A scary thing happened on the way to the Movie Forums - Horrorcrammers

The Empty Man. A retired detective tracking down a missing girl uncovers a mystery involving a cult and the entity they worship. The urban legend at the center of it felt like something out of a forgettable PG-13 horror like Wish Upon or The Bye Bye Man. But it’s handled so well and taken in a fresh direction that it works within the context of this story. This was like, 90% a great movie, great premise and execution until it’s not. I won’t mention specifically what I didn’t like about it to avoid spoilers but man this could have been something special. Maybe after thinking on it some more or reading up on it I’ll change my mind.

I wasn't aware this was disputed.

I hadn’t seen either one before, so just wanted to settle this once and for all.

I was surprised to find, when I finally made myself watch Jason Goes To Hell just 2 1/2 years ago, that it really wasn't that bad. Like you say, it had some ambition and tried to do something different. Not all of it works that great but it's not an outright disaster, to me, like FD.

By the way, anybody have anything to say about the movie Haunt (2019)?

I am being urged by friends to see this (the same friends that did not really like Viy, Lemora, Carnival Of Souls, or I Walked With A Zombie).
Naturally, I am skeptical.

I've not seen it. Looked up the co-directors and it seems their only noteworthy credit so far is that they wrote A Quiet Place.

My friends tried to sell me on it being "an Eli Roth" movie but, in fact, he is not the director or writer and is merely one of the five producers, but the one with the most famous name.

Scare Us is bassically just Goosebumps, but without the 90's cheese or nostalgia factor. Very forgettable.

Trying to figure out if I was more annoyed by Halloween Ends the movie, or the godawful crowd I watched it with.

Almost certainly the crowd. They did the same thing to me and Kills. A rewatch at home in Peacock made me a champion of that one.

Hoping to rewatch Ends before the season… Ends.

It’s like a better version of Hellfest. A fun, modern slasher with cool masks that takes place in a haunted house (the kind people pay money to have folks jump out at them, not like… ghosts).

Enjoyable and certainly more accessible to modern sensibilities than any of the classics you mentioned.

Lol I would never willingly watch Kills, but I sympathize. I got a bunch of people who were loudly talking through the whole movie and borderline shouting at times, and people who were flashing their ****ing phone lights at the screen. Jesus ****ing Christ.

“Never willingly watch Kills”

You belonged in that audience.

I meant rewatch. Rewatch!

I meant what I said.

MKS is not a soundbite, spin-off, tie-in, some kind celebrity scandal.

MKS is a killer shark, in baaaaaagggggyyyyy-aaaaasssssssssss overalls, who gets his kicks off of killing everything and everyone he comes across.

That’s all.

Road Games, 1981

A truck driver named Quid (Stacy Keach) is hauling a trailer full of pig carcasses across the Australian south when he is disturbed by word the discovery of human body parts. This knowledge comes right as Quid has noticed strange behavior from the driver of a green van who seems to be always right ahead or right behind Quid's truck. When Quid picks up a hitchhiker called Pamela (Jamie Lee Curtis), the two swap theories about the murders. But when they decide to catch the van driver in the act, they end up putting themselves in the killer's sights.

The request from the group of movie watchers today was something with a little bit of edge, but more in the horror/thriller domain. Because I hadn't watched Road Games in quite a long time but had fond memories of it, I suggested it as our movie for the day. Thankfully I still enjoyed it and it was overall a hit.

Something that I'd forgotten about this film is the way that it kind of plays out like one of those Agatha Christie mysteries where a group of people are all staying in a big mansion or hotel or something. Only in this case, the location is the entire Australian south. Fully half the pleasure of this film is watching how the same small cast of characters appear and reappear during the runtime, whether that's the sneezing motorcyclist ("Sneezy Rider"), a newlywed couple, or a man with a lot of balls and an overactive car alarm.

The horror itself works on two levels. The first is the way that Quid slowly catches on to what the van driver is up to and then connecting the dots to the young woman who was with the van driver at the beginning of the film. But the more Quid shows an interest in the case, the more he starts to implicate himself in the killings. As others begin to interpret his actions and words as threatening, he digs himself in deeper.

Keach and Curtis have good chemistry, and I was relieved that their relationship here is far less overtly sexual or romantic than I remembered. Keach is about 17 years Curtis's senior, but (and no offense to the man), the age gap looks bigger on screen. Because Quid's monologues about the young female hitchhikers are sexualized (he calls them "little foxes" and bitterly notes that the van driver "gets to have" a hitchhiker that Quid failed to pick up, etc). The conversation between the two veers more friendly than flirty for a good amount of the time and I appreciated that. While Pamela is a fun character, she doesn't actually, you know, do much. Giving the two characters lots of friendly time together makes her feel less like some combination of prize and damsel in distress.

Honorable mention must also go to Bosworth, aka the best dog. He honestly put me in mind of the dog in that werewolf film (I'm blanking on the title: a single mom and her son and then the uncle is a werewolf?) who just perpetually did everything but pick up a pencil and spell things out for the humans. He's an utterly charming presence in the film.

The film is just also shot really well. The sequences set on the road manage to wring both humor and menace out of the different passing vehicles. In the case of one family, we learn about the harrowing things that have happened to them and why they are essentially fleeing their home. I also loved a sequences where Quid begins to put together the pieces of what is happening and the frame just slowly zooms on him and darkens. There is a lot of setup and payoff in this film, making a lot of the different encounters very satisfying. I also liked the way that, even if it was inconsistent, the film layered in some of Quid's inner monologue.

I was frustrated a bit at some character choices that just don't seem to make a lot of sense. In one scene, Pamela sees that the van driver has parked really nearby and she just . . . fails to mention this to Quid? Quid likewise makes an inexplicable choice a little while later.

Overall, though, this is a solid thriller with a healthy dose of comedy mixed in.

Loved Road Games when I watched it earlier this month.

🐕

It's also possible that obviously junk movies are going to attract a lot of obviously junk people.


So, both?

Trick or treat, mother****er.