The 2016 October Horror Marathon

[Nemoide]

I haven't seen Witch's Ghost but I remember really liking Zombie Island.
I also remember liking the live-action movie which was written by James Gunn of Tromeo & Juliette and Guardians of the Galaxy fame.

[Michi]

I enjoyed the first two (Zombie Island moreso than Witch's Ghost). After that I skipped quite a few of them and caught the end of the Samurai film. Really wasn't feeling that one, but it might have been because I missed most of the beginning. I'll have to give it and the some of the others a chance sometime.

[noiseredux]

Army Of Darkness is actually my LEAST favorite Evil Dead movie... but I still love it. It was the first one I saw, and sucked me into the world. It's a blast.

Ghoul School is probably my favorite Scooby-Doo thing ever. I watched it so much as a kid. So much fun!

Oddly... I have not seen the two James Gunn movies even though I'm a big fan of his work and love Sarah Michelle Gellar! I keep meaning to fix that.

[Nemoide]

Also let me admit: my first Scooby-Doo was A Pup Named Scooby-Doo in which all the characters are kids, the color palette is way more bright, and Velma has a compute. I was *JUST* a little bit too young for previous SD incarnations.

I know it's wrong but there's a nostalgic core in my brain that wants to harshly judge all previously released Scooby-Doo shows against that one.

[prfsnl_gmr]

Another night of TERROR!



Mama (2013) is a modern, PG-13, American "ghost story" film with a relatively large budget. It explains way too much, and shows way too much, and as a result, it isn't even remotely frightening. (It even forecasts its jump scares, and at one point last night, my wife referred to it as "Baby's First Horror Film.") It does not build any sense of dread, and it is vastly inferior to other films in its genre. It is never dull, however, and the ending is not a complete cop-out. Moreover...

I can't bring myself to hate a film that features Jessica Chastain as a tattooed bassist in a push-up bra for the majority of its 100 minute running time.

I'm off to a bit of a rough start this year, but hopefully, I will get to some winners soon.
.....

prfsnl_gmr's 2016 List of Unspeakable Horrors!

The Serpent and the Rainbow -
Mama -

[noiseredux]

the whole second half of Mama was a POS that felt like its script was written via madlibs.

[prfsnl_gmr]

the whole second half of Mama was a POS that felt like its script was written via madlibs.

Yeah...and I didn't think the first half was much better.

[noiseredux]

no, the first half was pretty paint by numbers. But it could have at least been a "not great but not terrible and kind of generic but somewhat creepy" haunted house movie. Some of the visuals were alright - like the girl playing tugowar in her room part? But I mean... it just goes so off the rails in the final third that it destroys the movie totally.

On the flip, I felt like Sinister (which we just recently watched as well) was a "not great but not terrible and kind of generic but somewhat creepy" haunted house movie that ended up being totally bumped up a few notches because of those absolutely terrifying grainy snuff films that he'd keep watching. Some of those were just so chilling that it creates a series of scenes that make an otherwise "just good" movie totally worth watching.

[Ack]

That is really a shame about Mama. I remember seeing the trailers for it and being interested. Oh well, I had hopes.

Speaking of which, anyone heard of this movie?



I saw a trailer for it a couple of weeks back when I saw The Magnificent Seven remake. Oh man, it looks good.

[prfsnl_gmr]

no, the first half was pretty paint by numbers.

IMO, it still showed too much and explained too much. (Also, anyone who has ever seen another horror film could see the jump scares coming a mile away. My wife and I counted down from a few of the music cues, and we hit the mark 75% of the time.) The directors were like, "Look at this scary ghost! Doesn't looking at it make you afraid! Let us tell you in excruciating detail her history, where she came from, and her motivations! Aren't they creepy?!"

In that sense, the movie was essentially the complete opposite of (the otherwise thematically similar) The Babadook. In that film - as in other great horror films - the terror comes from not knowing the evil's source, motivation, etc. In other words, terror springs from what you don't know, can't see, and can't understand. When you show too much and explain too much, you remove the unknown and, in doing so, the horror.