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The Horror Movie Thread

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  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850
    edited November 2018
    The first two Texas Chainsaw Massacres are also legitimately good. Mostly because the low-budget of the first one makes it seem like it's almost entirely real, and that for the second one Tobe Hooper decided to just make a straight-up satire of his previous film. The 2nd one is deliciously gonzo.

    The present day remakes are atrocities. I shut off "The Beginning" in the first 10 minutes years ago. Shockingly enough, the remakes of "The Hills Have Eyes" are even worse.
    ThacoBell
  • Dev6Dev6 Member Posts: 719
    I just got back from watching the new Halloween and I'm both incredibly happy and incredibly disappointed.
    The movie is quite entertaining. It's certainly a worthy sequel to the original. Jamie Lee Curtis is amazing as usual. The characters are nice, the plot is pretty decent for a slasher flick. The music (by John Carpenter!!!) is amazing. I was "afraid" they'd go overboard with the gore and blood (think TCM-remake levels of gore) but they actually didn't. It does maintain that Halloween aesthetic. Michael looks AMAZING. I cannot stress this enough, this movie has the best looking Michael of the whole franchise.
    But then... The ending comes along. And it's such a huge freaking letdown... The last 5 minutes of the movie honestly made me think "what the FUCK were they thinking?!"...
    So, yeah. If you enjoy slasher flicks, it's certainly worth a watch. Halloween fans will probably love it. Just beware of the ending.
    ThacoBell said:

    @Dev6 My problem with slashers are pretty simple.
    1.While gore and blood doesn't bother me, I don't really get any entertainment out of it. And most slashers seem to treat it as the main reason to watch.
    2. None of the cast are ever likeable. So there is no reason to root for any of them. Halloween is better at this than most as Dr. Loomis and uh, crap, survivor girl are actually likeable and I WANT them to make it through.
    3. The body count is so consistently high, that rooting for even the rare character you like is kinda pointless. Slashers REALLY need to vary this up more. 99% of the time, the survivor is the one teenage girl who didn't have sex earlier. Its mind numbing.
    4. The villain is usually boring. There isn't much to differeniate say, Jason Vorhees and Michael Myers.

    1) That's like saying comedy movies rely too much on jokes. Duh?
    2) Most of the time they're really not supposed to be. Deep down you're supposed to root for the killers, not the victims. Dr. Loomis and Laurie Strode are one of the few exceptions, not really because of the characters themselves but because they're both played by incredibly talented actors.
    3) The first Halloween has 5 kills, and one of those is off-screen. If I remember correctly the first Friday the 13th and Texas Chainsaw Massacre are also around that number. It's the sequels that go overboard with the kill count but that is pretty much the point.
    4) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ One likes hockey and the other likes star trek.

    Seriously though, I know slashers aren't for everyone and that's alright. But I love all these movies, even the really bad ones lol.
    Halloween is definitely a good movie though. Amazing cinematography and music.

    The first two Texas Chainsaw Massacres are also legitimately good. Mostly because the low-budget of the first one makes it seem like it's almost entirely real, and that for the second one Tobe Hooper decided to just make a straight-up satire of his previous film. The 2nd one is deliciously gonzo.

    The present day remakes are atrocities. I shut off "The Beginning" in the first 10 minutes years ago. Shockingly enough, the remakes of "The Hills Have Eyes" are even worse.

    I actually absolutely love the TCM Remake and The Beginning, go figure. They're raw, dirty, slimy and bloody. I'd much prefer if they had actually continued with that timeline instead of going back to the original. Texas Chainsaw 3D and Leatherface are complete crap.
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    @Dev6 Well, there are many kind of jokes for comedies to pull from. Slapstick, witty speech, actual classical jokes, etc. Slashers can do much the same, with varied kills. These can be creative without relying on red corn syrup and some rubber tubing to cover everthing.

    I guess I don't understand the idea of rooting for the bad guy. Why would I WANT murder to happen?

    Its not about absolute number of kills, so much as relative. 99% of the time, we have a single surviving character. And that character is usually easly predicted. There is a TON of room for variation here.
  • LadyRhianLadyRhian Member Posts: 14,694
    ThacoBell said:

    @Dev6 Well, there are many kind of jokes for comedies to pull from. Slapstick, witty speech, actual classical jokes, etc. Slashers can do much the same, with varied kills. These can be creative without relying on red corn syrup and some rubber tubing to cover everthing.

    I guess I don't understand the idea of rooting for the bad guy. Why would I WANT murder to happen?

    Its not about absolute number of kills, so much as relative. 99% of the time, we have a single surviving character. And that character is usually easly predicted. There is a TON of room for variation here.

    Don't forget the old saw. Sex=death in slasher films. If you have sex, you are going to die.

    https://horrornews.net/39196/top-10-signs-that-you-might-be-in-a-horror-movie/

    https://reallyawfulmovies.com/2014/10/09/20-signs-you-might-be-in-a-bad-horror-movie/

    ThacoBell
  • JoenSoJoenSo Member Posts: 910
    Bad movie recommendation! I'm really not interested in slasher movies. But I did see one such movie in the cinemas back when I was 19: Strandvaskaren/Drowning ghost. A movie that is probably the only Swedish slasher movie in existence.

    No one in the cinema took it seriously, and as I recall it, reviews called it a painfully obvious rip-off of Halloween. I will however give it bonus points for the innovative ways the main character defended herself.
    ThacoBell
  • ZaghoulZaghoul Member, Moderator Posts: 3,938
    @dev6 Just watched the new Halloween myself and I'd have to say I pretty much agree with your assessment. I really enjoyed at least a couple scenes that were direct nods to the first movie. I actually think it would have been even better if we hadn't had all the other Halloween movies since the original in '78, but as that's not possible if anyone that had never seen them at all asked, I would probably suggest they watch the first and this one before getting into all the others.

    Yeah, Nick Castle did the original shape of Michael and it was good to have him back in the role again. I like how the history of Will Patton's character was written into the story as well. Overall I enjoyed it. B)
    Dev6
  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850
    edited November 2018
    The trope about slasher films ALWAYS punishing characters who have sex with death is a totally legitimate criticism, because it is basically entirely true (without fail). While both the males and females get killed, the set pieces are always the still barely clothed girls who can't figure out why their boyfriend hasn't gotten back from the kitchen with the beer yet. The girl who survives (and it is always a girl) is the one who is either entirely chaste or at least holds out for her long-time boyfriend for 3/4 of the movie. Going back and watching any of them now reveal the same thing, and even the tongue-in-cheek ones from the 90s that almost all star at least one member of the cast of "Dawson's Creek" play by the same rules even if they readily acknowledge them. And the first "Halloween" movie in 1978, despite being the first and best, is the one that set the rules. I just watched it last night, and the two girls that die are 1.) Getting in a car to go pick up their boyfriend to have sex and 2.) Just got done having sex. And 90% of slasher movies since have followed the exact same formula.
    Balrog99ThacoBellsemiticgoddess
  • LadyRhianLadyRhian Member Posts: 14,694

    The trope about slasher films ALWAYS punishing characters who have sex with death is a totally legitimate criticism, because it is basically entirely true (without fail). While both the males and females get killed, the set pieces are always the still barely clothed girls who can't figure out why their boyfriend hasn't gotten back from the kitchen with the beer yet. The girl who survives (and it is always a girl) is the one who is either entirely chaste or at least holds out for her long-time boyfriend for 3/4 of the movie. Going back and watching any of them now reveal the same thing, and even the tongue-in-cheek ones from the 90s that almost all star at least one member of the cast of "Dawson's Creek" play by the same rules even if they readily acknowledge them. And the first "Halloween" movie in 1978, despite being the first and best, is the one that set the rules. I just watched it last night, and the two girls that die are 1.) Getting in a car to go pick up their boyfriend to have sex and 2.) Just got done having sex. And 90% of slasher movies since have followed the exact same formula.

    It's almost like slasher films are morality plays, harkening back to the morals of the 1950's. The good girl lives, bad girls die, and so do the men who are with the bad girls. i.e. "If you have sex, something bad (i.e. death) is going to happen to you." It's like girls who put out, or put out too easily, are syphilis or something.
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    edited November 2018
    @LadyRhian 1950's educational shorts would be a LOT more interesting with the likes of Michael or Freddy hosting them.
    LadyRhian
  • LadyRhianLadyRhian Member Posts: 14,694
    I agree. Does Michael Myers even speak, though? I thought he was speechless (silent). I wonder who would do the cheery voiceover for the educational film part. :)
    ThacoBell
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    @LadyRhian Its a series of expressive gestures.
  • semiticgoddesssemiticgoddess Member Posts: 14,903
    I think the reason the virgins in horror movies survive is because they're the ones that the audience is supposed to identify with. Promiscuous people are seldom main characters because people don't identify with characters who have great sex lives.
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    That's... a little sad.
    semiticgoddess
  • semiticgoddesssemiticgoddess Member Posts: 14,903
    In general, people tend to overestimate how great other people's lives are, including their sex lives. We usually compare our lives to people who are better off than we are, and so we overlook the things in our life that are going very well. We take our blessings for granted.
    ThacoBell
  • LadyRhianLadyRhian Member Posts: 14,694
    ThacoBell said:

    @LadyRhian Its a series of expressive gestures.

    Ah. I see. Perhaps we could get Chucky for the Voice-over part. ;)
    ThacoBell
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    LadyRhian said:

    ThacoBell said:

    @LadyRhian Its a series of expressive gestures.

    Ah. I see. Perhaps we could get Chucky for the Voice-over part. ;)
    For a brief moment I thought to myself, "What does Rugrats have to do wirh horror?"
  • LadyRhianLadyRhian Member Posts: 14,694
    ThacoBell said:

    LadyRhian said:

    ThacoBell said:

    @LadyRhian Its a series of expressive gestures.

    Ah. I see. Perhaps we could get Chucky for the Voice-over part. ;)
    For a brief moment I thought to myself, "What does Rugrats have to do wirh horror?"
    Well. that animation style is quite horrifying....
    ThacoBellsemiticgoddess
  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850
    edited November 2018

    I think the reason the virgins in horror movies survive is because they're the ones that the audience is supposed to identify with. Promiscuous people are seldom main characters because people don't identify with characters who have great sex lives.

    This might have some merit, but......I'm not so sure. Because at the very least, all of these girls have potential suitors or boyfriends. And there is no way anyone can make the argument that Jamie Lee Curtis, Adrienne King, Heather Langenkamp, Neve Campbell or frickin' Jennifer Love Hewitt are in any way unattractive or undesirable to the opposite sex. I agree that in most cases they are made to look at least slightly more plain than their promiscuous friends in these movies, but most of them have boyfriends, they simply are choosing not to have sex YET because they aren't ready. Which leads me to believe it was still mostly about morality tales rather than identifying with the characters. I still firmly believe the overarching theme of any slasher movie is "this girl is acting good" and "her friends are acting like sluts" and one lives and all the rest die. Siskel and Ebert dubbed these films as early as the 2nd Friday the 13th as "dead teenager movies", and they weren't wrong.
    LadyRhian
  • semiticgoddesssemiticgoddess Member Posts: 14,903
    Well, the sex is there because sex sells and it provides a contrast with the violence. Death and sex have had a weird link in art long before art, and not just in terms of morality plays (death and birth have the same kind of links). A horror movie with sexual elements is going to be more popular than one without, ceteris paribus.

    But you can't have every character be a slut, or else there's no one the audience can identify with. And if you kill the virgin, that seems even more cruel than killing the non-virgin (compare it to killing a puppy instead of a wolf; you feel more sorry for the weaker-looking or "innocent" one). If you were the filmmaker and you wanted to cram as much sex into a horror movie as possible while still keeping a survivor that the audience can identify with, then almost everyone besides the survivor will be promiscuous or at least implied to be sexually active.

    I think it's pretty clear that there's a lot of slut-shaming in our culture overall (though thankfully it's starting to get called out for the nonsense that it is). But this particular trope, where the survivor in a slasher film is a virgin, has alternative explanations that also make sense. Personally, I think the explanation "people like fanservice but don't feel very lucky in love themselves" makes more sense than "people find it more fun to watch sluts die than virgins." Although I'll grant that the second explanation does make more sense for certain people.

    As for why the survivors tend to be women: female horror leads are more common because they seem more vulnerable. Also, a guy would sort of be expected to fight back against the monster instead of run, and the only way to let a male lead survive that is to make the monster non-threatening. Audiences are less likely to think "Just punch the killer in the face!" when watching a frail-looking woman than a conventionally attractive (and therefore somewhat sturdy-looking) man. It makes the monster look more dangerous.

    Besides, women very seldom die in movies. Men die in droves, but a woman's death is virtually always treated as more serious and evil than a man's. Watch John Wick and you'll see dozens of men die with no more than a couple seconds dedicated to each one, and the large majority of them are nameless--their deaths have no purpose but to make John Wick seem more badass. A man's death is cheap in today's films; it's not as suspenseful to wonder if yet another dude gets killed. A woman's death has more weight and importance in the eye of the viewer, so it's more suspenseful if a woman's life is in danger in a horror movie.

    And there is no way anyone can make the argument that Jamie Lee Curtis, Adrienne King, Heather Langenkamp, Neve Campbell or frickin' Jennifer Love Hewitt are in any way unattractive or undesirable to the opposite sex.

    True, but that's not really exclusive to horror flicks. If you're a woman, you're probably not going to be an actress in any major role unless you're conventionally attractive. There are non-attractive actresses, but they are very rare and usually have some extra talent that lets them excel in non-standard roles. Melissa McCarthy is brilliant, but there aren't many like her (and even then, it's not like she's homely; she's just heavy).

    For men, of course, there's more diversity of roles. It's true that male leads are almost always attractive, and the same holds for most male side characters, but ugly or non-conventionally-attractive men also get to play villains and comedic characters. For one reason or another, audiences and/or producers (I'm honestly leaning towards producers on this one, since they overwhelmingly skew male) seem to prefer that goofy-looking or homely people be men rather than women.
    ThacoBell
  • LadyRhianLadyRhian Member Posts: 14,694
    So, I ran across this video on YouTube, and I wondered if anyone else found the picture of the demon/dog face showing up in the picture as creepy as I do.
    ThacoBell
  • marilithmarilith Member Posts: 25
    here is my list of best 2018 movies (it contains lot of horror movies)

    https://darksideofrpgs.blogspot.com/2019/01/best-movies-2018.html
    Zaghoul
  • ZaghoulZaghoul Member, Moderator Posts: 3,938
    marilith said:

    here is my list of best 2018 movies (it contains lot of horror movies)

    https://darksideofrpgs.blogspot.com/2019/01/best-movies-2018.html

    Nice list. I saw several of those with Unsane being the most unusual I thought.
  • voidofopinionvoidofopinion Member, Moderator Posts: 1,248
    Wife got me this for Christmas.

    Such an amazing film with quality and denseness of atmosphere all horror directors should strive for.

    But then not everyone can be an Andrei Tarkovsky or David Lynch.


    FinneousPJ
  • hybridialhybridial Member Posts: 291
    I have a bit of a love for the horror genre, to keep things more focused I think I'll pretty much stick to 3 things.

    The first would be, the horror movies directed by John Carpenter. He is my favourite director of all time, and even if he did broadly focus on horror and pulp oriented fiction in his movies, he really did it better than anyone. In terms of horror, well one can't talk about his worth without bringing up Halloween. An exercise in atmosphere and audio artistry, he took a simple idea (and did borrow quite a bit from the equally great Black Christmas) and turned it into something that is still getting sequels in 2018. Then there is The Thing, one of three excellent, sublime movies he made with Kurt Russell playing the lead character, is so good you forget the fact its technically a remake. Then there are the other two movies of his apocalypse trilogy, Prince of Darkness and In the Mouth of Madness. Excellent, intellectually stimulating horror films, the kind you just don't get anymore. Carpenter is so awesome, I can easilly segue from him to the other topics.

    First is, I read an interview with him a number of years ago, and found that he is a fan of a 1970s manga, Devilman, and he had once tried to get the license to make a movie based on the property sometime in the 90s. It would have been very interesting indeed if he had made that movie, but alas it was not to be. Devilman is a classic, its had some great (and not so great) adaptations. I actually love the animated version of the later manga Devilman Lady, which is a fairly standard variant on the concept if the lead was female, the 1998 series was largely written by Chiaki J. Konaka, who was most famous for Serial Experiments Lain, The Big O and one of the Digimon seasons (not a fan but apparently it was good). Also the Vampire Princess Miyu TV series which someone did mention earlier in the thread. Its a wonderfully gothic show with an unconventional adult female lead in a somewhat more down to earth setting than we usually get in anime. Sure, its about people turning into monsters, but aside from that it felt like it was set in an actual real place.

    Actually I looked up a clip from the show for the intro soundtrack, and found a trailer thats new to me, and has a pretty neat old school trailer narration -





    It's my favourite show ever, really left an impression on me when I first saw it almost 15 years ago now.

    And the final topic, I can connect from John Carpenter, is in Carpenter's contribution to the Masters of Horror series, Cigarette Burns, a film called Profondo Rosso is referenced quite heavilly in a particular scene.

    Its English title is Deep Red, and it was directed by Dario Argento, a name I didn't see come up here when I browsed through. Recently a remake of his most famous film, Suspiria was released. It was... ah interesting but not as good as the original. I really enjoyed all the movies he made between 1975 and 1988, very much movies awash with great direction, awesome music and just this unique touch of his. But I feel like the music is seriously the most interesting parts of his films (the murdering is second :P)













    I feel most fond of Phenomena, given it had probably the most dream like qualities and the most off the wall premise. It was the main inspiration for the original SNES horror game, Clock Tower. It also had Donald Pleasance in it, taking a break from Halloween sequels and probably grateful for it. It was also Jennifer Connelly's major turn immediately before Labyrinth a year later. It's ah... well both of those movies were fucked up :P
    Zaghouljjstraka34voidofopinion
  • JoenSoJoenSo Member Posts: 910
    I watched two random horror movies from the 1930s today - The Monster Walks and House of Mystery. And they made me wonder... what's the deal with all the monkeys and apes in horror movies from this decade? Even before King Kong it seems. Is it some remnant from The murders in the Rue Morgue? Had the gorilla suit just been invented?

    House of Mystery seemed to be a weird attempt at an early horror comedy and had a staggering amount of monkey puns.
  • voidofopinionvoidofopinion Member, Moderator Posts: 1,248
    It was a thing the culture was going through.

    Putting an ape in something automatically boosted sales reguardless of what it was or why so there are a few decades where everything has monkeys/apes/gorillas in them.

    Stan Lee spoke about it often.
    JoenSoThacoBell
  • LadyRhianLadyRhian Member Posts: 14,694
    edited January 2019
    In Japan, they had the ape aliens from Godzilla vs. Mechgodzilla. That might count.


    Long video, but it's near the end. King Ceasar/Shiisa is my favorite Kaiju... I love how his ears go up when he hears Mechagodzilla. It's almost... adorable?
    Post edited by LadyRhian on
    Dev6Balrog99ThacoBell
  • Dev6Dev6 Member Posts: 719
    I'm a simple man. I see a Godzilla post, I like it.
    Balrog99ThacoBell
  • Dev6Dev6 Member Posts: 719
    edited February 2019
    New Critters!

    lbfh3u6qh9vo.png




    This seems charmingly low budget. Should be amusing enough to justify a watch. :)
    ThacoBellFinneousPJ
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    I just had a major flashback today. I saw my first horror movie when I was 3.

    Carnosaur

    It was a low budget horror movie about dinosaurs being brought back to life and killing people. It beat Jurassic Park by a few months. I should track it down and re-watch it sometime.
    Dev6
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