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Getting Karloff and Lugosi together on equal footing is really the great trick of this lovely little Satanic Thriller.
Top 3 favorite Lugosi role, for sure. Possibly #1.
A scary thing happened on the way to the Movie Forums - Horrorcrammers
I also didn't watch horror films as a kid, hell I don't think it was until I was nearing or in my 30's that I started to finally get into them after meeting friends who were in the goth scene. It was watching Alien in a dark room on brand new and fairly big TV that kind of sold me as it was amazing despite knowing all of the surprises of the film, ie the chest burster and who survives.
It's a strange sensation to watch something for which you have no nostalgia or childhood memories to associate, isn't it? It's like eating something that's missing an ingredient, but you didn't know it was missing until you took a bite. A jelly donut with no jelly, in other words. Maybe it's just me.
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Nightbeast -
As its plot summary on Prime Video indicates, "a creature from outer space crash lands in a small town and starts killing people." Do you need anything more than that (or from a movie in general)? The answer is no. You also get a torrid love triangle involving the local bully, his girl and a cop as well a pool party for Maryland's leading gubernatorial candidate, so maybe not. Either way, you get horror that is not exactly original and with an obviously low budget, but that is never not fun.
If you're also not a fan of how self-referential genre movies are these days, this one provides the perfect antidote. Sincerity abounds, and even though it's clear that nobody in the cast went to RADA, the commitment of the residents of Perry Hall, Maryland and/or pals of writer/director Dohler to the project is so apparent that it makes up for it. It is apparent in the acting and in the special effects, the latter's highlight being what happens to the victims of the nightbeast's laser gun. It's a sparkly, kaleidoscopic display that amazes as much as it terrifies. The Brillo-haired Sheriff Cinder is also quite the salt of the Earth hero, I was genuinely inspired by the town's resourcefulness as well as how they came together to stop Nightbeast's reign of terror.
The movie wears its love for Jaws on its sleeve - the pool party is essentially the movie's July 4th - but I wish it had not followed its rule of not showing the villain too much because the silver-suited primate's screen time is perhaps too limited. I was not surprised to learn that much of the runtime not involving the nightbeast is there to give the movie a feature length runtime. Also, while the sincerity and commitment are admirable, it doesn't excuse all of the ineptitude. As exciting as the shootouts between the cops and the nightbeast are, for instance, it's never totally clear what's happening in them. For proving and reminding me that movies with such a simple premise are all you need and for how well it rides a fine line between good and so bad, it's good, I have no regrets about taking a chance with it. Oh, and remember not to call the mayor Bertie.
As its plot summary on Prime Video indicates, "a creature from outer space crash lands in a small town and starts killing people." Do you need anything more than that (or from a movie in general)? The answer is no. You also get a torrid love triangle involving the local bully, his girl and a cop as well a pool party for Maryland's leading gubernatorial candidate, so maybe not. Either way, you get horror that is not exactly original and with an obviously low budget, but that is never not fun.
If you're also not a fan of how self-referential genre movies are these days, this one provides the perfect antidote. Sincerity abounds, and even though it's clear that nobody in the cast went to RADA, the commitment of the residents of Perry Hall, Maryland and/or pals of writer/director Dohler to the project is so apparent that it makes up for it. It is apparent in the acting and in the special effects, the latter's highlight being what happens to the victims of the nightbeast's laser gun. It's a sparkly, kaleidoscopic display that amazes as much as it terrifies. The Brillo-haired Sheriff Cinder is also quite the salt of the Earth hero, I was genuinely inspired by the town's resourcefulness as well as how they came together to stop Nightbeast's reign of terror.
The movie wears its love for Jaws on its sleeve - the pool party is essentially the movie's July 4th - but I wish it had not followed its rule of not showing the villain too much because the silver-suited primate's screen time is perhaps too limited. I was not surprised to learn that much of the runtime not involving the nightbeast is there to give the movie a feature length runtime. Also, while the sincerity and commitment are admirable, it doesn't excuse all of the ineptitude. As exciting as the shootouts between the cops and the nightbeast are, for instance, it's never totally clear what's happening in them. For proving and reminding me that movies with such a simple premise are all you need and for how well it rides a fine line between good and so bad, it's good, I have no regrets about taking a chance with it. Oh, and remember not to call the mayor Bertie.
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Speaking of nostalgia, does anyone else not have any for this genre? In other words, I watched little to no horror in my childhood or teens. The only ones I remember seeing are Army of Darkness and Evil Dead 2, which I enjoyed more as comedies. I only started watching horror regularly in my thirties because I was inspired by the original Horrorcram thread. I was like, "hey, you guys are really into this thing. Maybe I should check it out!" I'm glad I did. Since then, I've been doing horrorthons every October.
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+1 to Event Horizon, that movie rules
That film always meets with divided opinions. I saw it in the theater and at the time that I saw it the film was quite effective in offering some scares and interesting set design and competent performances. The CG is a bit dated now, but I agree. It was a good flick.
The premise is great in that it suggests the boundaries of physics as being the boundaries of reality/rationality--get too far off the map and maybe "There be dragons here!"
I like the unofficial thing about Event Horizon where people theorize that it's day 1 of the WH40K universe..
Nope. My third viewing, this time in glorious 4K. Look, Get Out is one of the best movies of the last couple decades. Us is criminally underrated. Yet Nope is my favorite. I’m OBSESSED with it.
Every few years I get this feeling like this movie isn’t as good as I always thought it was. And then the last few years again I’ve felt like this is almost a ******* masterpiece, certainly of its genre or at least its very unique sub-genre. Hell, it's almost a sub-genre unto itself. The comp, for me, is actually Repo Man. In terms of the vibe and feel. Not a perfect match but as close as I can think of.
Anyway, this movie is genuinely funny and exciting and thrilling and still feels very subversive, even edgy.
There's a possibility that if you asked me right now, not last year or even last month, and maybe not in 6 weeks or a year, but right now, I'd say this is my favorite Horror movie.
Every few years I get this feeling like this movie isn’t as good as I always thought it was. And then the last few years again I’ve felt like this is almost a ******* masterpiece, certainly of its genre or at least its very unique sub-genre. Hell, it's almost a sub-genre unto itself. The comp, for me, is actually Repo Man. In terms of the vibe and feel. Not a perfect match but as close as I can think of.
Anyway, this movie is genuinely funny and exciting and thrilling and still feels very subversive, even edgy.
There's a possibility that if you asked me right now, not last year or even last month, and maybe not in 6 weeks or a year, but right now, I'd say this is my favorite Horror movie.
I saw the original for the first time a few years ago and loved it much more than I expected to. 80s punk rock zombies would not usually be my aesthetic but this one won me over.
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Nope. My third viewing, this time in glorious 4K. Look, Get Out is one of the best movies of the last couple decades. Us is criminally underrated. Yet Nope is my favorite. I’m OBSESSED with it.
The Cell. This is another one that people hated when it first came out so I never bothered with it. But now it seems folks have come around to it, so I gave it a watch. I can see why this was made in 2000, in the wake of serial killer masterpieces like Silence of the Lambs and Se7en. It’s got a cool premise that also works as a jumping off point to have all sorts of trippy imagery. But the weak links here are the two leads. I don’t know if Lopez and Vaughn were miscast or if they made poor acting choices, or if the directer just didn’t direct them well. But J. Lo is doing like a baby voice, and while I get what Vince Vaughn’s character was supposed to be, he doesn’t have the darkness to pull it off. Of course the third lead Vincent D’Onofrio is right at home playing a monster. So overall it’s watchable with some cool ideas that doesn’t hit quite as hard as it should.
The Cell. This is another one that people hated when it first came out so I never bothered with it. But now it seems folks have come around to it, so I gave it a watch. I can see why this was made in 2000, in the wake of serial killer masterpieces like Silence of the Lambs and Se7en. It’s got a cool premise that also works as a jumping off point to have all sorts of trippy imagery. But the weak links here are the two leads. I don’t know if Lopez and Vaughn were miscast or if they made poor acting choices, or if the directer just didn’t direct them well. But J. Lo is doing like a baby voice, and while I get what Vince Vaughn’s character was supposed to be, he doesn’t have the darkness to pull it off. Of course the third lead Vincent D’Onofrio is right at home playing a monster. So overall it’s watchable with some cool ideas that doesn’t hit quite as hard as it should.
The Cell: That director Tarsem is known for some trippy imagery and the film has that in spades. But it goes down a familiar role with some actors who seem lost and the whole thing comes across as meh.
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Thoughts on the sequels? Thinking about watching the first 3.
I saw the original for the first time a few years ago and loved it much more than I expected to. 80s punk rock zombies would not usually be my aesthetic but this one won me over.
I saw the original for the first time a few years ago and loved it much more than I expected to. 80s punk rock zombies would not usually be my aesthetic but this one won me over.
Thoughts on the sequels? Thinking about watching the first 3.
I saw the original for the first time a few years ago and loved it much more than I expected to. 80s punk rock zombies would not usually be my aesthetic but this one won me over.
I saw the original for the first time a few years ago and loved it much more than I expected to. 80s punk rock zombies would not usually be my aesthetic but this one won me over.
I've only seen the second one and thought it was not so good. I've definitely heard fair defenses of it though so I dont think it qualifies as a complete waste.
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The Cell. This is another one that people hated when it first came out so I never bothered with it. But now it seems folks have come around to it, so I gave it a watch. I can see why this was made in 2000, in the wake of serial killer masterpieces like Silence of the Lambs and Se7en. It’s got a cool premise that also works as a jumping off point to have all sorts of trippy imagery. But the weak links here are the two leads. I don’t know if Lopez and Vaughn were miscast or if they made poor acting choices, or if the directer just didn’t direct them well. But J. Lo is doing like a baby voice, and while I get what Vince Vaughn’s character was supposed to be, he doesn’t have the darkness to pull it off. Of course the third lead Vincent D’Onofrio is right at home playing a monster. So overall it’s watchable with some cool ideas that doesn’t hit quite as hard as it should.
However, I do really love a lot of elements from The Cell. The sequence where Lopez shrinks as she walks through the room, the living paintings, so many fantastic moments.
I really like Lopez in that lead role, and I also think that Vaughn does pretty well. The sequence where it's strongly implied that he's recovering from childhood (sexual?) abuse is powerful, and it makes sense of his character's reactions to what happens. I agree that D'Onofrio is the MVP of the whole thing.
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Aw man, Onibaba (1964) is one of the best horror movies I've seen in a minute. Looked visually stunning, had me captivated. It's essentially a Victorian ghost story set in medieval Japan, classic folk horror setup. Sexual tension/menace, spooky masks, human depravity, it's great. I love me a classic Gothic ghost story.
I tell ya, parsing Horror movies among fans of the genre can be tough.
When you have something in common like "likes Horror movies", people assume you're just gonna be simpatico all the time. As if fans of "Rock n Roll" are all gonna agree on what they like to listen to. But it doesn't really work that way.
I have sent five films I really like out to die before my biggest "Horror Friends". Charles fell asleep in 2 of them, Amy sighed through a couple more, and then during Lemora Charles literally got up and told me it was one of the worst movies he'd ever seen.
Keep in mind we're close friends. And so I'd wanted to send them even more of my kind of movies like Messiah Of Evil and Spider Baby and Let's Scare Jessica To Death. But after five rejections I decided I'd better not.
But they'd been bugging me to watch a movie they really liked. It looked perfectly dreadful to me and I would never have watched it but I felt I owed them so I did. And I thought it was a pretty bad film that just happened to have some good scares.
And so we plod on, trying to recommend or share movies with each other but knowing there's a good chance that this other "Horrorphile" ain't gonna be happy with it while also trying not to offend or hurt each others' feelings.
So it is.
When you have something in common like "likes Horror movies", people assume you're just gonna be simpatico all the time. As if fans of "Rock n Roll" are all gonna agree on what they like to listen to. But it doesn't really work that way.
I have sent five films I really like out to die before my biggest "Horror Friends". Charles fell asleep in 2 of them, Amy sighed through a couple more, and then during Lemora Charles literally got up and told me it was one of the worst movies he'd ever seen.
Keep in mind we're close friends. And so I'd wanted to send them even more of my kind of movies like Messiah Of Evil and Spider Baby and Let's Scare Jessica To Death. But after five rejections I decided I'd better not.
But they'd been bugging me to watch a movie they really liked. It looked perfectly dreadful to me and I would never have watched it but I felt I owed them so I did. And I thought it was a pretty bad film that just happened to have some good scares.
And so we plod on, trying to recommend or share movies with each other but knowing there's a good chance that this other "Horrorphile" ain't gonna be happy with it while also trying not to offend or hurt each others' feelings.
So it is.
I tell ya, parsing Horror movies among fans of the genre can be tough.
When you have something in common like "likes Horror movies", people assume you're just gonna be simpatico all the time. As if fans of "Rock n Roll" are all gonna agree on what they like to listen to. But it doesn't really work that way.
When you have something in common like "likes Horror movies", people assume you're just gonna be simpatico all the time. As if fans of "Rock n Roll" are all gonna agree on what they like to listen to. But it doesn't really work that way.
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I got drunk at Star Wars trivia tonight so take these reactions with a grain of salt.
Knock at the Cabin. I like the moral quandary at the center of the story but the film doesn’t spend enough time pondering it and ends up spinning its wheels leaving me bored through most of it.
Evil Dead Rise. This was a rewatch for me since I saw it in theaters earlier in the year. I really like the grunge feel and dilapidated apartment setting. It also does a great job of walking the line between upsetting and funny that only Evil Dead can do. The version on Max looks like shit though. If you’re gonna watch it get a nice physical copy.
Knock at the Cabin. I like the moral quandary at the center of the story but the film doesn’t spend enough time pondering it and ends up spinning its wheels leaving me bored through most of it.
Evil Dead Rise. This was a rewatch for me since I saw it in theaters earlier in the year. I really like the grunge feel and dilapidated apartment setting. It also does a great job of walking the line between upsetting and funny that only Evil Dead can do. The version on Max looks like shit though. If you’re gonna watch it get a nice physical copy.
I feel pretty lucky that many of my other horror film friends enjoy much of the same weird indie horror stuff that works for me but I still really do get this. Just about anytime I recommend something it usually starts with "now this film may not be for everyone but I really liked it".
So I don't have much credit with them these days.
On the other hand, they've been trying to get me to watch Hell House LLC for several years and I finally caved and watched the Director's Cut of it last night... and now their credit has taken a hit with me.
Such is the parsing.
Oh. When @Torgo asked if we have nostalgia for "this genre," I assumed he meant, classic 50s sci-fi b-movie horror (not necessarily campy b-movie, but low budget films), and not horror as a whole.
I grew up watching censored and edited versions of the Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th movies in grade school - often on USA's "Up! All Night". I think part 4 and part 6 had came out when I first became cognizant of them.
I really remember really liking Critters as well.
Keep in mind, grade school spans 6 years of one's life and it's tough placing where it happened.
Despite not ever watching any of the universal horror movies as a child, I still read the grade school picture book... not exactly novelizations of them.
I can't really remember my mid-teen years. I seem to recall not really being into horror then and looking down on it. Some of it was likely that period where you want to be "serious" about "good movies" (which I have to really put in quote, because it's the age when I took the Oscars seriously), but it was also well into the 90s at that point and the quality of horror was legitimately fallow at the time.
And yet, in college, it wasn't like I wasn't watching The Blair Witch Project in theaters, and I was still tracking down stuff like Naked Lunch and Lost Highway to watch from the video store.
It gets complicated, but at around 30, I decided to dive back in deep because a local horror group was doing a screening at a local arthouse theater of some cult 80s films, and I remember going, "I'm not going out to movie theaters enough and if I only go for those Janus film screenings, then I'm only ever going to go if I'm feeling mentally alert, so I should start going to these as well." And the nostalgia bomb kind of went off for me, and I started diving into a lot more cult stuff that I was unaware of when I was a kid, but was coming out in that era (and before).
I grew up watching censored and edited versions of the Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th movies in grade school - often on USA's "Up! All Night". I think part 4 and part 6 had came out when I first became cognizant of them.
I really remember really liking Critters as well.
Keep in mind, grade school spans 6 years of one's life and it's tough placing where it happened.
Despite not ever watching any of the universal horror movies as a child, I still read the grade school picture book... not exactly novelizations of them.
I can't really remember my mid-teen years. I seem to recall not really being into horror then and looking down on it. Some of it was likely that period where you want to be "serious" about "good movies" (which I have to really put in quote, because it's the age when I took the Oscars seriously), but it was also well into the 90s at that point and the quality of horror was legitimately fallow at the time.
And yet, in college, it wasn't like I wasn't watching The Blair Witch Project in theaters, and I was still tracking down stuff like Naked Lunch and Lost Highway to watch from the video store.
It gets complicated, but at around 30, I decided to dive back in deep because a local horror group was doing a screening at a local arthouse theater of some cult 80s films, and I remember going, "I'm not going out to movie theaters enough and if I only go for those Janus film screenings, then I'm only ever going to go if I'm feeling mentally alert, so I should start going to these as well." And the nostalgia bomb kind of went off for me, and I started diving into a lot more cult stuff that I was unaware of when I was a kid, but was coming out in that era (and before).
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