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Victim of The Night




October 20th - A Spanish Language horror film

The Orphanage is one of those films that you likely need to watch a couple times to follow the plot. It's nice to have a complicated ghost story every once and a while. The plot is the story of a young girl who is adopted and returns to her orphanage to raise new children. She has a son and on the day of the opening an event happens and sets the story into motion.


I'm not going to give away the second act twist because the first act drags on forever and talking about what the story is actually about would be a pain in the butt. Certain aspects of the story could have been done better we get a lot of tell but not show especially for several major plot points that would have elevated the horror aspect of the story. This is a very soft R horror film...I would call it a PG-13.


Years ago I wrote-up this film and just gushed about it. While haven't re-watched it in a few years, I absolutely loved it and thought it was both chilling and beautiful.
I said that if I ever directed a movie, it would look like this one.



A system of cells interlinked
The Host

Bong Joon Ho, 2006





This was excellent. A fun monster movie with some great thrills and laugh-out-loud comedy to keep it light, but also some strong emotional punch in the final act. I had been meaning to watch this for quite some time, and I am glad I finally got it in.
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“It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.” ― Thomas Sowell



The Host

Bong Joon Ho, 2006





This was excellent. A fun monster movie with some great thrills and laugh-out-loud comedy to keep it light, but also some strong emotional punch in the final act. I had been meaning to watch this for quite some time, and I am glad I finally got it in.
Yeah, I liked this quite a lot. I remember having a couple minor to medium sized issues with it, but it's a really strong monster film for sure. I loved the ending, in particular.
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A system of cells interlinked
Yeah, I liked this quite a lot. I remember having a couple minor to medium sized issues with it, but it's a really strong monster film for sure. I loved the ending, in particular.

The CGI is pretty dated looking at this point, but other than that, I wasn't pulled out of the film many times by anything that bothered me. The tone is maybe a bit all over the place at first, so that could also bother some folks, methinks.



The CGI is pretty dated looking at this point, but other than that, I wasn't pulled out of the film many times by anything that bothered me. The tone is maybe a bit all over the place at first, so that could also bother some folks, methinks.
I think the cgi was the main thing which bugged me. I also felt like some of the themes were a bit obvious. For instance, Agent Yellow, a drug which is designed to exterminate the monster but may potentially harm other people in the area, felt like a blatant reference to Agent Orange. Although, I'd have to watch the film again to recall more examples as this is the only one I remember. Overall, I really liked it quite a lot though. It's definitely one of the better horror films of this decade, and I'm a pretty big fan of it. Glad you also liked it!



A system of cells interlinked
Overall, I really liked it quite a lot though. It's definitely one of the better horror films of this decade, and I'm a pretty big fan of it. Glad you also liked it!
Time sure flies...The Host came out in 2006!



A system of cells interlinked
Oh, whoops. Lol.

*last decade
The funny thing is that I was sure it was from somewhere around 2012-2013 when I went looking for it to watch last night. I found the flick on Amazon, saw the release date and said "wait, that can't be right...."

Alas...



The funny thing is that I was sure it was from somewhere around 2012-2013 when I went looking for it to watch last night. I found the flick on Amazon, saw the release date and said "wait, that can't be right...."

Alas...
Yeah, I keep confusing it with the 2013 Host.



A system of cells interlinked
Yeah, I keep confusing it with the 2013 Host.
****, that must be it. I had totally spaced on the fact that the 2013 version (which I have not seen) even existed.





Extraordinary Tales, 2013 (An Edgar Allen Poe adaptation)

I've already watched several Poe adaptations this month (House of Usher, Masque of the Red Death, Pit and the Pendulum), so I was hoping for something different than the 60s-era films I've seen so far.

This film (which, thanks to my title blindness, I thought I'd seen because of its similarity to Tale of Tales) is a collection of five animated short adaptations of Poe stories. Each short was created in different animation styles.

House of Usher: Elevated by a narration from Christopher Lee, this is a pretty straightforward telling of the story. I'm not the biggest fan of the 3D style animation used here.

Tell Tale Heart: I loved the style (rotoscoped, I think, and in stark black and white) and the narration from Bela Lugosi. A marvelous combination of visual and audio elements.

The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar: I also really, really enjoyed this short. It's a story I've seen before in Tales of Terror, about a man who agrees to be hypnotized at the moment of death. It works . . . to horrible effect. This short was just incredibly visceral compared to the version I'd seen previously. I'm very sensitive to stories of abuse of power, and so watching the three doctors basically experimenting on this not-dead, powerless man was pretty horrifying.

The Pit and the Pendulum: Narrated by Guillermo del Toro, this was tied as my favorite short. The animation suits the story very well and the narration is also excellent. It's a story totally saturated in despair.

Masque of the Red Death: Maybe the least engaging for me. The animation looks great, but the characters just never made much of an impression.

I'd recommend this one. Just don't be put off by the framing device (a raven having a conversation with Death in a cemetery), in which the voice acting is medium and the animation style is a bit cheap looking.






Color Out of Space, 2019 (An HP Lovecraft adaptation)

In very quick succession I saw a trailer for this film, got REALLY excited about it, almost immediately read a bunch of tepid, *shrug* reviews about it, got really sad, and let it slip down my to-watch list. Seeing that it was on Shudder (making the most of this free 7-day trial, ya'll!), I decided to give it a go, encouraged by some positive opinions of it on here.

I kind of loved it.

Flawed? Absolutely.

But I totally adored the unreal color scheme. I kind of marveled at how long it held a balance of tension where I was both laughing and also genuinely disturbed/horrified.

I do wish that certain threads had been developed with a bit more finesse (for example, taking a lot of time to establish that the wife has dealt with breast cancer and undergone a double mastectomy and is struggling a bit with motherhood, only to
WARNING: spoilers below
have her body horribly disfigured by radiation and her own child felt both unsubtle and like it was reaching a bit too hard for something edgy
.)

The portrayal of each family member having their own personal reaction to the Color was a cool one, and I thought that the film did a great job of portraying a degree of disorientation so that you didn't ever think "Why don't you just XYZ?". The film just does a great job of conveying "otherworldly". I thought that it may have borrowed a bit from the look of Annihilation in this regard but, hey, I really loved the look of Annihilation.

I'd say more, but, you know, it's time we milk the alpacas.






Color Out of Space, 2019 (An HP Lovecraft adaptation)

In very quick succession I saw a trailer for this film, got REALLY excited about it, almost immediately read a bunch of tepid, *shrug* reviews about it, got really sad, and let it slip down my to-watch list. Seeing that it was on Shudder (making the most of this free 7-day trial, ya'll!), I decided to give it a go, encouraged by some positive opinions of it on here.

I kind of loved it.

Flawed? Absolutely.

But I totally adored the unreal color scheme. I kind of marveled at how long it held a balance of tension where I was both laughing and also genuinely disturbed/horrified.

I do wish that certain threads had been developed with a bit more finesse (for example, taking a lot of time to establish that the wife has dealt with breast cancer and undergone a double mastectomy and is struggling a bit with motherhood, only to
WARNING: spoilers below
have her body horribly disfigured by radiation and her own child felt both unsubtle and like it was reaching a bit too hard for something edgy
.)

The portrayal of each family member having their own personal reaction to the Color was a cool one, and I thought that the film did a great job of portraying a degree of disorientation so that you didn't ever think "Why don't you just XYZ?". The film just does a great job of conveying "otherworldly". I thought that it may have borrowed a bit from the look of Annihilation in this regard but, hey, I really loved the look of Annihilation.

I'd say more, but, you know, it's time we milk the alpacas.

I also liked this one quite a lot more than I expected, a decent bit more than Mandy, in fact. I may have rated it too high on IMDb, but I was really impressed by the depiction of how the Color affected the family members as it got more and more extreme, especially with Nathan and Lavinia. That, coupled with the gorgeous color palette, makes it more than worth the watch in my opinion.



I also liked this one quite a lot more than I expected, a decent bit more than Mandy, in fact. I may have rated it too high on IMDb, but I was really impressed by the depiction of how the Color affected the family members as it got more and more extreme, especially with Nathan and Lavinia. That, coupled with the gorgeous color palette, makes it more than worth the watch in my opinion.
I'd say the two films are close for me, but with Mandy having a pretty clear edge.

In Mandy there were multiple character arcs, I loved the way that it managed to depict a horrible centerpiece of violence while
WARNING: spoilers below
subverting the way that rape/murder against women is usually depicted
, and I found the way that it built to the climax more emotionally coherent than Color Out of Space where, like I mentioned, I felt that the characters themselves didn't quite get enough depth.



I'd say the two films are close for me, but with Mandy having a pretty clear edge.

In Mandy there were multiple character arcs, I loved the way that it managed to depict a horrible centerpiece of violence while
WARNING: spoilers below
subverting the way that rape/murder against women is usually depicted
, and I found the way that it built to the climax more emotionally coherent than Color Out of Space where, like I mentioned, I felt that the characters themselves didn't quite get enough depth.
My memory with Mandy was that Cage's character wasn't developed or deep enough for the revenge scenes to hit as hard as they could've. Like, it explained why he was mad of course, but I didn't feel a deep enough connection/poetry between Cage and his wife to get on board with the second half as much as I could've. I also remember finding some of the dialogue to be bad, but I'd have to rewatch the film to be able to provide examples. However, I did admire the phantasmagorical look quite a lot and I also loved the imagination shown with many of the revenge scenes, especially the giant chainsaw, so I still appreciated it quite a lot.

With Color Out of Space, while the character arcs didn't have a ton of depth as you say, I mostly appreciated the creativity involved with the various ways the Color changed the family. Though disturbing, the film managed to fit a layer of dark humor underneath many of their outcomes which I found compelling. It made for a great blend in my opinion.



I liked Mandy quite a bit better than Color Out of Space as it has a much more purposeful Nicolas Cage performance, but on the whole I was still left a little bit cold. It's stylish, well made and makes great use of Cage, but I found it too...ready made? As if it was deliberately designed to appeal to a very specific audience with its mix of references and flourishes, rather than doing so organically. Cosmatos is a very talented dude and Mandy is much better than his last effort, Beyond the Black Rainbow, in that is has actual narrative momentum and doesn't just fizzle out at the end, but I've yet to love anything from him.



Victim of The Night


Extraordinary Tales, 2013 (An Edgar Allen Poe adaptation)

I've already watched several Poe adaptations this month (House of Usher, Masque of the Red Death, Pit and the Pendulum), so I was hoping for something different than the 60s-era films I've seen so far.

Tell Tale Heart: I loved the style (rotoscoped, I think, and in stark black and white) and the narration from Bela Lugosi. A marvelous combination of visual and audio elements.


I am confused. If this film is from 2013 how did they get Bela Lugosi to narrate?



I was able to relate to Red pretty well in Mandy. The scene near the beginning where he refused a beer speaks volumes to me. You could take the entire movie as being about the long road to recovery. I'm not saying that they should screen it at AA meetings or anything, but anyone who has struggled with addiction or is trying to put a past life in the rear view mirror is bound to get something out of it. It also helps that Nicolas Cage plays Red, and while he may have thought of the role as just another job, it's even more resonant when you imagine that he's putting his past life of starring in crap behind.



I am confused. If this film is from 2013 how did they get Bela Lugosi to narrate?
I think they used an old radio recording.