#1 - Crawl (2019)
Kaya Scodelario and her dopey dad Barry Pepper get caught in a crawlspace under their house with big ass gators during a hurricane. Now this was fun. Just different enough from the usual trapped by a shark fare that it felt fresh while also providing the much needed munch factor of limbs getting chewed on by something with far too many teeth. Short, lots of action and some hairy original set pieces, including one involving a bathroom shower that got ruined for me because they kept showing it on BBC bloody news film reviews. Recommended.
Agree with your recommendation. This was a lot more fun to watch than I thought it would be. Reminded me of Burning Bright. Solid SFX, jump scares and gore kept me invested all the way through.
Bet she was glad her father made her go for that boat instead of staying in the house.
Low budget indie - Sadly didnt like this one a few amusing moments but all the characters were unlikable just wanted them all to die quick lol. Thankfully its a short film but even then it drags.
3 out of 10.
Also caught the The Dead Don't Die a few days ago. Not sure what to make of it. I guess it's a homage to the early zombie films. Leans heavily on the wonderful cast and has a very odd script but overall I enjoyed it. Not a scary film and obviously not meant to be one but worth a watch.
Yeah I watched The Dead Don't Die a few weeks back and loved it but I know people who absolutely hated it. It's repetitive, kinda downbeat, silly, sarcastic and (I thought) very, very funny. It won me over when they were all stood outside the diner and everyone that turns up goes in to see the dead bodies one after another and it just goes on and on.....and on
I won't be watching horror movies every day through October, but I do have some scary things lined up to watch. I usually watch through a horror franchise this time each year, and this time around my plan is to do the A Nightmare on Elm Street series (first time watch).
Anyway, so far this month I've seen the already mentioned Ready or Not, and it was just the sort of film I was in the mood for. The concept is exactly the quaint/curious little thing that works for me (I think this would make a great double bill with Game Night) and Samara Weaving once again gives a fantastic performance and makes the whole thing fun to watch.
I liked that each character is not a black-&-white good/bad person and that some members of the family are not entirely on board with what is going on. The plot does take a little while to really get going but once it does it's got a wonderful flow. The violence is strong and does earn the '18' certificate, but it doesn't go overboard (excessive gore would have ruined the balance of the plot vs. action and really changed the tone).
The script is good and the comedy moments all land. It all builds to a very satisfying ending.
Visually it worked for me too. I really liked the striking colour pallet, it gives the film an identity, and it was only outdoor scenes that things got a bit too murky. There are some moments where you think, "hang on, how did x character manage to do that?" which ruins the immersion a bit, but this is a splendidly quirky little horror/comedy thriller.
Us (2019)
Jordan Peele's sophomore effort is another creatively creepy horror flick which draws elements from several well-worn genres to craft something fresh. Lupita Nyong'o and Winston Duke take their family on a Santa Cruz beach vacation that literally unearths some long buried trauma from Lupita's childhood. From the ominous opening, Us manages to deliver a constantly escalating level of suspense with increasing stakes for almost all of its running time. The finale drops the ball slightly, but this remains a satisfying, edge of your seat film nonetheless. Also, I give an A+ to daughter number 1, Zora, for her horror film survival skills - never quit hitting until you're sure they're not getting up again!
Quote:
Gabe Wilson: You're scaring the kids.
Jason & Zora Wilson: Too late.
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Us (2019)
Jordan Peele's sophomore effort is another creatively creepy horror flick which draws elements from several well-worn genres to craft something fresh.
I hated it.
__________________ Xbox Live Gamertag: Absinthe Miasma
After the tedious deluge of afterlife films from the Conjuring universe, it’s great to have a film that’s made by people who know what the **** they’re doing.
I really enjoyed The Conjuring but all the Annabelle and Nun ***** that came in its wake was uniformly garbage. And I can get on board with a certain brand of garbage but that stuff is cynically made by execs who think horror fans will lap up anything.
This on the other hand is a precision scare machine, put together with heart and care.
Its chances of being taken seriously are certainly not helped by the schlocky name they’ve given it, which makes it sound like the 7th entry in a crappy mid-90s horror franchise. That’s a great shame because this is a properly well made film, with excellent acting across the board, lovely warm filmic cinematography and a believable family unit at its core.
Yes, there are plenty of jump scares to be had, but they’re well paced and expertly delivered. Whenever any demonic imagery is needed it’s done with either “corner of the eye” subtleness or solid design work, unlike the laughable big bad demon in the Insidious series.
Probably the best film ever made about a Hasbro board game.
__________________ Xbox Live Gamertag: Absinthe Miasma
Caught Ready or Not the other day and was genuinely impressed by it. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark was another recent Hollywood horror film I quite enjoyed. I know it got criticised for being a bit tame thanks to its child-friendly PG-13 rating in the states, but I felt it was a fun throwback to the good old days of late 80s/early 90s horror.
Two girls heading out for a party make the mistake of trying to score some weed first, whilst some extremely nasty criminals make the mistake of trying to con a nice middle class couple into let them spend the night.
Whilst some parts of it were brutal, and I can see where a lot of later films took cues from it, and it was good, it's hard to believe the fuss about it as compared to a lot of modern films it is relatively tame in terms of blood and gore but I think it hits harder psychologically than many of it's copy cats.
Five friends head out to a cabin in the woods (have they never watched a horror film?) for a break and find out reel to reel tape decks are a tool of the devil and there really are books that deserve to be burned, you also learn the roots the phrase” got wood”…
I can't believe I've never seen this in full before, but I picked up the triple pack of Blu-rays (cheers bargain forum!) with all three films in it, I know the general story thanks to so many references and jokes based on it that I've seen over the years but never the actual full, uninterrupted film (I think I caught some of it on Sci-Fi or something once).
This is one of the horrors that I really enjoyed watching and despite it's age had me jumping a few times as it does a good job of building up the fear level.
It's relatively crude/low budget (but they managed stuff on that low budget that is better than many much higher budget films of the time I think) and does show it's age in some ways, but the performances were good, and in many ways it's pretty timeless and could be set at almost any time in the last 40-50 years.
The effects were well done, and the claymation/stop motion at the end was good if a little obvious when watched on modern equipment at home but better than some of the higher budget films of the time.
Compared to Last House on the Left it is both tamer, but at the same time more effective as a horror.
Ash wakes up after a bad night to find that the new day is not going to be any better than the last, as the daughter of the guy who started reading the book of the dead heads home after finding some pages from the book that would probably have been handy to have had before, although he probably could have done without the not so helping hand that he did end up with.
I think I've seen more of this before than the first, but again I can't remember ever seeing the whole thing.
The story continues straight on from the first film, with Bruce Canbell being the only member of the cast to return, it's another enjoyable film (although it didn't make me jump), with a good mix of horror and humour.
You can tell it was shot with a bigger budget as there were a lot more effects, although it kept the spirit and feel of the original.
How much trouble can you cause by not paying attention and remembering 3 words?
Ash runs into more trouble with the pesky dead, including some small problems which he manages to deal with in a comic book manner.
Ok, I’m fairly sure I’ve seen this before, either that or i’ve seen a lot of clips of it as my memory was getting jogged repeatedly.
It's continuing the story straight from the previous film, with more jokey horror (the mini Ash's were great), the same sort of well executed effects and script making it another enjoyable watch,
On a side note, whenever I start watching the horror films for October I'm always a bit surprised how many of them I have no memory of actively watching in the past, but can remember keys scenes from (at least with the better known/more popular ones), I guess in part it's because for many of them they get referenced in other films/media, and others I've probably skipped past them at one point or another on TV.
I’m a huge fan of 80’s slashers so have quick question about American Horror Story 1984 - can it be watched as a stand-alone season or do you need to have watched the other series? (I saw the first season which I loved but gave up halfway through season 2)
I’m a huge fan of 80’s slashers so have quick question about American Horror Story 1984 - can it be watched as a stand-alone season or do you need to have watched the other series? (I saw the first season which I loved but gave up halfway through season 2)
Yes you dont need to see the others - some characters do sometimes appear in other seasons but it wont affect your enjoyment.
Day 4 i watched...
Hell Fest (2018)
Trailer...
Enjoyed this one, nice to see and hear Tony todd. 6 out of 10
#5 - The Curse of La Llorona (2019)
Single mum Linda Cardellini has to defend her kids from the weeping woman, a 17th century ghostie that drowned her own kiddies in the lake. She enlists the help of Breaking Bad's Tuco a renegade ex-priest who I'm just gonna call The Mexorcist cos he's got a bad attitude and a bag full of demon killing tricks. Course this makes the flick sound a whole lot more fun that it actually is. Pretty standard spook fare with no surprises and a tenuous link to the other Conjuring flicks. Don't bother.
Also watched episode 2 of American Horror Story 1984, loving every dumbass throwback slashy minute of it so far. The next ep is called Slashdance
And I gave the first ep of Shudder's new Creepshow TV series a try, which wasn't bad at all if a little throwaway but then it's two 20 minute stories per episode. The first was an adaptation of Stephen King's Gray Matter featuring Adrienne Barbeau, Giancarlo Esposito and Tobin Bell. But the 2nd story of the first ep was the better of the 2 featuring a little girl's doll house, effectively creepy.
Time for a childhood favourite which I haven't seen since VHS (and the first of my 80's film series this month)...
#6 - Critters (1986)
Escaped porcupine-like alien fugitives crash land on Earth and get to feeding and partying Gremlins style. Pre-IMDB I used to see Scott Grimes in things like ER, Band Of Brothers, Party Of Five (currently he's Gordon Malloy on The Orville) and it used to bug the sheeit out of me no end that I couldn't remember where I'd seen him before. That's right he was the ginger kid from Critters! I can't really be objective about this flick as I've always loved it and yes for me it holds up very well over 30 years later. I will say this is the first time I've appreciated that the true genius of the movie is the inclusion of the bounty hunter shapeshifter aliens, they almost do more damage than the killer hedgehogs they're hunting. More than half the plot revolves around their fish out of water, shoot anything that moves, borderline incompetent tracking of their prey. And the fact that one of em chooses to look like a famous rock star is almost as brilliant as the other one being unable to decide on a face so just keeps changing it, in front of everyone!
All that and a Billy Zane death scene too. Classic.
I adore the Critters films (even 3 and 4), they were my horror series rewatch last year. Earlier this year there was a new web series which was cheap and dumb but surprisingly funny. There's also a new movie recently out (Critters Attack) which I haven't seen yet.
Werewolf are you going to move onto the Ash series?
Suddenly caught up in 2 days
#3 - Creepshow 2 - Another Amazon suggestion, three Stephen King stories, mostly famours for The Raft, interlinked by a cartoon, an enjoyable enough time filler. Looking forward to the tv series mentioned above.
#4 - From Beyond - Horror staples Combs, Foree and Crampton open a link to another dimension. Definitely from Brian (Society) Yuzna, as it was very organic in places.
#5 Childs Play (2019) - Much better than I thought it would be, changed my mind about seeing it after the review in the thread. Hamill does a good job, but still is not as good as Dourif.
#6 And Im going to cheat. Ghostbusters (1984) - As the odeon were showing it as part of its 35th Anniversary. They had recent interviews with most of the cast who are still with us and the director, and some deleted scenes which was a nice touch. The effects have aged, but its still awesome on the big screen. It was 3/4 full with a good atmosphere, but will never match up to the original showing in 1984 which was so loud it made my teeth rattle
I'm going to try and watch the Ash series, but probably after Halloween, at the moment I'm concentrating on films (with the odd anime episode thrown in).
I watched a couple of recommendations from this thread tonight, with mixed results…
Crawl (2019)
Another Alexander Aja disappointment. I need to pick up the blu-ray of High Tension before the end of the month, so I can remember the kind of furniture-based decapitation that he’s capable of.
This definitely wasn’t bad but it was all a bit by the numbers and unremarkable and clearly filmed on a backlot. The CGI gators actually looked great for the most part but the crunchy maulings all felt slightly computer gamey. The one exception to that being a nicely meaty arm-rip, which really hit the mark.
It's worth a watch, if only because a giant alligator flick is always appreciated, but it felt like a missed opportunity.
Satanic Panic (2019)
Directed by the improbably named Chelsea Stardust, this Fangoria flick is a fun one and not dissimilar to 2017’s Netflix effort, The Babysitter.
Satan has himself an army of followers and it turns out they’re mostly Martha Stewart wannabes, trying to rule the world from suburbia, in their angora sweaters and Range Rovers.
The latter parts reminded me of that short dream sequence from The 'Burbs, when the satanists are barbecuing Walter.
There’s lots of corn syrup and giblets tossed around as we follow Sam, the pizza girl, trying to avoid becoming both the ****-buddy and mother of Baphomet
There were a couple of nice references in amongst the carnage with Peter Jackson’s The Frighteners and possibly Rod’s death from Nightmare on Elm Street getting a nod.
I really appreciated the physical effects work, as we get to enjoy deaths by drill, spike, sword and disembowelment, to name but a few.
Recommended.
Danica:"I’ll squat in the dirt and **** on your grave before I ever forgive you".
__________________ Xbox Live Gamertag: Absinthe Miasma
cos he's got a bad attitude and a bag full of demon killing tricks. Course this makes the flick sound a whole lot more fun that it actually is. Pretty standard spook fare with no surprises and a tenuous link to the other Conjuring flicks. Don't bother. 
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