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

Pretty much a remake of It Follows. I saw every relevant part of it in It Follows, but this one lacks the STD allegory.

I thought the scares were much better in this one, as well as the atmosphere. It Follows is more focused on the allegory, where Smile is more about the horror, which I appreciate. Almost every scare is better executed here than any other place I saw them.



I hope they don't make a sequel and milk the concept dry. They have everything they needed right there.

Run Sweetheart Run, 2022

Cherie (Ella Balinska) is a single mom who has just been hired at a prestigious firm. One night her boss (Clark Gregg) asks if she will take a high-profile client out to dinner. Cherie is delighted when her dinner date turns out to be Ethan (Pilou Asbęk), a charming man her age. But at the end of their date, Ethan brutally assault Cherie, and she flees into the night. Unfortunately for Cherie, Ethan seems to have allies in many places, and she must continue to run for her life.

You know the kind of movie that just keeps turning into a different movie? Things like God Told Me To or Cabin in the Woods? While not anywhere near the level of those films, this one kept my firmly onboard simply by virtue of escalating the stakes and the premise of the story about every 15-20 minutes.

Anyone who has ever used the word "woke" to criticize a film, well, their heads would probably explode about halfway through this one, if not sooner. The movie is definitely making overt statements about power and gender and race. I thought that for the most part the film did this with a sense of humor, and even a sense of "reality" about how most of those power struggles work out. There's a running plot point that Cherie is menstruating, and she repeatedly sees her own blood in small spots on the floor. If looking at your own blood over and over doesn't say it all, I'm not sure what does.

The frustrating thing about a movie that keeps the plot twists coming at breakneck speed is that I don't want to spoil anything. This means I pretty much don't want to say anything specific about what happens after the first 20 minutes or so.

I liked the way that the movie examined who has power and who doesn't, and how horrifying it is to be on the losing end of such a power dynamic. When Cherie begs two (wealthy, white) women to help her, the women hesitate. When they finally do call 911, they imply to the dispatcher that Cherie is under the influence of something. There is a lot of language in the vein of solidarity slogans. At one point, the leader of a group trying to help Cherie says something to the effect of "Let's teach this Proud Boy a lesson." Yeah. It doesn't end well for that group of people. Neither does it end well for someone who declares "Hell yeah! This is going to be the year of the woman!". Statements of empowerment do not equate to actual power, something that several characters learn in brutal fashion. Even with Cherie, Ethan repeatedly tells her to "sit down" . . . and she does. And when she doesn't she pays for it.

There are also several style choices made in the film to parallel the power dynamic. The villain literally controls the movie. At one point he "turns off" the music in the movie. Later he physically turns the camera away from an act of violence he is about to commit. At different point titles appear over the characters giving them directions.

The thing about it is that it's all so overt that I found it pretty funny. The film is very aware that shouting "girl power" is hollow if you are being overpowered and outmatched.

Now while I did overall enjoy the film, the allegorical elements do sometimes feel like they are fighting with the horror elements. And there are some pretty good horror moments here. The movie doesn't quite manage to bring it together in a satisfying way in the last act, where things get too explained and the staging of the final showdown brings in too many characters outside of Cherie and Ethan. In the first act of the film I was a bit irritated at some of Cherie's choices (when she first goes for help she asks to call her babysitter instead of calling 911, girl why?!), but as the movie gets weirder those choices seem less and less incidental.

In terms of horror that is leaning weird and allegorical into gender issues, I'd give a slight edge to Lucky. But I definitely enjoyed this one and thought that Balinska made for a very engaging lead.

Hmm, it's been awhile since I've seen It Follows. I can't recall how scary I found it to be. I will grant, however, that for what it is trying to do, Smile is quite competent. If I were sixteen, it would've have really scared the crap out of me, but as it was I will confess that it was unsettling at moments. However, I think I will forget it in a week, where I remember It Follows for being a bit more original and for the allegory.

I understand how this seems goofy now, but it was (the movie and the scene in particular that you're talking about) considered pretty intense when it came out.

The 10 Best Horror Films From Directors Who Aren’t Known For the Genre

Did I have a stroke or was Polanski not on there?

For the past few weeks I've been making my way through the 70s TV series Space: 1999. Today's guest star was a very Glam Christopher Lee, looking like he's ready to replace Peter Gabriel in Genesis.




Bonus Hammer sighting:
On another episode I spotted Ms Leon as an uncredited extra. ( ! ) Her planet was in a constant state of blizzard conditions, so her people lived underground in caves. As you can see, this did not adversely effect their hairstyling capabilities.

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I’d say Polanski is known for the genre.

I can think of four movies one might consider for Polanski, but I'm struggling to think of what would have disqualified Friedkin.


Nagisa Oshima did a single Kwaidan, Empire of Passion (there might be a commentary on the brutality of society in the movie), so that's a big miss on there part.

ETA: Robert Wise also crossed my mind, but I see he did Curse of the Cat People and The Bodysnatcher early on.

Kobayashi did Kwaidan but he could’ve been included.

I started re-watching that about two years ago but stalled for some reason, possibly because I hate watching shows. I want an arc and then the end. But I always loved the show as a kid and I hope to get back to it at some point.
What?! Valerie Leon?! Never mind, I know what I'm doing tonight.

I spent 60 dollars on the original (rejected) Morricone soundtrack to this show, and had no idea that it was a television show until now. Figured it was some shit movie I'd never heard of. All I knew is that the producers didn't want some second rate free-jazz clouding their outer space fun.


It's a baffling soundtrack for sci fi. Have no idea what Morricone was thinking, but it's a fun weird record to have nonetheless.

This is probably what Ennio thought music would sound like in 1999. Instead we got Britney Spears.

The Dare, 2019

Jay (Bart Edwards) is spending a night at home with his wife and daughters when an intruder enters and abducts him. Jay awakens in a strange room with strangers Adam (Richard Short), Kat (Alexandra Evans), and Paul (Daniel Schutzmann). The group is tormented by a silent, masked figure (Robert Maaser). At the same time, a little boy (Mitchell Norman) is tormented by a man (Richard Brake) who has abducted him from his family.

This had all the markers of a throw-away horror, so I threw it on while I was working on some coursework. And, yeah, kind of a throw-away deal.

I will give the film credit that it has some pretty gnarly gore if that's your kind of thing. For my taste it leaned a bit too much on the torture aspect of things. The repeated deal is that the mysterious figure forces one of the prisoners to slash another person or make them eat a wasp or something. The gore is pretty well done and the torture is, I suppose, appropriately upsetting.

There is, of course, the question of why this specific group of people has been chosen by the mysterious someone. The answer to that question makes sense and it's the kind of reveal that then makes sense of some of what we've seen up to that point.

It definitely loses points for the expected bad horror movie totally stupid epilogue/stinger.

I'm enjoying it. I'll watch an episode with breakfast on weekends, so I'm only doing a couple of eps a week. Kinda dry a la Star Trek, but entertaining. My main memory from childhood is of a woman that could turn into animals, but I haven't seen her yet so maybe she's in Season 2.

Remember this guy?

Just bought the BluRay during the Kino sale last month!

Lot 36 (Cabinet of Curiosities Episode 1), 2022

Nick (Tim Blake Nelson) is a military veteran living a desperate life as he tries to scrape together the money he owes a loan shark. Things seem to be looking up when he buys a storage unit left behind when an elderly man passes away. But what Nick finds inside the storage unit is much more than he bargained for. . .

I am definitely excited to get into this series, even if this first episode left me a bit wanting.

As is somewhat common with episodic horror, some of the elements of the story are painted with a brush that's a bit too broad. Nick is staunchly anti-immigrant, something that comes out when a Hispanic woman named Emilia (Elpidia Carrillo) begs him to let her retrieve some personal items from a storage unit he purchased. The episode presses this aspect of Nick's character a bit too hard. There are some nice gestures to the fact that Nick has made some poor choices and now turns his anger outward at immigrants, but this dynamic isn't well explored. Nelson gives Nick a much needed lived-in quality, but the character still feels a bit thin.

The horror kicks in as Nick discovers what the old man was doing in the storage unit, and this leads to one piece of really excellent and disturbing imagery. I absolutely loved/hated the image of

Overall a good short, but I'm hoping that some of the other episodes will be more to my liking.

Agree with all of the above. Fun, but not my favorite installment.