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

Attack of the Crab Monsters, 1957, 2nd watch (B+)

After watching many more movies after the first time I watch this one, I enjoy the nonsense and corniness of it a lot more. The crab is fantastic, and the rushed ending just add to the charm.

The Mummy's Hand, 1940 (B-)

Two guys enlist a magician and, unwillingly, his daughter to find the tomb of an old Egyptian queen.

This is a very unremarkable film. The comedy is so typical that you can quote it verbatim in a modern parody of how bad it was, the mummy is just a guy in a mummy suit, but looking for juice. The sets are cheap and there's a clear lack of attention to details everywhere. The most interesting part I found was the few things the Brandon Fraser Mummy movie took from this one as inspiration. It's not a bad movie, but there's no reason to recommend it.

Attack of the Crab Monsters is great. It is so quotable in a classic B-movie kind of a way.

I saw someone on twitter post about this box set and it looks really cool but I'm not sure I can justify spending the $170 on it right now. https://severinfilms.com/products/folk-horror-box

Got it in my head to reread Carmilla today, which is still just as wonderful as I remember, but then at a friends movie night decided to check out an adaptation of it and we settled on The Vampire Lovers, Hammers take on the story. It's not a bad take on the story with some scenes and elements lifted right from it, but at times it quite baffling with it's changes. I assume they restructured some of it to let their audience know immediately that they were getting a vampire film instead of the slow reveal from the story but why they kept a character named Laura, who is the narrator of the short story, but switched her with a completely different character in the movie is just weird. This is also I read the first Hammer film with nudity and while it is largely unnecessary it's also not to gratuitous. The films more lurid nature and addition of more modern vampire elements not found in the original text don't really add anything but they also make sense given who was adapting the story and I wouldn't say they ruin what the story is generally going for either. Final thoughts, a decent if slightly flawed adaptation.

Sorry for the delay. Stuff.

Understood. So far I haven't noticed anything technically incorrect that would explain any difference in reaction, though, so I think you're fine there.

I certainly agree with this.

I don't think he spent much (any?) time mentioning or fretting about that part. He tries to avoid it, and he doubts that the creature is telling the truth, but once he's accepted he can't leave and that it really will save the world, he basically just decides to do it. And my memory (which also might be off) is that there are no examples of him mentioning gender or sexuality at all. Which, when you think about it, is really conspicuous! When combined with the kinda awkward line about being genderless, it sure seems like the filmmakers were specifically working to counteract this interpretation.

Those things are inherent to the concept of the film. I took the idea here to be that the portrayal of the idea was homophobic in some way that it did not need to be, but if you're saying the entire concept is inherently homophobic, that's different.

And this is where I need a rewatch, honestly, because I am talking to a degree about the pacing of the different comedic beats.

Again, a rewatch will help me be more clear on this point. I'm talking about the longstanding idea of someone being willing to let dire consequences happen (to themselves or to others) just to avoid gay (or gay-adjacent) contact, which I think often assumes that the audience shares in some of those feelings independent of the idea of it being a non-consensual encounter.

I would hate to be responsible for you having to rewatch something so mediocre. But it's up to you. It's possible one or both of us are forgetting or misremembering something, but I think we're genuinely interpreting the same events differently. I think the crux of it is this:

let dire consequences happen (to themselves or to others) just to avoid gay (or gay-adjacent) contact

As mentioned initially, he's avoiding nightmare monster contact, and coerced contact, so it's definitely not "just" gay contact. These are two things anyone would avoid if they could, so why leapfrog both of them to conclude he's uncomfortable with the gay part? It seems trite in comparison. Like oh no, Cthulu wants to assault me, and he's not even my type.

Also, even if we do leap there, given that the character is straight, why would that additional (not even exclusive or primary) discomfort be objectionable?

I also don't think the act is "gay" to begin with. I think "gay-adjacent" is closer, but the fact that the filmmakers went out of their way to include a line about the creature not having a gender speaks pretty clearly to their intent (even if you think they failed to execute on that intent in some other way).

Mediocre movies get a lot of rewatches from me. Do you know how many times I've seen Willy's Wonderland? No one should be able to answer that question with a number that isn't 1 or 0.

Actually, I do think that is a part of the joke. And it's a joke that exists in a lot of iterations in pop culture, specifically in terms of male characters. All of the work that went into the framing of the scenario (setting, the voice, the glory hole) speaks to that. For example, I think that the sequence might play quite differently if it took place with the character locked in a booth at a peep show with an alluring female voice on the other end of the wall.

https://www.movieforums.com/communit...89#post2340389

I did the Carmilla/VL combo last year and our reactions are about the same.

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Banshee Chapter, 2013, 2nd watch (B)

Lots of long, uninteresting parts the second time around. Mr. Not-Hunter S. Thompson isn't that interesting, and the horror is sparse, although still good. But not as good as the first time.

Scre4m, 2011 (C-) and Scream 3, 2000 (C-)

I don't know if it's from watching 4 scream movies in such a short period, but they get exhausting. Just the climax of 3 is about 25% of the film. There's a bit of a paradox where each movie feels fresh for a significant portion of the duration despite having so many common elements each time. The paradox comes from each final set feeling so same-y. A lot of tension is lost when you realize how long the whole thing is, and that Ghostface always gets killed. It's soooooo drawn out and it's so hard to care about who gets killed. Third movie was mildly more interesting for taking place on a movie set.

I would say the second movie is the best, followed by the first, sixth, these two, then the fifth one.

Final Destination 2, 2003 (A)

A group of folks cheat death, which tries to get them back one by one in convoluted ways.

Better than I remember the first one being, but I liked that one too. This is an exciting, unpredictable, creative, funny, original movie (notwithstanding it being a sequel.) I hope the rest isn't too much of a downgrade, or even better.

Final Destination 3, 2006 (A)

As good, if not better than the other two. This one is wackier than the previous one, and I'm pretty sure it's bloodier as well. Mary Elizabeth Winstead keeps a good dramatic thread running through the whole thing, and the characters are more memorable as well. I liked how it didn't follow the previous movie's formula of having everyone in a group for most of the movie. All in all, a good trilogy that keeps things fresh and interesting for each movie. It doesn't up the antes so high that things become completely ridiculous. I wish I gave these movies a chance a long time ago. They deserve better than what they got. Or maybe that's just hindsight.

Good

Oh sweet jeebus, Malignant was so bad

Malignant is about family, and that's what makes it so powerful.

I personally loved it.

Since I've avoided it, would you care to elaborate? You know, just to make crumbsroom feel like he isn't alone in disliking it (and to play into my confirmation bias that I don't feel like I need to see it).

Very basic in its presentation, and very predictable from the start. The ending is just dumb. I’d rather not spoil anything, but It really wants to give us a happy ending but the fact is, there can’t be.

To reduce my issues with Malignant down to its core, it is designed to be a bad movie. It desperately wants to be a cult oddity. And....it doesn't work that way. What makes bad movies actually good is their earnestness. What makes cult movies important is that they actually are created from within the creators own eccentricies and passions. We can find a kind of communion with them when we realize they come from a personal place that we recognize in ourselves. That we maybe thought other people didn't share with us. But these kind of movies are a testament that they actually do.


All I get from Wan is that he wants us to consider him some kind of b-movie savant. But he only understands the surface of these things. There is no heart. No personality.



He just desperately wants someone to think he's cool, and I'm not interested in helping him with his delusion.

There’s a scene in Malignant that was particularly pointless. One where I just shook my head.

The younger sister is in the basement of a long closed asylum, and digging through a box of files and vhs tapes. We hear a noise from behind that catches her attention. As if she isn’t alone. Someone’s watching her. Then, she turns her attention back to the box and…..the scene cuts to her now back at home.
Terrible attempt at suspense.

Excellent attempt at comedy.