Iro's October '18 Horror Thread

I remember watching Vampires over a decade ago (on VHS, no less) and thinking it was whatever so I was hoping it might play better a second time around but no, it's just another good premise wrapped in annoyingly bad execution. I even looked up its Wikipedia article and it said that Carpenter wanted to quit directing after Escape From L.A. because he didn't enjoy it anymore and I can't help but feel like that bled through a little into him making, well, everything he did after that (except maybe "Cigarette Burns"). Why, where would you place it in a ranking?

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Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

Imagine how I felt seeing your for Terrifier

In 18th-century France, a French naturalist and his Native American companion travel into a province that is being terrorised by a dangerous creature.

In trying to cover nothing but horror movies for the whole of this October, I do have to wonder whether or not the ones I choose end up resulting in some serious stretching of the genre's parameters. This was my rationale for watching Brotherhood of the Wolf - not only is its title suggestive of the presence of werewolves (or even just regular wolves), but so is the logline involving a pair of adventurers ending up in a part of the countryside where the local population is ostensibly being attacked by said (were)wolves. Sounds like it's going to be a horror movie, right? Well, not quite. One of the opening scenes does involve a hapless maiden being run down by whatever creature will serve as the movie's main monster, but for a large chunk of the running time Brotherhood of the Wolf plays as a peculiar combination of hyper-stylised action movie and the kind of costume drama that seesaws between stuffy and saucy at the drop of a tri-corner hat. It's at the point where I could focus a synopsis more around the personal drama that unfolds between the various human characters (often on a romantic nature as protagonist Grégoire shacking up with Italian courtesan Sylvia but actually showing true affection in his flirtatious dalliance with local noblewoman Marianne and thus making her brother Jean-François jealous...and so on and so forth) than about whether or not there's actually a wolf (or similar such beast) roaming the area and attacking people.

Even after adjusting expectations away from the idea that this is primarily a horror movie, Brotherhood of the Wolf does little to actually prove an entertaining watch as even an action movie or as a drama or any combination of the three. Scenes involving the creature tend to be blunt and dull even without noting the rough-looking CGI used to bring it to life, which is why it makes sense that the film emphasises its many scenes of hand-to-hand combat between human characters instead. Even those feel like perfunctory attempts to keep an audience awake through the non-action parts as there's nothing terribly exciting about what happens or how it's captured. It's a staggeringly boring affair (not helped in the least by how much downtime there is across its considerably lengthy running time) and nothing - not the reasonably lavish production design nor the elaborate displays of martial arts nor the occasional moment of overt sensuality - ever truly manages to compensate for that. In playing like a fairytale for grown-ups (complete with narrator), it only manages to show off its shallowness and render its rather serious presentation (and attempts at wringing genuine emotion out of its overwrought drama) even more absurd to watch.

Your positive rating of it made me give it a chance....

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Suspect's Reviews

I'm kind oc shocked I have that power. Or had, after you hated my fav throwback maniac baby.

In 19th-century America, a soldier is assigned to a remote military outpost but soon runs into trouble when his unit encounters a man telling tales of cannibalism.

I'm definitely intrigued by how far the definition of what consitutes a horror movie can stretch simply by featuring a signifier that one would commonly associate with the genre like vampires or werewolves. I daresay cannibalism is one such signifier that is much harder to completely separate from the concept of horror, especially because it's not only more realistic than such mythological creatures but also because of how it can tap into certain fears about humans' place within the natural order of things - not just because it would be unnatural for people to eat one another except under the most dire of circumstances, but because of the fear that it might actually come to us a lot more naturally than we would like. Such is the situation that Guy Pearce's protagonist finds himself in as he, an American soldier who becomes a war hero by virtue of his own cowardice, is exiled to a remote mountain outpost. As if the isolation wouldn't be troubling enough on its own, things are complicated further when a ragged stranger (Robert Carlyle) shows up at the outpost one day. He says that the group he was travelling with got snowbound and had to resort to cannibalism, only for him to escape when the group's leader finally got around to targeting him. Naturally, the soldiers send out a rescue party and that's when the story really begins...

Ravenous ends up being a film where separate elements are distinctly interesting but I'm not entirely convinced that they ever truly come together into something great. It's certainly something to see Pearce - whose character is first introduced as being traumatised to the point of being violently ill at the premise of eating a particularly juicy steak - try to survive the wrath of cannibals whose actions show that there might actually be something worse than a cannibal simply trying to kill and eat you. He also gets to play the miserable straight man to Carlyle's scenery-chewing extravagance, though even their dynamic can get a little tiresome. The same goes for the film's approach to cannibalism being akin to vampirism in its borrowing from a Native American myth about how eating people allows one to gain restorative powers at the cost of one's humanity, retaining the tragic seduction angle common to the sub-genre but not doing much with it in the process. Apart from the odd interesting development, the pacing is so off-kilter throughout the first and second act that it really does take a strong third to make it come even somewhat together. Of particular note is the soundtrack, a collaboration between The Piano composer Michael Nyman and Damon Albarn of Blur and Gorillaz fame, which pieces together a variety of delightfully urgent-sounding pieces ranging from the frantic plucking that accompanies the opening credits to the monotonous throbbing that accompanies the final confrontation between hero and villain. While some elements and scenes are very much appreciable on their own terms, Ravenous isn't all that satisfying as a whole. It's a slight movie that's somewhat worth a watch simply for its highlights, but beyond that it just leaves me hungry for more.

A doctor returns to his small Californian hometown to find that there's something not quite right going on with the other citizens.

As far as horror sub-genres go, I'm rather fond of the body-snatcher sub-genre mainly because it's so readily primed to deliver both immediate scares and simmering paranoia. The best films in this sub-genre are more than capable of delivering both and as an added bonus they get to play around with potentially rich themes and metaphorical concepts, though of course it's definitely up to the individual films and the people who make them to flesh them out properly. In that regard, I always wonder what to actually make of the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers if only because it's potentially the most iconic horror movie of the 1950s as it evokes many of the internal and external concerns that plagued a decade largely characterised in pop culture as a combination of both optimism and paranoia. The film (as ultimately released, anyway) begins with such a juxtaposition as a raving madman (Kevin McCarthy) relates his unbelievable story to a psychiatrist. It turns out that he is a doctor who had recently returned to his small Californian hometown, only to start hearing reports from some of the citizens that their loved ones are somehow...different. They're behaving the same and remembering all the same things, but things aren't quite right, and McCarthy eventually starts to notice as well...

Though you can definitely point and laugh at some of the exceptionally hokey moments on display here (I know I did when I first watched it many years ago), there's no denying the sheer effectiveness of the premise that more than carries the moments where the film's age catches up to it. The practical effects used to render the body-snatchers' plant-based life cycle are certainly solid and at least a little creepy-looking, but so much of what makes Invasion of the Body Snatchers a good horror is everything else about it. We're obviously on the lookout for anything remotely suspicious from the jump as children run away from parents and people go through their daily routines perhaps a little too routinely (or not, as in the case of a bustling restaurant suddenly becoming empty), and that's before things crank up a notch with the discovery of the pods that grow the replicas and how they work (and really, something about the idea of something killing and replacing you in your sleep is particularly unsettling, especially here where it's never shown on-screen and thus adds to the nightmarish quality of the scenario). Given the period and setting in which it takes place, one also sees a thinly-veiled metaphor for how America saw the encroaching threat of communist insurgency, though it is vague enough that the coldly unemotional antagonists could be interpreted as either representing said insurgents converting citizens to their ideology or (more incisively) rampant anti-communist hysteria going overboard in trying to eradicate any sense of individuality that contrasted with their extremely narrow idea of what America (and, by extension, the world) should be. I'd say the latter interpretation certainly goes a long way towards helping Invasion of the Body Snatchers hold up as well as it does, and while it's still got its flaws, it might well be the definitive 1950s horror movie regardless.

A young man looking for his missing sister crosses paths with a group of college students as they both end up near the stalking ground of a notorious serial killer.

Earlier this year, I made my way through the entire Friday the 13th series, which was admittedly a curious decision on my part because not only is the original the best of the bunch but it's not even that good - a high or a low , which isn't bad but doesn't ostensibly suggest that it's worth watching the subsequent nine sequels (to say nothing of Freddy vs. Jason or this movie). Why, then? Like i said before, there's something fascinating about slashers and their rote formulas (or how they defy them) - they're almost like the horror version of comfort food where the weird variations spice things up just enough. Certainly, the Friday franchise has had a curious journey - following the original building off a combination of point-of-view villainy and a genuinely unhinged reveal, it then reverted to conventional slasher fare starring Jason Voorhees, a goalie-masked behemoth who made it his mission in life (and death) to vengefully murder anyone who crossed into his domain near the old campground at Crystal Lake. All sorts of weirdness was thrown into the mix to keep things interesting throughout the last few sequels such as telekinetic heroines, a futuristic spaceship, and a trip to New York. Naturally, the remake goes for a simple back-to-basics approach that quickly recaps Jason's origin story (he's presumed dead because of the camp counselors' gross negligence, his mother swears revenge and ultimately gets killed by a counselor who fights back, he witnesses her death and decides to continue the killing) before moving on to the main story, which concerns (what else?) a group of youths who decide to party it up on the edge of Crystal Lake.

This version of Friday the 13th does at least develop a story that would nominally be worthy of a straightforward sequel; the ostensible protagonist is a young biker looking for his missing sister, who was last seen being terrorised by Jason on a camping trip of her own. When this plot ultimately ties into Jason's established characterisation, it makes for a passable through-line with which to ground the rest of the movie. Unfortunately, the rest of this movie of a very 2000s slasher (dem Platinum Dunes, babeh) that maybe works a little too well at making its dead meat walking into the kind of people you can't wait to see get butchered - and yet most of the ways it gets around to that aren't very good in the first place. A major flaw with the Friday franchise was how the bulk of its entries tended to get the more violent kills edited down to appease censors, which just makes it all the more disappointing that Nispel (who hadn't completely embarrassed himself with his gnarly 2003 remake of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre) barely takes advantage of the freedom afforded by 2009 standards (the main thing I remember is a circular saw that is foregrounded in one shot only to never actually be used). In trying to provide a new story that also works as a summary of sorts for the franchise, this Friday the 13th does a better job of exposing the flaws than fortifying the strengths. The kills tend to be unimaginative and/or gratuitous in bad ways while the horror that unfolds between them is very hit-and-miss. It's a shame as the missing-sister story could've been something when the franchise was putting out proper sequels but its execution here is disappointing. At least now I can say I'm done with this franchise now.

In my top 5.

That's without seeing his whole filmography and needing to re-watch Escape from New York

I've seen all his "main" movies (read: theatrical-release features, so not counting his shorts or TV work) from Dark Star to The Ward but a good few of them could use re-watches before I settled on a definitive ranking (though that's mainly due to lack of opportunity than anything else). As it stands right now, I'd consider Vampires to be bottom 5 material (it is worth noting that all my current picks for his bottom 5 are post-They Live, with the exceptions of both In the Mouth of Madness and Escape From L.A.).

I like Vampires. Its not essential Carpenter, and it borrows from Dusk til Dawn tonally, but compared to The Ward, it may as well be Buckaroo Banzai.

Found this posted in a John Carpenter thread...

I think they're roughly equal in terms of quality, but they are two different kinds of bad - Vampires is annoying-bad while The Ward is boring-bad.

Yeah, I see I posted my own rundown in the same thread (not ranked, though). Have revisited a few of them since making them so screw it might as well try a numbered list here (potentially hot takes inbound).

1. Escape From New York
2. The Thing
3. Big Trouble in Little China
4. They Live
5. In the Mouth of Madness
6. Escape From L.A.
7. Halloween
8. The Fog
9. Assault on Precinct 13
10. Prince of Darkness
11. Starman
12. Dark Star
13. Christine
14. Ghosts of Mars
15. Village of the Damned
16. Memoirs of an Invisible Man
17. Vampires
18. The Ward

I've seen at least The Fog and Christine since I posted that list. Don't know where I'd place them though.

All I got from your Vampires review was that Carpenter relied on machismo and didn't fill his shoes like his past work. I understand that. I wonder if a day will come when you will be open to just enjoying Vampires as the throwaway it is. There are worthy elements in there.

I mean it has a cool guy walking away from an explosion.

My review is more forgiving. James woods improvising counts.

I suppose it's always possible, but I didn't much like it when I was a Carpenter-worshipping teen and I like it even less now. I can enjoy a "throwaway" movie here and there (just see my review for Dagon), but I've given Vampires not one but two chances to win me over and it's failed both times so I doubt there's much to be gained from a third.

I don't consider Woods to be a cool guy, though (in real life or as this character). Such a shame since he can apparently do a decent explosion walk.

Missed reading through an Iro review thread

I agree with most of your points and ratings in here. I’ll check back again later for more.

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Three backpackers travelling across Europe looking for hedonistic adventures find an off-the-books Slovakian hostel that is actually a front for a business that deals in torture and murder.

Going off the numbers, Eli Roth might just be one of my least favourite directors. Hostel marks the third film of his I've seen after Cabin Fever and Death Wish - the former was a somewhat promising cabin-in-the-woods horror-comedy that ultimately proved too obnoxious for its own good while the latter saw him remake the 1974 vigilante thriller in a way that failed as both a quasi-satirical approach to American gun culture and as exploitational pulp. His sophomore feature, Hostel, is probably his most notorious due to how it emphasised the extremity of its violence not just for its own gratuitous sake but also through the torture-focused narrative itself. The story is a fundamentally conventional one by horror standards in having its three naive protagonists (two odd-couple American friends - one a party-hearty dudebro, the other an intellectual introvert - and their boorish Icelandic companion) chase after something that's too good to be true (the promise of a hostel filled with attractive and readily available women) and end up being subjected to a horror beyond their expectations (being abducted and turned into the victims of wealthy sadists). It's a slim narrative and one that's subject to no small amount of padding, even if it's ostensibly all feeding into Roth making some statement about the callous nature of consumerism (and a rather blunt one if the progression from the characters hiring sex workers in Amsterdam to them being sold for much nastier purposes in Slovakia is any indication) and growing anti-American sentiment in the midst of the Bush II administration.

Though it's largely by default, I'm inclined to consider Hostel the best Eli Roth movie I've seen yet. It may start off with him once again setting up some annoying victims-to-be and it takes a little longer than it should for any real danger to set in (the first half plays like a half-assed retread of the already-dire Eurotrip right down to a scene involving a creepy businessman in a train compartment), but once it does finally engage with its horrifying premise it doesn't do too badly in that regard. Obviously, the film's reputation as the poster child for the so-called "torture porn" sub-genre is considerably well-earned with some sparse but cringe-inducing scenes of, well, torture. What matters is whether or not the film manages to thread them together in an engaging manner and that's where things get really dicey. While it's certainly not as bad in this regard as fellow sadistic horror The Human Centipede (which sacrificed all manner of good filmmaking technique for the sake of its shock value), it stays pretty sluggish throughout its first hour and even amplifying the stakes considerably in its final third only does so much to improve upon that. As such, I can't really say that Hostel is a good movie, at least not enough to truly rise above its reputation as a film that embodies the horror genre's weaknesses more so than its strengths. It's not quite as bad as I was led to believe, but it's still an ugly little chore of a movie that makes me wonder whether or not I should really bother giving Roth any more chances to win me over.