Month of Horror V: the Seed of dsheinem & noiseredux

[TEKTORO]

One of my favorite genres in any medium and one of the only true emotions that stimulate me any more, those be some tough questions!

-A game I look forward to playing for the first time this month: Michigan Report From Hell (PAL)

-A game I look forward to replaying this month: Haunting Starring Polterguy

-A movie I look forward to watching for the first time this month: Need help with this one, but I like Luke's suggestion of Dolls!

-A movie I can't wait to rewatch this month: Toss up between Candyman or Hellraiser.. I'm really (watching both) torn.

-An obscure movie I want everyone else to watch: The Stuff (just cause, sorry I have before when I was like 10)

-My Halloween costume will be: Crazy 88 Clan member from Kill Bill (If I was to Dress up)

-And something else spooky I'm planning: If I don't plan, then most likely I'll get spooked!

[Michi]

Argento is not the greatest filmmaker in the world. His directing and writing are supbar, but the style he exhibits in cinematography, lighting, and set design is one-of-a-kind awesome.

Argento: Say for the visuals and....well, just try to tolerate everything else.

The Town That Dreaded Sundown

.....More than once things turned into a bad Dukes of Hazzard knock off, and the most offensive character is 'Sparkplug,' who is actually played by the director, Charles B. Pierce! (That's how he got onto the force, Michi!)

The mystery has been solved!

[TSTR]

Argento is not the greatest filmmaker in the world. His directing and writing are supbar, but the style he exhibits in cinematography, lighting, and set design is one-of-a-kind awesome.

Argento: Say for the visuals and....well, just try to tolerate everything else.

Don't forget the music! Although you can chalk most of that up to Goblin/Simonetti/Emerson, etc.

[prfsnl_gmr]

I am off to a slow start this year, but last night, my wife and I watched:



Silent House (2011). It is a fairly effective "haunted house" movie with one wonderfully effective gimmick. Specifically, the film - like the Uruguayan original - consists of one feature-length, continuous take. Accordingly, the film's events unfold in "real time" similar to Alfred Hitchcock's Rope (1948). This technique has drawn mixed reviews from film critics, but I thought it was incredibly effective. Combined with an very, very creepy location, the "single shot" technique enlived some tried-and-true horror movie techniques and made the heroine's terror much more palpable. Like many western "haunted house" films, however, it is dragged down a lot by a predictable (and, in this case, tasteless) ending. Accordingly, I can only recommend the first 75 minutes of this 87 minute film. Those 75 minutes are very, very intense, however, and unlike Insidious (2010), the ending does not ruin them completely.

SEPTEMBER HALLOWEEN MOVIES:

House -
You're Next -
The Awakening -
Kuroneko -
Prom Night -
The Ghost Goes West -
The Prowler -

OCTOBER HALLOWEEN MOVIES:

Silent House -

[noiseredux]

consists of one feature-length, continuous take.

this has been on my queue for a while, but I no idea it was a single shot movie. Wow. Gonna bump it up higher!

[prfsnl_gmr]

consists of one feature-length, continuous take.

this has been on my queue for a while, but I no idea it was a single shot movie. Wow. Gonna bump it up higher!

I enjoyed it, and I thought the technique was very effective. The ending is bad, however. (Not Insidious bad, but it still damages my opinion of the movie significantly.) As long as you know that going it, you should not be disappointed.

[Ack]

The Sentinel

A fashion model named Alison Parker with a shady past and an even shadier lawyer boyfriend moves into a Brooklyn apartment owned by the Catholic church and watched over eternally by an ancient, unmoving, blind priest. And now a secret wing of the Church wants Alison to be their next guardian to the gates of Hell, as a means to save the Earth and her soul for having previously attempted suicide. It sounds like fun, until you realize just about everybody is a jerk and the movie's going to hit you with a reimagined version of Milton's Paradise Lost.

The Sentinel pulls a lot of inspiration from 1960s and 1970s religious horror but never quite connects, mainly because very few people come off as likable and I struggle to see who the "good guy" really is. There are some bizarre images and scenes, which range from memories of Alison's father, to a cat's birthday party, to her awkward night terrors of her father's zombie and legions of demons. And the legion of demons includes the physically deformed, dead murderers, and lesbians(so heinous, lesbians)! Sex is evil, masturbation is evil, homosexuality is evil, murder is evil, physical deformity is evil, cannibalism is evil, suicide is evil, only the Catholic Church can help you, and they want to lock you in a room and drive you to blindness and near-madness in the process...is that the message I'm supposed to get?

I will give the film credit for just how weird it gets, but it's also confused: am I supposed to see Michael as a villain? He seems genuinely concerned for Alison, but he's done terrible things. Are the police who harass Michael good guys, because they do just as much to bother Alison and impede her. And what about Monsignor Franchino, who appears to make only a half-assed attempt to guide Alison into her dangerous duty. Who the Hell should I root for here? I just don't know. I am confused by the message and the characters, though I did enjoy some of the film's twists and turns.

7/31

La chute de la maison Usher
Werewolves on Wheels
Opera
Satánico pandemonium
The City of the Living Dead
The Town That Dreaded Sundown
The Sentinel

[prfsnl_gmr]

The Sentinel is such a surreal movie. I enjoyed it, and I consider the best of late-70s-early-80s "Exorcist" knock offs. I understand yor issues with it, however.

.....

Speaking of strange movies, my wife and I watched:



The Living Skeleton (1968) last night. I could accurately describe it as a slow-burning Japanese psychedelic espionage yakuza science fiction horror film that I thoroughly enjoyed. The plot is too convoluted for me to summarize without giving it away or mischaracterizing it, but I can say that while some scenes are incredibly corny (i.e., the "Scooby Doo" quality skeletons and bats) some are incredibly atmospheric and creepy (i.e., the "confession" scene). Moreover, the film effectively employs a lot of effective modern horror techniques despite its age and relatively low budget. I enjoyed it - and I especially enjoyed Saeko, the wonderfully-named (and exceptionally beautiful) female lead - and I recommend it to anyone who is a fan of Japanese horror or late-60s Japanese psychedelic films.

SEPTEMBER HALLOWEEN MOVIES:

House -
You're Next -
The Awakening -
Kuroneko -
Prom Night -
The Ghost Goes West -
The Prowler -

OCTOBER HALLOWEEN MOVIES:

Silent House -
The Living Skeleton -

[Ack]

prfsnl_gmr, have you seen Horrors of Malformed Men? It's another late 1960s Japanese horror film, and more than a little disturbing besides some deus ex machina issues at the end.



Silver Bullet

Also known as Stephen King's Silver Bullet, this movie is based on his novella Cycle of the Werewolf. It's significantly different from the story though, with characters and their names changed, dates changed, murders happening differently, characters left out entirely, so on and so forth. And Silver Bullet, with its focus on a pair of kids and their uncle, feels more like it fits with the kid horror movies of the 1980s as opposed to other '80s werewolf films like An American Werewolf in London or The Howling.

Yes, it's more of an introduction, and the special effects range from decent to utterly laughable, and the identity of the werewolf becomes blatantly obvious well before the actual reveal, but this movie has one highlight that is impossible for me not to love: GARY F@#&ING BUSEY! He's an alcoholic, lovable greasemonkey of an uncle who was allowed to ad lib his scenes, and the effect is pure gold! Corey Haim and Megan Follows both play the sibling child leads of the movie, with Haim crippled but able to get around in some souped up wheelchairs that Busey built.

The plot is simple: Megan's character, Jane Coslow, narrates about the coming of a werewolf to Tarker's Mill, and how she and her brother, Marty, defeat it with the help of their uncle, Uncle Red, while Sheriff Joe Haller(Terry O'Quinn) struggles to investigate the werewolf's murders. The film rushes its ending and has some bizarre twists with the werewolf(such as his apparent ability to control himself and recollect exactly what happens while in werewolf form...so why is he murdering people again? The film kind of tries to explain but doesn't really succeed in my opinion), but overall it's not a bad introduction to werewolf films for kids.

Oh, and it is definitely a Stephen King work:

Characters declaring their favorite beer: Check
A child getting horrible murdered: Check
Set in Maine: Check

Yeah, that's King all right.

8/31

La chute de la maison Usher
Werewolves on Wheels
Opera
Satánico pandemonium
The City of the Living Dead
The Town That Dreaded Sundown
The Sentinel
Silver Bullet

[Forlorn Drifter]

Satanico Pandemonium and The Town that Dreaded Sundown

If I remember correctly, the character from the Quentin Tarantino movie Dusk till Dawn is named after the movie, but I'm not 100% sure. Knowing Quentin though, that's probably where he grabbed the Satanico Pandemonium name from.

Now, I can't say for sure off the top of my head, but the version of The Town that Dreaded Sundown that's found on DVD, along with the streaming versions, has something wrong with it. I want to say that its either a quality of video thing, or something about whether or not it is in widescreen. That may have changed or I may be misinformed, I'm not totally sure. The historical accuracies are commonly compared to the ones in Texas Chainsaw Massacre- namely, they are shit. At least the Town that Dreaded Sundown got the town right. Texas Chainsaw Massacre had the house and the use of face masks right, and that's about it. O'Course, there's a lot of movies based on Ed Gein...

There's also a remake of the Town That Dreaded Sundown coming out on the 16th, though I believe its a straight to DVD affair.


I plan on rewatching Texas Chainsaw 3D this month if I can, even if I'm the only person on Earth who likes it. I want to see whatever else horror I can this month, although my roommate might not let that happen.