Welcome To Our Nightmare: A Terror and Wooley Horror Show
Welcome to a month-long celebration of all things October, the macabre, the wicked, the sinister, the dark, and the darkly funny. Here we present the mood of the best month in every way we desire, imagery, videos, music, movie-posters, cartoons, shorts, and most of all we watch the movies and present them to you. We hope we can help everyone get in... the spirit? We look forward to our first full October here and we hope our presentation adds to all the great Halloween fun that is already afoot here. No doubt some of our movie write-ups will be cross-posted in the Halloween Challenge and, of course, The Horrorcram, but we look forward to being the October Lounge when you just wanna hang out and get evil. So join us for the month as we immerse ourselves in ghoulish delights and share them with you and please don't hesitate to join in the fun and share things of your own. Let the celebration begin! Right this way... |
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LET'S BOOGIE!! |
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Originally Posted by Captain Terror (Post 2242539)
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Originally Posted by Wooley (Post 2242541)
Oh, I love this one. (Saved.)
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Originally Posted by Captain Terror (Post 2242545)
There's a very good chance that some of the images I post will have been stolen from some of your past Horrorthons. Apologies in advance. :)
And relieved cause I'm definitely stealing some of your cartoons. |
I’m finally about to delve into Black Sunday. Also, went to my local movie store and rented Horror of Dracula and Near Dark.
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This thread is sponsored by Slim Jim® brand meat snacks. |
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Originally Posted by Wyldesyde19 (Post 2242549)
I’m finally about to delve into Black Sunday. Also, went to my local movie store and rented Horror of Dracula and Near Dark.
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Captain Terror, 1982 If I could go back in time, I'd tell Lil' Cap to lose the monster hands. Overkill, dude. And not movie-accurate at all. How embarrassing. My aunt's brown Buick is also ruining the illusion. This may or may not have been taken on Halloween. But it was probably Halloween. :shifty: |
Here I am kicking off October with Tod Browning (of Dracula and Freaks), Lionel Atwill (of Doctor X, Mystery Of The Wax Museum, The Vampire Bat, Son Of Frankenstein fame), Lionel Barrymore (of so many titles it seemed odd he'd be slumming it in this movie, but hey, I guess people gotta work), and of course, a little (very little) Bela Lugosi. This is an odd little movie and not really a very good one, but I had it in my head that I really liked it from my last viewing about ten years ago. Less than halfway through I almost quit. It almost felt like if Ed Wood actually had a B-movie budget (albeit a low-B) for one film, he might have made this. I wanted to abort. But I stuck it out and in the end I enjoyed it and I remembered why I enjoyed it the first time. The story here is that the old nobleman of the region is killed by a vampire on the eve of his daughter Irena's engagement. Irena becomes the ward of the nobleman's friend Baron von Zinden and a year later, as it appears Irena will perhaps finally get married, vampire shenanigans begin anew as attacks begin to mount with the victims drained of blood and two puncture wounds on their necks. Suspicions do not improve when this creepy gal keeps showing up... And Bela Lugosi is hanging around with some weird, distracting mark on the side of his face. So there's some back-story about an old Count or something who was murdered and returned as a vampire or something, it's a bit vague honestly, but Lugosi is apparently that guy and the creepy gal is his daughter or something. Anyway, everybody's freakin' out. So the Inspector, Atwill, who doesn't believe any of this vampire talk, sends for a revered professor (Barrymore) to come help sort all this out. But the professor is certain that all the trouble is the work of vampires. And there's definitely some serious cobwebs and other haunted business going on in the old castle. I mean, honestly, I don't know what the hell was happening here: But it certainly has a vibe to it. So, look, I'm gonna be honest, like I said, this is not a good movie, the budget is low, and it's noticeable, they keep using the exact same bat on a string over and over, there's a lot of nonsense, and, even though they have Atwill and Barrymore holding everything down, the movie feels unrehearsed. Like these pro-actors showed up and were handed a script, they memorized their lines off-set real quick, came on and fired out their parts, and hit the bar. And yet, I still have this weird fondness for this movie. And I think it's just because of how it turns out. When you finally learn what it is the movie is actually doing, it's kind of a fun subversion and you feel like you're kind of on the movie's side now. So anyway, this is how I started off my Horrorthon, my SEVENTEENTH in a row (starting after Katrina in 2005!) and, while I might have done better to go with the far superior Return Of The Vampire (which I probably will later this month), I can't say I'm sorry I watched this again despite all its shortcomings. It's an adorable little curio of 40s low-budget Horror and I'm ok kicking off the season with that. |
Originally Posted by Wooley (Post 2242555)
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Yeah, I've gotta agree with you about Mark of the Vampire. I watch it pretty often though, just because it's such Gothic goodness.
https://i.imgur.com/WOzb3jF.gif I admit I sometimes just skip to the cool scenes, rather than watch the entire thing. And this is pretty cool and all---
Originally Posted by Wooley (Post 2242641)
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Re: Welcome To Our Nightmare: A Terror and Wooley Horror Show
Starting my Horrorthon in earnest on Sunday, with a largely-forgotten trilogy from Universal. All three will be first-time watches for me.
I'm pretty excited! |
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Originally Posted by Wyldesyde19 (Post 2242642)
It was pretty good!
I think of it as a sort of must-see given that it's kinda Bava's feature debut as a director (first credited film) and it's certainly his most famous early work. There's a lot to like including some really good special effects. Barbara Steele is also just such a fun character on her own. Couldn't act a lick, really, but became a sort of icon anyway. |
Originally Posted by Captain Terror (Post 2242645)
Yeah, I've gotta agree with you about Mark of the Vampire. I watch it pretty often though, just because it's such Gothic goodness.
https://i.imgur.com/WOzb3jF.gif I admit I sometimes just skip to the cool scenes, rather than watch the entire thing. And this is pretty cool and all--- but makes NO sense once the big reveal happens. I always assume there's something late in the film that makes it all make sense but really all this movie requires is the proper amount of hand-waving and an appreciation for what it does kinda succeed at. |
I woke up this morning with a bad case of The Cramps.
Gotta love Psychobilly. |
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Originally Posted by Captain Terror (Post 2242534)
LET'S BOOGIE!! Above-ground cemetery. A guy with a crown. Buncha "people" dancing. Lady dancing with a parasol. You gotta wonder if these two poor bastards aren't in New Orleans and wandered into a Parade... of the Dead! |
Originally Posted by Wooley (Post 2242677)
Above-ground cemetery. A guy with a crown. Buncha "people" dancing. Lady dancing with a parasol. You gotta wonder if these two poor bastards aren't in New Orleans and wandered into a Parade... of the Dead! Right?? And the clarinetist with the red sash, like he's playing a jazz funeral. Parasol lady is definitely MVP, though. |
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Kicked off my Horrorthon with Universal's seldom-discussed Ape-Woman trilogy. (Weird that the studio went so hard on the Jungle theme in the marketing, because literally none of this takes place in a jungle.) Our story begins with Captive Wild Woman (1943). John Carradine is a scientist conducting research in the field of....something. That wasn't clear. I just know that he used the word "glands" a lot, and his nurse warned him that he's "tampering with things that man shouldn't..." etc. So Doc Carradine somehow finds himself at a circus where he meets Cheela the gorilla. And by "gorilla" I mean that weird generic ape that appears in Three Stooges films. (See poster #1) So JC kidnaps the ape and brings her back to the lab where he does some sort of transfusion involving a woman he's also kidnapped. The result is just as you'd expect-- the ape turns into a human woman who's astonishingly photogenic given the circumstances. https://66.media.tumblr.com/63bb7df7...1jbo2_400.gifv this person was literally a gorilla two days ago Now the former gorilla, who's been given the name Paula Dupre for unexplained reasons, can't speak of course, but despite having zero training her posture is remarkable and she's surprisingly adept at walking in high heels, so they put her in the circus where she assists the lion tamer. (hence the sparkly outfit). So then some other stuff happens and then the transformation starts to reverse itself. https://64.media.tumblr.com/ccfc7bfe...1b1f5b5e8.gifv We get one scene of the Ape-Woman breaking into the bedroom of Evelyn Ankers (who can't seem to avoid lycanthropes can she?), until the reversal is complete and we end up with the Stooges Gorilla again for the climax, which is kind of a waste if you ask me. A storm breaks out, damaging the circus tent and freeing all of the lions and tigers. Cheela is shot while rescuing the lion tamer. The End. Jungle Woman (1944), despite being only one hour long, spends about 15 minutes recapping the first film. We learn that J Carroll Naish attended the circus that day and was impressed with Cheela's heroic behavior. He determines that she is in fact still alive and brings her back to his sanitarium, where he intends to... I can't remember. Anyhow, Cheela wakes up and escapes. Shortly afterward, she inexplicably reverts back to the form of Paula Dupre (off camera) and returns to the sanitarium where JCN takes her in. He has no idea that Paula and Cheela are the same person of course. This Ape-Woman film makes the bold choice of having no Ape-Women in it. Instead we just get Paula Dupre walking around in a smart outfit, occasionally murdering other women because she is jealous of a handsome male character. I feel like now is a good time to remind you that SHE USED TO BE A GORILLA, so this attraction to human men is unexpected to say the least. Also, midway through the film, again with no training, she inexplicably masters the English language but that's neither here nor there. At the end there's a scuffle with JC Naish during which he kills her. He is not sentenced for the crime, however, because the morgue has discovered that after death she has reverted to her Ape-Woman form. In Jungle Captive (1945) we find Otto Kruger as a scientist successfully reanimating dead rabbits. He decides that to take his work to the next level he needs to experiment on the late Paula Dupre. So he sends his assistant Rondo Hatton to the morgue to retrieve her body, but because he's Rondo Hatton he uses extra-legal means to do so. This film is more about Kruger and Hatton abducting people to use for their experiments than it is about the Ape-Woman. Weird that they bothered to make three of these films while not really seeming interested in featuring the main attraction, but I digress. The lovely Acquanetta has been replaced by Vicky Lane, who I found to be a blander presence onscreen. But we are rewarded with much more Ape Woman footage this time around. Final thoughts: So these aren't great obviously, but they're short and entertaining. Watching all 3 in one sitting probably isn't the best move for everybody, but in small doses they could be enjoyable. Of course it's always a treat to see Jack Pierce monster makeup, and especially since this is a rare case of a female monster that gets to be ugly for a change. (Let's be honest: Elsa Lanchester as the monster's mate wasn't so bad, right? :shifty:) These are titles I'd heard of before, but until this year I was unaware that they were related so I'm glad to have finally seen them. |
The imagery in this thread is a 10/10. Well done. :up:
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Originally Posted by Jeremiah_J (Post 2242787)
The imagery in this thread is a 10/10. Well done. :up:
Here's one just for you: |
Originally Posted by Wooley (Post 2242797)
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Originally Posted by Captain Terror (Post 2242645)
Yeah, I've gotta agree with you about Mark of the Vampire. I watch it pretty often though, just because it's such Gothic goodness.
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Holy ****, I had forgotten how good this movie actually is. This happens every time. I watch it and remember how good it is, then I let years pass and in my mind the narrative transforms to "well, it's good but more for its place in history than actually holding up" and I end up not watching it for a long time. Then I watch it again and get kinda blown away again. I am documenting here, more for myself than anyone else, that this is a damned good film. Honestly, my interest got a lot more piqued when I saw (prior to the beginning of the film) that the print on HBOMax was from the collection of The Museum Of Modern Art in New York. That says a lot and really, this film deserves to be there. It is as much an "art film" as it is a Horror film. There is so much more to this film than just being the genesis of The Living Dead and I think the film can be taken on its own, out of context, and appreciated and respected. The sociopolitical undertones of the film are well-documented and heavily discussed so I won't belabor them here. But I would like to say that, throughout, they are approached without feeling the need to engage them directly heavy-handedly. You feel the dynamics that are going on without anyone having to shout them out at you. And there's a separate statement made by doing it that way. I felt that the acting was often better than one might realize if they were just thinking of it as a cheap genre film. I particularly liked Barbara, who I had not liked in the past. She made me believe her. I believed that rather than a damsel in distress, she was a person traumatized into a state of shock. The dead-weight she then begins to be and the stress it puts on the situation is meaningful to the story. Obviously Ben is great, a decent man with a level head and the will to survive, not some hero. And the fact that he's a black man in a house full of white people in 1968 cannot be overlooked but is never addressed directly. All the characters felt like real people, including the Coopers, Harry being like a lot of weak men I've known and Helen like a lot of the stronger women who had the misfortune to hook up with weak men. The many conflicts within the group are as unnerving as the Living Dead themselves, given the danger they put everyone in. But this movie also has some real scares in it. The body on the landing jump-scare was a good one and the movie got pretty gruesome at moments, particularly when they show one of the LD eating one of the sympathetic main characters’ severed hand. And
WARNING: "Major sperlahs" spoilers below
Karen is just the most disturbing thing in the whole film. When she kills her own mother with a trowel and eats her… man.
And then Johnny comes for Barbara. Damn. A lot of heartbreak served up with the danger and death. I also felt like the camera and lighting did a great job of providing claustrophobia and a sense of realism. The music was effective but never overwhelmed the on-screen tension. All in all, Night Of The Living Dead is a film that deserves its place in history, not just for the sub-genre it invented, not just for the social statements it made, but also, in fact, more than anything, simply for the film it is. |
Originally Posted by Mesmerized (Post 2242808)
I'll have to put that on my watch list.
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Originally Posted by Captain Terror (Post 2242766)
Kicked off my Horrorthon with Universal's seldom-discussed Ape-Woman trilogy. (Weird that the studio went so hard on the Jungle theme in the marketing, because literally none of this takes place in a jungle.) Our story begins with Captive Wild Woman (1943). John Carradine is a scientist conducting research in the field of....something. That wasn't clear. I just know that he used the word "glands" a lot, and his nurse warned him that he's "tampering with things that man shouldn't..." etc. So Doc Carradine somehow finds himself at a circus where he meets Cheela the gorilla. And by "gorilla" I mean that weird generic ape that appears in Three Stooges films. (See poster #1) So JC kidnaps the ape and brings her back to the lab where he does some sort of transfusion involving a woman he's also kidnapped. The result is just as you'd expect-- the ape turns into a human woman who's astonishingly photogenic given the circumstances. https://66.media.tumblr.com/63bb7df7...1jbo2_400.gifv this person was literally a gorilla two days ago Now the former gorilla, who's been given the name Paula Dupre for unexplained reasons, can't speak of course, but despite having zero training her posture is remarkable and she's surprisingly adept at walking in high heels, so they put her in the circus where she assists the lion tamer. (hence the sparkly outfit). So then some other stuff happens and then the transformation starts to reverse itself. https://64.media.tumblr.com/ccfc7bfe...1b1f5b5e8.gifv We get one scene of the Ape-Woman breaking into the bedroom of Evelyn Ankers (who can't seem to avoid lycanthropes can she?), until the reversal is complete and we end up with the Stooges Gorilla again for the climax, which is kind of a waste if you ask me. A storm breaks out, damaging the circus tent and freeing all of the lions and tigers. Cheela is shot while rescuing the lion tamer. The End. Jungle Woman (1944), despite being only one hour long, spends about 15 minutes recapping the first film. We learn that J Carroll Naish attended the circus that day and was impressed with Cheela's heroic behavior. He determines that she is in fact still alive and brings her back to his sanitarium, where he intends to... I can't remember. Anyhow, Cheela wakes up and escapes. Shortly afterward, she inexplicably reverts back to the form of Paula Dupre (off camera) and returns to the sanitarium where JCN takes her in. He has no idea that Paula and Cheela are the same person of course. This Ape-Woman film makes the bold choice of having no Ape-Women in it. Instead we just get Paula Dupre walking around in a smart outfit, occasionally murdering other women because she is jealous of a handsome male character. I feel like now is a good time to remind you that SHE USED TO BE A GORILLA, so this attraction to human men is unexpected to say the least. Also, midway through the film, again with no training, she inexplicably masters the English language but that's neither here nor there. At the end there's a scuffle with JC Naish during which he kills her. He is not sentenced for the crime, however, because the morgue has discovered that after death she has reverted to her Ape-Woman form. In Jungle Captive (1945) we find Otto Kruger as a scientist successfully reanimating dead rabbits. He decides that to take his work to the next level he needs to experiment on the late Paula Dupre. So he sends his assistant Rondo Hatton to the morgue to retrieve her body, but because he's Rondo Hatton he uses extra-legal means to do so. This film is more about Kruger and Hatton abducting people to use for their experiments than it is about the Ape-Woman. Weird that they bothered to make three of these films while not really seeming interested in featuring the main attraction, but I digress. The lovely Acquanetta has been replaced by Vicky Lane, who I found to be a blander presence onscreen. But we are rewarded with much more Ape Woman footage this time around. Final thoughts: So these aren't great obviously, but they're short and entertaining. Watching all 3 in one sitting probably isn't the best move for everybody, but in small doses they could be enjoyable. Of course it's always a treat to see Jack Pierce monster makeup, and especially since this is a rare case of a female monster that gets to be ugly for a change. (Let's be honest: Elsa Lanchester as the monster's mate wasn't so bad, right? :shifty:) These are titles I'd heard of before, but until this year I was unaware that they were related so I'm glad to have finally seen them. So I had no idea there was an Ape-Woman Universal series. None. You have left me speechless. I will have to come back when I am not undone. |
Originally Posted by Wooley (Post 2242827)
I know Romero's expressed some regrets around the Judith O'Dea character, but I do appreciate the movie showing different kinds of reactions to the situation, from her catatonic state to the family man's wrong-headed stubbornness to Duane Jones' competence and assertiveness. I appreciate that he "corrected" this with the Gaylen Ross and Lori Cardille characters in Dawn and Day, respectively (both of whom I think really hold their films together), but I don't think "weak" characterizations hurt this movie as much as he seems to think. I don't know if I'd put this in my top 10 "favourite" horrors, but it's definitely one of the most influential. |
I think I am a little biased from an experience in high school when there was a marathon of all the universal Mummy movies on the sci-fi channel, and I only got the last 5 minutes of the first one, and then went on to watch all the sequels. So when someone says I watched all the films in the x-universal horror franchise, I just assume it goes poorly a movie or two in.
Also not knowing the Ape Woman series existed does not sound like it would bode well. (weirdly, I knew the movie, Night of the Bloody Apes existed... Different time/region of film though). Wrt to Night of the Living Dead. It's always interesting to me when people talk about their favorite Romero Living Dead movie for me, because I am squarely Night. There's something about conflicting personally cracking and the social order breaking down that Night captured that resonates with me that Dawn and Day never ring quite the same way. I actually always compare It Comes at Night to Night of the Living Dead without the zombies. And I mean that with praise for both. |
Originally Posted by Wooley (Post 2242827)
Holy ****, I had forgotten how good this movie actually is. This happens every time. I watch it and remember how good it is, then I let years pass and in my mind the narrative transforms to "well, it's good but more for its place in history than actually holding up" and I end up not watching it for a long time. Then I watch it again and get kinda blown away again. I am documenting here, more for myself than anyone else, that this is a damned good film. Honestly, my interest got a lot more piqued when I saw (prior to the beginning of the film) that the print on HBOMax was from the collection of The Museum Of Modern Art in New York. That says a lot and really, this film deserves to be there. It is as much an "art film" as it is a Horror film. There is so much more to this film than just being the genesis of The Living Dead and I think the film can be taken on its own, out of context, and appreciated and respected. The sociopolitical undertones of the film are well-documented and heavily discussed so I won't belabor them here. But I would like to say that, throughout, they are approached without feeling the need to engage them directly heavy-handedly. You feel the dynamics that are going on without anyone having to shout them out at you. And there's a separate statement made my doing it that way as well. I felt that the acting was often better than one might realize if they were just thinking of it as a cheap genre film. I particularly liked Barbara, who I had not liked in the past. She made me believe her. I believed that rather than a damsel in distress, she was a person traumatized into a state of shock. The dead-weight she then begins to be and the stress it puts on the situation is meaningful to the story. Obviously Ben is great, a decent man with a level head and the will to survive, not some hero. And the fact that he's a black man in a house full of white people in 1968 cannot be overlooked but is never addressed directly. All the characters felt like real people, including the Coopers, Harry being like a lot of weak men I've known and Helen like a lot of the stronger women who had the misfortune to hook up with weak men. The many conflicts within the group are as unnerving as the Living Dead themselves, given the danger they put everyone in. But this movie also has some real scares in it. The body on the landing jump-scare was a good one and the movie got pretty gruesome at moments, particularly when they show one of the LD eating one of the sympathetic main characters’ severed hand. And
WARNING: "Major sperlahs" spoilers below
Karen is just the most disturbing thing in the whole film. When she kills her own mother with a trowel and eats her… man.
And then Johnny comes for Barbara. Damn. A lot of heartbreak served up with the danger and death. I also felt like the camera and lighting did a great job of providing claustrophobia and a sense of realism. The music was effective but never overwhelmed the on-screen tension. All in all, Night Of The Living Dead is a film that deserves its place in history, not just for the sub-genre it invented, not just for the social statements it made, but also, in fact, more than anything, simply for the film it is. |
Originally Posted by Little Ash (Post 2242837)
weirdly, I knew the movie, Night of the Bloody Apes existed... Different time/region of film though
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Originally Posted by Wooley (Post 2242827)
All in all, Night Of The Living Dead is a film that deserves its place in history, not just for the sub-genre it invented, not just for the social statements it made, but also, in fact, more than anything, simply for the film it is.
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Originally Posted by Wooley (Post 2242829)
Wow.
So I had no idea there was an Ape-Woman Universal series. None. You have left me speechless. I will have to come back when I am not undone. Look at those posters again. The monster makeup doesn't show up until the 3rd film and even then it's not the focal point of the design. Then there's the strange insistence on jungle imagery when there is none in any of the films. A gorilla is transformed into a woman in a lab. At no point is she wearing that Tarzan outfit and sitting on a tree like in the second poster. So I've probably seen that poster before and never gave it a second thought. I was given this set for my birthday earlier this year-- and until then I didn't know this was a trilogy that existed. Crazy. Botched marketing, I say! (Monster and the Girl is unrelated, and I haven't watched it yet) |
Originally Posted by Little Ash (Post 2242837)
Also not knowing the Ape Woman series existed does not sound like it would bode well.
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Originally Posted by Rockatansky (Post 2242902)
I found that one disappointing for its relative dearth of apes (only 1.5, if I recall correctly) and for having a Mexican wrestler but never having her actually wrestle with an ape.
Nor is it enough Mexican ape-wrestling. |
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It is usually on about the third or fourth day of this that I feel like it is time for a little Bloodletting. So let us enjoy The Vampire Song.
Because you were a vampire and, baby, I'm the Walkin' Dead. |
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Woolz, are you familiar with Messer Chups? I don't know a lot about them, but they'd seem to be up your alley. They're always showing up in my Youtube recommendations.
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Originally Posted by Captain Terror (Post 2242923)
Woolz, are you familiar with Messer Chups? I don't know a lot about them, but they'd seem to be up your alley. They're always showing up in my Youtube recommendations.
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Well, I've thought about it a good bit and I think the take I'm going with is, "If you dislike this movie, I'd like to hear why." And the reason that I've come to that is that I (and my two horror-loving friends I watched it with) felt like it was, above all, a completely successful movie. Could there be some even better version of it? Maybe. But here, director James Wan sets out to make a movie on his own terms (now that Aquaman has given him studio-cred) and he made the movie he wanted to make and, taken on its own terms, it absolutely holds up. If you can allow for most of Tarantino's on-screen masturbation you can certainly allow Wan to have this one go at it. So, what is this movie about? It begins with something frightening but vague happening at a remote medical facility in the middle of the night. Fast-forward some number of years and a young woman comes home from work, pregnant, to an abusive husband who knocks her unconscious. That night, their home is visited by a malevolent presence and the movie takes off as this presence "haunts" our heroine, Maddie, for the remainder of the film, dragging her along its violent path without explanation. And while Maddie, her sister Sidney, and the police try to understand and stop this bloody rampage, an imaginative Horror mystery unfolds. If I am being vague, it is because it is fun to let this movie do its thing. The story may seem obvious at times and at others perplexing, but it is a fun story and Wan must have had a great time with this. While my initial notions of just what the hell was going on proved to be correct by the end (though I admit, my imagination did not go quite as far as Wan's did), the journey to get there took me through several periods of doubt and wondering and the way that Wan unravels this story really rewarded us all in the end. My friend Amy just loved it. I don't blame her, there was a lot to enjoy. I will comment first on the lead actress, Annabelle Wallis, who I have never seen or heard of before, but who carries the narrative with a challenging performance. I mean, this is pretty crazy stuff to happen to a character and she keeps it grounded but also stretches out with real emotion at times. You need to sympathize with her character for this movie to work but the character must also be strong and she delivered on both fronts. Also, as in any Wan movie, you have to be able to convince the audience that a bunch of mumbo-jumbo should not invoke eye-rolling and she pulls this off. She's tough but also weak and she conveys real terror when it's needed. But the star of this movie, clearly, is James Wan. This really feels like his Tarantino movie and by that I do not mean that he copies Tarantino in any way other than saying, "It's ok for me to make a movie totally for fun where I take all homages to all the things I love in Horror and throw them in a blender then take whatever comes out and make it work." There are direct and indirect references to a number of directors here from more obvious Bava lighting references to Carpenter to another director that I will not name because it will give up the ghost, as it were, but you guys will know once you get to the end of the movie. Wan doesn't care if you think the character should really do that, or if that would really happen, or if this bit even totally makes sense because Argento and Fulci never cared and neither should you. And that's what I would say about this movie. If you are willing to just take the ride with Bava, Argento, Fulci, Tarantino for that matter, like so many of us do, then give Wan the same license here because, whether you like all of his successful Horror films or not, he's better than most to begin with and now he really just stretches out and lets it fly. Yet unlike those directors he still delivers the story this time and it's a good one. Is this a new favorite for me? I dunno, I'd probably need to watch it again, and maybe I'm just won over by someone with studio-backing trying to deliver something that's not so formulaic in the genre. But to dismiss this film, honestly, I think is to be disingenuous. I look forward to some discussion of this with people who generally don't like Wan as well as those who do and those, like me, who fall somewhere in the middle. |
Re: Welcome To Our Nightmare: A Terror and Wooley Horror Show
Yes!
My wife and I loved Malignant. For the first 10 minutes or so, I was thinking I wasn't going to be a fan of this movie, as Wan's aggressive direction and the kinetic camerawork had me thinking Wan had regressed to his Saw roots, and I am not a big fan of that flick or its many sequels. Alas, it didn't matter, because it pretty quickly became apparent that this was a whacky horror ride that, like some macabre roller coaster, just keep accelerating until it shoots the viewer off into a maelstrom of bonkers mayhem that had us laughing and cheering by the end of the movie. Wan's intent was clearly to entertain, and realism and suspension of disbelief be damned! |
Originally Posted by Sedai (Post 2242934)
Yes!
My wife and I loved Malignant. For the first 10 minutes or so, I was thinking I wasn't going to be a fan of this movie, as Wan's aggressive direction and the kinetic camerawork had me thinking Wan had regressed to his Saw roots, and I am not a big fan of that flick or its many sequels. Alas, it didn't matter, because it pretty quickly became apparent that this was a whacky horror ride that, like some macabre roller coaster, just keep accelerating until it shoots the viewer off into a maelstrom of bonkers mayhem that had us laughing and cheering by the end of the movie. Wan's intent was clearly to entertain, and realism and suspension of disbelief be damned! |
Originally Posted by Wooley (Post 2242944)
Exactly. I think to dislike this film (given that one is a genre fan) you really just have to be an habitual Wan-hater who's just reflexively dissing on him or you just don't like fun.
Just kidding. Yall are making quite a persuasive argument here. I'm hoping this is the first Wan film I can enjoy without qualifiers. |
Re: Welcome To Our Nightmare: A Terror and Wooley Horror Show
Given that Wan has yet to indicate he has even the slightest bit of originality in his films, and is potentially less a director than some kind of algorithm that hacks into the most obvious reflexes of every horror genre he tackles, I would suggest he might just be trying on another shoe with Malignant here.
No, I haven't seen it, but what I know of what he has previously done with the haunted house film (nothing), and how what he thought grindhouse revisionism needed was some Marilyn Manson video aesthetics (it didn't), I'm hoping throwing a bunch of random violence and absurdity at the screen isn't all he thinks a Lucio Fulci film is (of course it is). |
Originally Posted by Captain Terror (Post 2242997)
Challenge accepted!
Just kidding. Yall are making quite a persuasive argument here. I'm hoping this is the first Wan film I can enjoy without qualifiers. me you have a strong aversion to the early 2000s style that the movie traffics in during its first act. (I feel like people sometimes forget how bad that era was for studio horror movies.) But even that section is interesting in seeing Wan pour his not insignificant technical prowess into something most people would call "bad". It took me until the second act to really get into it, as at that point it was mixing up tropes with enough glee and actually matching the narrative thrust of the movie to its visceral style to work on its own giddy level. |
Originally Posted by crumbsroom (Post 2243001)
Given that Wan has yet to indicate he has even the slightest bit of originality in his films, and is potentially less a director than some kind of algorithm that hacks into the most obvious reflexes of every horror genre he tackles, I would suggest he might just be trying on another shoe with Malignant here.
No, I haven't seen it, but what I know of what he has previously done with the haunted house film (nothing), and how what he thought grindhouse revisionism needed was some Marilyn Manson video aesthetics (it didn't), I'm hoping throwing a bunch of random violence and absurdity at the screen isn't all he thinks a Lucio Fulci film is (of course it is). I think a better comparison is The Happening, where a significant level of craft is being pumped into material this goofy.*Wan shows more self awareness than Shyamalan, which I suspect might ruin the fun for you.* |
Anyway, James Wan ranked:
Conjuring Conjuring 2 Malignant Insidious Aquaman Insidious 2 Dead Silence Furious 7 Saw |
Haven't seen Death Sentence.
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Originally Posted by Rockatansky (Post 2243014)
You will very likely not enjoy it (see my comments about the first act), but I find the comparisons to Fulci overblown. The rhythms are nothing alike even if they are similarly gruesome.*
I think a better comparison is The Happening, where a significant level of craft is being pumped into material this goofy.*Wan shows more self awareness than Shyamalan, which I suspect might ruin the fun for you.* Hmm. I imagine I'll eventually see it, but only out of a sense of some kind of perverse obligation. I think it somewhat relieves me to minimize the Fulci ties though, because I think seeing that would have begun to annoy the intenstines right out of my mouth. At least as long as he mismanaged it the way I was imagining he would in my head. I feel the comparisons between Shyamalan and Wan are generally the ones I agree with the most, as they both seem to not grasp the human element of horror very well. And then, similarly, try and hide this behind their relatively respectable levels of technical ability. Which is sometimes okay, but is particularly egregious with Shyamalan as his role model seems to be Spielberg, who does it better than most, and so it becomes all the more glaring. But, oh, the happy accidental beauty of The Happening. *chefs kiss* A perfect marriage of his alien like creatures (otherwise known as human beings when in the hands of others) and a giantly stupid premise. Yes, his unawareness of this wonderful alignment of everything being wrong (but oh so right) is what allows it to work. But I never get the sense that Wan is quite so removed from humanity to ever quite get there. Sure, he might only understand his characters as little more than chess pieces he transparently moves around for the necessities of the emotions and plot points he wants to articulate, but I at least believe he has been in a room alone with a person before. He's probably even made eye contact with a people. Which is obviously a handicap when you are hoping to reach The Happening like greatness. |
I gave up scrolling through that whitespace, Rock, so I never got to see what you did there.
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Originally Posted by crumbsroom (Post 2243001)
Given that Wan has yet to indicate he has even the slightest bit of originality in his films, and is potentially less a director than some kind of algorithm that hacks into the most obvious reflexes of every horror genre he tackles, I would suggest he might just be trying on another shoe with Malignant here.
No, I haven't seen it, but what I know of what he has previously done with the haunted house film (nothing), and how what he thought grindhouse revisionism needed was some Marilyn Manson video aesthetics (it didn't), I'm hoping throwing a bunch of random violence and absurdity at the screen isn't all he thinks a Lucio Fulci film is (of course it is). In terms of movies that are trying to channel Fulci, have you seen The Dead and what did you think of it? I saw it years ago when I wasn't versed in Fulci, so I didn't really view it through the right lens. |
Originally Posted by Little Ash (Post 2243029)
In terms of movies that are trying to channel Fulci, have you seen The Dead and what did you think of it? I saw it years ago when I wasn't versed in Fulci, so I didn't really view it through the right lens.
I don't think I know of it, no. I'm finding one from 2010, but nothing about it seems familiar. And I'm pretty badly versed in horror films after 2000. |
Originally Posted by crumbsroom (Post 2243032)
I don't think I know of it, no. I'm finding one from 2010, but nothing about it seems familiar. And I'm pretty badly versed in horror films after 2000.
I think that's the one. It takes place in Africa. If "zombie movie set in Africa" doesn't ring a bell, then you probably haven't seen it. |
Originally Posted by Captain Terror (Post 2242997)
Challenge accepted!
Just kidding. Yall are making quite a persuasive argument here. I'm hoping this is the first Wan film I can enjoy without qualifiers. |
Originally Posted by crumbsroom (Post 2243001)
Given that Wan has yet to indicate he has even the slightest bit of originality in his films, and is potentially less a director than some kind of algorithm that hacks into the most obvious reflexes of every horror genre he tackles, I would suggest he might just be trying on another shoe with Malignant here.
No, I haven't seen it, but what I know of what he has previously done with the haunted house film (nothing), and how what he thought grindhouse revisionism needed was some Marilyn Manson video aesthetics (it didn't), I'm hoping throwing a bunch of random violence and absurdity at the screen isn't all he thinks a Lucio Fulci film is (of course it is). |
Originally Posted by crumbsroom (Post 2243001)
Given that Wan has yet to indicate he has even the slightest bit of originality in his films, and is potentially less a director than some kind of algorithm that hacks into the most obvious reflexes of every horror genre he tackles, I would suggest he might just be trying on another shoe with Malignant here.
No, I haven't seen it, but what I know of what he has previously done with the haunted house film (nothing), and how what he thought grindhouse revisionism needed was some Marilyn Manson video aesthetics (it didn't), I'm hoping throwing a bunch of random violence and absurdity at the screen isn't all he thinks a Lucio Fulci film is (of course it is). But I'm convinced you're gonna write this movie off too, I'm just waiting to hear the particulars of your dismissal. |
Originally Posted by Rockatansky (Post 2243011)
I like the movie, but I would say there are definite qualifiers, if like
me you have a strong aversion to the early 2000s style that the movie traffics in during its first act. (I feel like people sometimes forget how bad that era was for studio horror movies.) But even that section is interesting in seeing Wan pour his not insignificant technical prowess into something most people would call "bad". It took me until the second act to really get into it, as at that point it was mixing up tropes with enough glee and actually matching the narrative thrust of the movie to its visceral style to work on its own giddy level. |
Originally Posted by Wooley (Post 2243038)
I was pretty much just waiting for you.
I was clearly summoned. |
Originally Posted by Wooley (Post 2243040)
Definitely agree about the first act, but I really enjoyed that. I got a kick out of him winking at those films and then easily recovering from them.
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This is what I always pictured Crumb to look like. If that's not the case please don't ruin it for me. |
Originally Posted by Captain Terror (Post 2243049)
https://www.movieforums.com/communit...chmentid=81763
This is what I always pictured Crumb to look like. If that's not the case please don't ruin it for me. Man, I'm hot stuff! |
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Originally Posted by Wooley (Post 2242921)
It is usually on about the third or fourth day of this that I feel like it is time for a little Bloodletting. So let us enjoy The Vampire Song.
Because you were a vampire and, baby, I'm the Walkin' Dead. |
Re: Welcome To Our Nightmare: A Terror and Wooley Horror Show
I wanted to like Malignant more but for all the pretty shots and weird **** on screen it felt like it was directed by someone who can mimic what they want but not imbue it with real life. I almost always felt at an arms length emotionally to everything going on, when things kind of go gonzo at the end I started to enjoy it a little more but that fact that I and the people who were watching largely figured out the "twist" very early in the film even that lost a bit of it's lustre. Not bad, not boring, but not exactly great either.
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:up:
My favorite Poe story as a youngster. |
Originally Posted by Captain Terror (Post 2243222)
:up:
My favorite Poe story as a youngster. |
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Re: Welcome To Our Nightmare: A Terror and Wooley Horror Show
Last night's viewing was not worthy of the 'Thon, I'm sorry to report. Starting another trilogy tonight that I've got high hopes for.
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Here's some from my main man, Berni Wrightson |
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This is as good a place as any to share this. What a good pal.
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Re: Welcome To Our Nightmare: A Terror and Wooley Horror Show
That makes my heart happy! :)
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There are two other things I am doing this month while watching Horror movies and making this thread (oh, and having a full-time job and having house-guests who aren't interested in watching Horror movies for 12 days):
1. I am watching old Scooby-Doo episodes late at night when it's too late for a movie but too early to go to bed. Watched this one Saturday night: 2. I am re-reading 'Salem's Lot. As I do every few years during October. Dunno why but of all the Horror novels I've ever read it's the one that gives me the real Halloween vibes. Maybe cuz vampires. This was incredibly big when I was a kid, my mom read it several times, and then the TV movie came out which had everybody freakin' out and all the parents talking on the wall-phone to each other about it. Good times. And though the Mr. Barlow from the movie is not much like the one from the book... he's still pretty awesome. |
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I haven't read Salem's Lot in probably 20 years, but it might be my favorite King that I've read. (I've only read 3 or 4)
And one of my tradtional October watches is the gargoyle episode of Jonny Quest. |
Originally Posted by Captain Terror (Post 2243349)
I haven't read Salem's Lot in probably 20 years, but it might be my favorite King that I've read. (I've only read 3 or 4)
And one of my tradtional October watches is the gargoyle episode of Jonny Quest. |
Here's a curio I did not know about until now:
The Infernal Cauldron (1903) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgbDyDAtzkk From The Public Domain Review: Short film by Georges Méliès, released through his Star Film Company, featuring demons, flames, spectres, and a brilliant array of the film-maker's usual arsenal of tricks. As Wikipdia sums up: "In a Renaissance chamber decorated with devilish faces and a warped coat of arms, a gleeful Satan throws three human victims into a cauldron, which spews out flames. The victims rise from the cauldron as nebulous ghosts, and then turn into fireballs. The fireballs multiply and pursue Satan around the chamber. Finally Satan himself leaps into the infernal cauldron, which gives off a final burst of flame." |
Originally Posted by Torgo (Post 2243338)
This is as good a place as any to share this. What a good pal.
(And thanks for sharing. Anything you choose to share is welcome here.) |
I noticed the Melies stuff on criterion a month or two back. I think they've left since then. I did manage to get in The Witch from that collection. IIRC, a man grifts a witch and then she chases him around. Didn't really stick in my memory, but that might have been more of a me-issue.
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Originally Posted by Little Ash (Post 2243421)
I noticed the Melies stuff on criterion a month or two back. I think they've left since then. I did manage to get in The Witch from that collection. IIRC, a man grifts a witch and then she chases him around. Didn't really stick in my memory, but that might have been more of a me-issue.
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And here's another silly trifle for the books. I have a certain affection for The Bowery Boys that I developed back when I used to have cable and just left the TV on TCM all the time. They're basically a comedy franchise of street-wise young men going through adventures and antics. The East Side Kids, featured here, eventually became The Bowery Boys as they got older, mostly the same cast as the same characters. Anyway, The East Side Kids are rounded up for some tomfoolery and sent off to a "camp" for rehabilitation. Along the way their bus stops in a small town where the radio proclaims that a mass-murderer know as The Monster is on the loose and probably in the area. Cue Bela Lugosi. He rolls into town to take possession of the creepy old mansion up on the hill where, eventually everyone ends up. After one of the Kids is shot by the local constabulary. Yes, shot. It was a different time for comedies. Anyway, the Kids are trapped in the mansion with Bela Lugosi and Angelo Rossitti (of Freaks and Beyond Thunderdome fame) and hijinks ensue. Sort of. I mean, there really aren't that many jinks and they aren't that hi. I've seen a lot of Bowery Boys movies and this film had about 70% of the actual content of those. There wasn't too much spooking going on to be honest. The Kids are game though and try to do their best to keep things funny even when they don't have much to do. And, of course, the producers trot out Lugosi so they can put his name on the poster and the marquee. But, like most of his post-Dracula films, they really didn't give him all that much to do. Frankly, the whole movie doesn't give anybody all that much to do, unfortunately. There's a good bit of run-time padding and it puts a too much weight on the actors to try to make things funny or exciting when they're really not. Not sad I watched it, it's always nice to see The Bowery Boys, er, East Side Kids, and it's always nice to see Lugosi. Though it is also sometimes sad. At least it was nice to see him smile for a change. |
Originally Posted by Wooley (Post 2243454)
I have a certain affection for The Bowery Boys that I developed back when I used to have cable and just left the TV on TCM all the time.
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The Melies film reminded me of this book I purchased a few years ago: (Yes, that's THE Brian May. Turns out he's one of the world's foremost authorities on these things.) The Wikipedia description of Diableries: Les Diableries is the title of a series of stereoscopic photographs published in Paris during the 1860s. The photographs, commonly known as stereoviews, portray sculpted clay vignettes which depict scenes of daily life in Hell. So, antique Viewmasters, in effect. Anyhow, they're incredible. Enjoy. |
This is a recommendation to tuck away, but I'd suggest The Dismembered (1962). It's an odd little, black and white b-movie, that has some weird throwback charm. Legally speaking, I doubt it's available streaming and you'd have to get ahold of a copy of the blu-ray. But if you ever do, I'd be curious to see it get reviewed in this thread one of these years.
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Originally Posted by Captain Terror (Post 2243456)
The Melies film reminded me of this book I purchased a few years ago: (Yes, that's THE Brian May. Turns out he's one of the world's foremost authorities on these things.) |
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God bless the great Brian May. My wife took this picture of him at a concert a couple of years ago:
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Great pic.
Here's a story about the time Queen threw a Halloween party in New Orleans to celebrate the release of the Jazz album. My aunt went to the concert earlier in the day, but of course doesn't remember any of it. (some images NSFW) https://youtu.be/1jQGQMAP2ts |
Originally Posted by Wooley (Post 2243342)
This was incredibly big when I was a kid, my mom read it several times, and then the TV movie came out which had everybody freakin' out and all the parents talking on the wall-phone to each other about it. Good times.
And though the Mr. Barlow from the movie is not much like the one from the book... he's still pretty awesome. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eC5HZzjjI9Y |
Originally Posted by kgaard (Post 2243490)
God bless the great Brian May. My wife took this picture of him at a concert a couple of years ago:
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Originally Posted by Captain Terror (Post 2243504)
Great pic.
Here's a story about the time Queen threw a Halloween party in New Orleans to celebrate the release of the Jazz album. My aunt went to the concert earlier in the day, but of course doesn't remember any of it. (some images NSFW) https://youtu.be/1jQGQMAP2ts |
Originally Posted by Sedai (Post 2243506)
Scared the hell out of me when I was a kid. Ditto for the vampire kid at the window.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eC5HZzjjI9Y However, if you read the book, that is downright tame compared to some of the stuff that happens. |
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