granted, there are a couple of really solid jump scares, but, yeah, overall not worthy of inclusion on a "Best Of list, imho.
MIDSOMMAR
4.5 / 5
Continuing to mine the folk horror sub-genre, writer/director Ari Aster side steps the dreaded sophomore slump and delivers yet another taut exercise in grinding, slow-burn intensity and gut gnawing apprehension. While he treads somewhat familiar territory by having yet another psychologically damaged female protagonist a la the disturbing and dividing Hereditary, Midsommar switches things up by taking the action abroad and creating a scenario in which one might seriously think twice about traveling in the rural areas of Sweden (or any other Scandinavian country, for that matter).
The proceedings come out the gate with a muted, yet no less jarring “bang!” and then the quietly creepy sensibilities never really let up for the film’s 2 hour-and-27-minute duration. Aster is rather deft at building tension and creating a smoldering kind of subdued terror which is delivered with a confidently even pace.
One of the many interesting aspects of the film is just about everything that happens onscreen is easily predictable to the discerning horror/thriller fan. Yet despite the fact that stuff happens just as you’d guess it would, there is still sufficient built up around the action so that when things do happen as expected, they still manage to resonate with shocking elements of surprise.
Another cool thing Aster relies on is that he has a lot of action happen off-screen, using audio to impart what’s going on. He also has off-screen/out-of-shot characters talking over other characters who are in the frame at the time, making for a nice, rich aural tapestry that is like a mutant riff on Robert Altman’s signature chaotic approach to dialogue in films.
In terms of the cast, Florence Pugh is great in the lead role of Dani, expertly becoming the uber cute, yet dreadfully cloying girlfriend. Will Poulter continues to amaze at his dexterity playing complete asshats (he’s so good at portraying whiny, bloated Americans that I never knew he was a Brit until a few years ago; in many ways he reminds me of a young BIll Paxton in terms of the types of characters he seems to gravitate towards). The acting of Jack Reynor left me a little flat, but then again his character is supposed to be a wishy-washy douche, so perhaps he nails it after all.
As with Hereditary, the ending of this film definitely goes for shock and awe(fulness) in terms of its twisted gore factor. In many respects, the film could have easily ended 10-minutes earlier than the bloody and fiery finale, taking the very last shot and transposing it on the final portion of the May Queen ceremony; it would have made the film a bit more enigmatic, leaving the ending up to the audience, but also being no less potent and malevolent.
When all is said and done, Midsommar is a thought provoking, little horror film that eschews jump scares and over-the-top blasts of gore in favor of a more nerve-wracking and harrowing sense of paranoia and uneasiness.
RIYL:
Hereditary; The Killing of a Sacred Deer; Rosemary’s Baby; The Wicker Man (the 1973 original); It Comes At Night; Us; The Lair of the White Worm; “The Lottery” short story by Shirley Jackson
HOUSEWIFE (streaming on Amazon Prime)
3.5/5
Writer/Director Can Evrenol’s sophomore full-length is a strange beast. It’s disjointed and confusing, and I’m not entirely sure if that was on purpose or if it’s just poor screenwriting/direction or if something got lost in translation (this is Evrenol’s first English language film). All of that said, I tend to think it’s the former given the disorienting nature of his hypnotically freaky first feature, Baskin.
From start to finish this film is keeps you guessing with a lot of the confusion emanating from the fact that the location of the story is never divulged (it looks European, but in a distorted, surreal way). Additionally, the cast is a mishmash of French, Danish, and Turkish actors, yet everybody speaks broken, heavily accented, and really awkward English.
To add to the mix, the story flips liberally between memory, dreams, and nightmares so we, the viewers, are never quite sure what is real. In short, we are consistently kept off-balance. Again, it’s either purposeful or something was lost in translation.
With Baskin you kind of knew where you stood, which, albeit, was on terribly loose ground, bogged down in a wonderfully macabre mire of hallucinatory madness. Here the film tries to wade between grounded reality and nightmarish dreamscapes.
While nowhere near as over-the-top gonzo as his previous film, Housewife eventually succeeds by just being weird and off-kilter, creating a dizzyingly surreal landscape that is interrupted here and there with quick bouts of unnerving gore.
It all culminates in an HP Lovecraftian blaze of WTFness, augmented with a bit of a nod to Phantasm just for good measure.
If nothing else, the film is visually arresting and strange enough to hold your interest, especially compared to some of the generic horror fare circulating the streaming services these days. In shore, this is a welcome breath of strange air.
RIYL: In The Mouth of Madness; Hereditary; The Sentinel; Susperia (the Dario Argento version); Baskin; Rosemary’s Baby; HP Lovecraft
Just watched the trailer for UNDERWATER.
My thoughts?: It looks like Alien-meets-The Thing underwater with a heaping dose of Leviathan-meets-Deep Star Six-meets-The Cave-with-the-bends.
I'll totally gonna go see it!
:)
Not sure how this slipped under my radar, but I just learned that
3 From Hell, the sequel to The Devil's Rejects, is screening Monday 9/16, Tuesday 9/17, and Wednesday 9/18:
https://www.fathomevents.com/events/...es-3-from-hell
I watched the extended cut when it was doing the short run in theaters, never saw the first version. I think I liked it but the best word I can think of is stressful. I'm admittedly not a big horror fan in general but I'm glad to have seen it.Quote:
Originally Posted by dookey67
A DARK SONG
3.5/5
I would have given this slowburn thriller a 4-out-of-5, but I found the ending to be incredibly saccharine and a complete cop-out cum let down.
However, up until the final few minutes, this film is tense, unnerving, and great example of how a director can keep you enthralled with close to no gore or jump scares, just tightly wound tension delivered through slow, yet steadfast pacing.
Much of this tension is created with the aid of a great musical score and some super creepy atmosphere.
Additionally, a huge amount of kudos goes out to the two actors, who are brilliant and suck you into their madness with off-kilter charisma.
On the whole it reminded me a lot of The Haunting (the classic 1963 b&w version, mind you), in that it creates a serious sense of dread and a feeling of never knowing where the film is going all sans gore.
This film is quietly abrasive and delivers the goods all the way up to the final minutes, where, sadly, it kind of falls apart. Despite the lame ending, the film is still worth watching for everything that leads up to the fizzling finale.
RIYL:
It Follows; It Comes At Night; The Haunting (1963);
Brightburn anyone? Saw it last weekend. Was pretty good overall. Some gnarly gore that I could done without but cool story.
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Only because you asked...Quote:
Originally Posted by Ripzalot
I was on the opposite end of the scale from you (I did not find it to be either good or cool). :)
https://www.tetongravity.com/forums/...06#post5684706
:)
Being a professional reviewer must ruin a lot of movies for you. [emoji26] I get it tho. For me it was a good Sunday afternoon movie with no expectations. Didnt know anything about it. Just watched cold.
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:DQuote:
Originally Posted by Ripzalot
I haven't been a "professional reviewer" for awhile now. I pay to see movies just like you. :)
I just watch a lot of movies, so that tends to open your eyes to all the tropes, cliches, and whatnot.
And when it come to horror, a genre I really dig, I can tend to be overly critical.
At the end of the day the only thing that really matters is whether or not you enjoyed the film and got your money's worth...
:cool:
Eli, it's a new Netflix original, I didn't get around to seeing it yet but the trailer looks pretty promising.
GHOST STORIES is totally worth tracking down.
It is visually arresting and downright creepy .
I did find the ending to be a bit pat/contrived, but the journey is entertaining...
Lots of intriguing looking entries on this list:
https://morbidlybeautiful.com/50-bes...MB_WLLG8vrkfYc
This looks intriguing:
Talk about some gonzo absurdity...this looks like it could be a wacky slab of splatter satire:
This was very cool
https://youtu.be/RlfooqeZcdY
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Yeah, that has been on my radar for awhile now.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ripzalot
THE COLOR OUT OF SPACE
3.5/5
This is the best film that writer/director Richard Stanley has done in over 30 years!
It is anchored by a typically gonzo Nic Cage performance and some gooey practical effects.
PS
If you are curious as to what happened to Richard Stanley's career, check out this intriguing doc about him on Prime:
Speaking of horror (or harror in my wife's Philly accent), when is Los Espookys coming back on?
I know that the zombie genre is kinda played out, however the Euros always seem to manage tweaking it just enough to make it feel fun and fresh.
In this regard, YUMMY brings the goods.
Usually I am a stickler for exposition, but here it wasn't necessary. The set-up is a couple visiting a shady plastic surgery clinic in Eastern Europe, so you know right away that shit is gonna go sideways. And the filmmakers waste no time; the pacing of the film is what makes it so enjoyable and helps to overlook any shortcomings.
The gore appears to be largely practical, which is a win.
There is quite a bit of outdated sexist humor which fell flat, but then this might just be a Dutch thing, I don't know.
Overall, while it doesn't bring anything startlingly new to the genre, it is fast and furious and has a lot of nice touches (you'll never look at a paper shredder the same after watching this flick)
RIYL
Dead Snow; Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse; The Babysitter; Satanic Panic
Streaming on Shudder
HEAD COUNT (streaming on Prime)
This low budget horror endeavor tweaks a number of familiar tropes to wonderful effect. For starters, it relocates the cabin-in-the-woods to the desert. Then it culls from a number of Bloody Mary-like urban legends and references the Creepy Pasta phenomenon. On top of that, it generally does an effective job creating an ominous and disorienting environment.
My only complaint is that the ultimate ending craps out, succumbing to generic Blumhouse territory ( there was a perfect spot for the filmmakers to end the film at 1h23m , but instead they opted to tack on a groan-worthy, stereotypically pandering conclusion). Aside from this slight, the film has a lot of sly things happening, many of which slid right by me (when I finally realized what was happening, I went back and rewatched a number of scenes and was amazed at all the Easter Eggs lurking in plain sight).
The other cool aspect is that it is refreshingly more psychological than slasher, relying more on mind-fuckery than gore.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dookey67
Looks good, I can't believe I haven't watched this yet. Gonna have a long night later. :)
BLISS (streaming on Shudder)
For some reason I keep giving Joe Begos the benefit of my doubts. His first film, Almost Human, was almost unwatchable. His latest effort, VFW, was a limp and uninspired retread of the trapped-in-a-building-surrounded-by-hordes-of-rabid-attackers horror and thriller trope. Yet despite his less than stellar track record (in regards to my personal taste in horror films, mind you) I queued up another of his films last night. Why? Because for some unknown reason, when it comes to horror films, I am ever the optimist. And you know what? Dude finally finds his groove with Bliss, both in terms of direction and storytelling. Begos has always been about the splatter infested practical gore and here he continues to deliver, but he also seriously ups the ante in terms of a multi-layered story, competent actors, and a dizzying direction style (he straight snatches Spike Lee's signature dolly shot and elevates it to harrowing heights). The double-edged subtext regarding addiction and the origins of artistic expression is great, but there are also plenty of goo-and-eww moments that counter balance the underlying headyness.
There was a movie from New Zealand that came out in the mid-late 80s, titled Bliss. Wasn't a horror flick, though. More of a very dark comedy. But a good one.
DON'T LEAVE HOME (Shudder)
This is wonderfully low-key mashup of both religious and folk horror genres.
It succeeds thanks to creepy characters, blurry shifts between nightmares and reality, and an interesting premise, not to mention a classic morality play lurking at the center.
RIYL: Rosemary's Baby; Kill List; Hereditary; A Dark Song
BLIND SUN (Shudder)
This immersively paranoic French/Greek production is centered around a detached and hallucinatory dystopian landscape teeming with intimations of totalitarianism and global warming. The cinematography is sweltering, delivered in rich orange and yellow hues that perfectly capture the sun baked despair and disparity of the protagonist.
RIYL
Fear X; Wake In Fright; Long Weekend, (these last two are Aussie classics with a similar vibe)
LUZ (streaming on Shudder)
This German flick tweaks the tired possession genre in interesting ways. Shot in subdued neon coated hues, it brings a slick and twisted sheen to the proceedings. It can be a bit confusing at times and the chronology is mildly wonky (the ending doesn't quite jibe with the beginning of the film), but it is a creepy and mesmerizing effort overall.
10 Horror Films from 2020 Which May Have Been Better In The Theater:
https://crookedmarquee.com/the-top-1...-in-a-theater/
The series Haunting of Hill House was really good. Good quality horror, but the commitment of a series. There is a follow up series after we are about to dig into with a lot of the same cast.
Recomend Sinister, one of the best horrors for me. But only first film, second sucks a lot
Toy Story meets Child's Play?
RELIC
4/5
Watched this creepy endeavor last night.
Still ruminating about it and trying to figure out what it was all about.
On the surface it's about dealing with the aging and deterioration (both mental and physical) of your parents. It's also about memories and childhood fears.
I think.
RIYL
Occulus; Amulet; Under the Skin; Don't Leave Home; Hereditary
Just watched The Empty Man on HBO Max, it’s creepy as hell, really enjoyed it.
https://youtu.be/tk6u9X1bW30
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-ExKYM5xQY
Black Sheep (currently free on Prime, with ads) actually isn't the first killer mutant sheep flick I've seen; that honor goes to the amusingly inept Godmonster Of Indian Flats. Unlike Godmonster, Black Sheep is a fully realized, reasonably well made campy horror flick, with the added novelty appeal of being from New Zealand.
The plot follows a standard formula: Genetic engineering and greed birth monstrous creatures, and oops, it escaped the lab, on account of biology the mutation spreads, to other animals and to people, so creature gore becomes progressively more rampant. This movie strays from the flock with its offbeat humor, including a couple of vegan activists (an awkward dude with a man-bun, and a young woman who gets through bloody violence scenes by talking about chakras). It's not exactly great, and kind of slow going through the first half, but towards the end I was laughing out loud numerous times.
And I'm not sure, but it appears to be filmed at the same big-white-farmhouse-with-balconies estate where Peter Jackson's early infamous gore-o-rama Bad Taste was.