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

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Victim of The Night
Already kicked off my horror binge last week by trying to watch as many new releases as possible before shifting to more “important” choices during the actual month.

The Munsters- 2.5/5
Was it watchable?



I've done a couple horror challenges during past Octobers, but all too often I grow jaded with them mid-month and feel inclined to go back to the regular films I watch. I suppose I'm the kind of person who likes to mix up the genre/decade/country. Since I plan to watch all the nominations in the Group Watch thread for the 2010s countdown, I won't make a horror watchlist for this October. Maybe in the future though. We'll see...
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Was it watchable?
In most commonly accepted ways, no. I think I’m the only one here that would give it a rating that isn’t scathing.

But I found it to have an odd, earnest charm akin to DTV ‘90s movies made for kids. It’s colorful, harmless, everyone is giving their hammiest performances, and it has the production value of a Svengoolie segment. I couldn’t bring myself to add to the dog pile.



Victim of The Night
In most commonly accepted ways, no. I think I’m the only one here that would give it a rating that isn’t scathing.

But I found it to have an odd, earnest charm akin to DTV ‘90s movies made for kids. It’s colorful, harmless, everyone is giving their hammiest performances, and it has the production value of a Svengoolie segment. I couldn’t bring myself to add to the dog pile.
I hate to see him come to this. I really believe in his talent.



I hate to see him come to this. I really believe in his talent.

What's been most impressive about Zombie is how much fairly decent stuff he's been able to ring out of such a limited schtick.


My assumption after seeing Lords of Salem was that was probably as good as it was going to get and have sort of forgotten about him ever since. And as far as I know, my gut feeling hasn't been challenged yet by anything he's done after that.



I hate to see him come to this. I really believe in his talent.
Same. This feels like a little experiment that just didn’t meet the quality that a named filmmaker should bring to the table. However, it was intended to be a little DTV thing and that’s the budget and shooting schedule he was given and had it been directed by anyone else, not only would it have come to pass with absolutely no fan fare, but the few interesting things in it wouldn’t have existed.

On the topic of his career, I agree that LOS is his second peak and we’re in a bit of a valley, 31 does have its charms (choppy editing is its primary issue) and I think the final act of 3 From Hell is as good as anything he ever made.



Victim of The Night
What's been most impressive about Zombie is how much fairly decent stuff he's been able to ring out of such a limited schtick.


My assumption after seeing Lords of Salem was that was probably as good as it was going to get and have sort of forgotten about him ever since. And as far as I know, my gut feeling hasn't been challenged yet by anything he's done after that.
Well, I liked 31 after that, not as much but a decent bit, and I always hoped that as he aged he would kinda get it all to come together. This does not look like it.



Rewatched Caveat last night. I think that my reaction to it is basically the same as when I first watched it last June. It's good but not quite great.



My assumption after seeing Lords of Salem was that was probably as good as it was going to get
That wasn't my assumption at the time, kinda hoped he would build on that, but ten years later it seems to be the case.
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Greatly enjoyed The Final Girl Support Group, which I believe was a @Takoma11 recommendation. It’s a Grady Hendrix book so it’s very well aware of the tropes of the genre it’s riffing on, but never feels like it’s looking down on said genre. I’m usually a pretty slow reader but I breezed through this in a few days. Also, I would 100% watch the fake movies mentioned in the book.



Greatly enjoyed The Final Girl Support Group, which I believe was a @Takoma11 recommendation. It’s a Grady Hendrix book so it’s very well aware of the tropes of the genre it’s riffing on, but never feels like it’s looking down on said genre. I’m usually a pretty slow reader but I breezed through this in a few days. Also, I would 100% watch the fake movies mentioned in the book.
Glad you liked it!

As I wrote before, I especially liked it once you realize that these women are in their 40s/50s, an age bracket (especially for women) that doesn't get a lot of play in anything outside of the drama genre.



Glad you liked it!

As I wrote before, I especially liked it once you realize that these women are in their 40s/50s, an age bracket (especially for women) that doesn't get a lot of play in anything outside of the drama genre.
Yup, and they’re given personalities which are very much outside the usual stock characters in these kinds of works. Hendrix has a very distinct voice in his nonfiction writing (breathless enthusiasm), but I thought he did a good job stepping outside that mode and getting into the main character’s methodical, obsessive state of mind without feeling laboured.



It’s the most wondefulllll time of the yearrrrrr.

Browsing all the streaming services I have and making a list of all the horror I want to watch this month. I got about 60 so far. And Hulu wins the award for most movies I want to keep on in the background while playing online poker.



doing the "watching a horror movie every day of the month" gimmick again this year so i guess i'll post about it?

Day #1

A Night to Dismember (Doris Wishman, 1983)

Jumping straight into the deep end with whatever the hell this is. Apparently this was cobbled together after a large portion of the film was accidentally destroyed and it sure feels like it though I don't know if this explains the hilariously out of place music and the insane sound design. Just a nonsense series of events with copious narration trying to jam the pieces together and honestly its kind of a banger. It admittedly took me a minute to catch its rhythm and really appreciate its charms but by the end I was sold. Its just so wacky and tbh there's a few legitimately cool shots in here too. Doesn't quite hit the Things tier of incomprehensibly bad horror movie but its not far off.



My favourite thing about the movie is that Golden Age pornstar Samantha Fox, who was normally not a bad actress, supposedly paid Wishman to be in the movie only to give what’s probably a career worst performance.



Starting things off right with an epic rewatch of Hellraiser. I only saw it once before and it’s been a while so I’ve been meaning to revisit it.. Plus I read the book over the summer and we got the remake coming up. This movie is still metal as ****.


And speaking of remakes I also watched Firestarter (2022) which was a ****ing travesty. The original isn’t perfect but imagine stripping it of anything unique and remaking it in the most boring, unimaginative way possible.

Side note I remember when Zac Efron was a teen heartthrob and he’s playing a dad now. So I guess that makes me old.



For the Letterboxd's Hooptober challenge, I dove into the nightmare fuel of The Pied Piper (1986). Yeah, it's based on the Pied Piper story. But thanks to some memorable stop motion animation and character design, it's solid.



My favourite thing about the movie is that Golden Age pornstar Samantha Fox, who was normally not a bad actress, supposedly paid Wishman to be in the movie only to give what’s probably a career worst performance.
Its very hard to read any of the performances with the terrible ADR.



At the risk of revealing my ignorance, what's the song in the vampires teaser?



For the Letterboxd's Hooptober challenge, I dove into the nightmare fuel of The Pied Piper (1986). Yeah, it's based on the Pied Piper story. But thanks to some memorable stop motion animation and character design, it's solid.
That's a great one. Available on YouTube I believe.