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

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10 Cloverfield Lane---Straddles the horror/thriller line effectively. Good John Goodman performance and solid work from Mary Elizabeth Winstead. It proves that you can make the most with a closed setting and personal interactions. It loses some of its power when it explores what's happening around them at the end. Solid Recommend.



Mandy
Color Out of Space

Pairing them because both star Nicolas Cage who's been pretty hit or miss for a while now. If he's on, then it might prove to be a good time. If not, it'll be more of a waste of time.

RE: 10 Cloverfield Lane - I always took the ending as sort of a goof by the film makers, and a commentary on how it's usually the human story/interactions that are important in stuff like this, and that the rest is just so much setup and set dressing to house the important stuff. This was brought home to me when Winstead said "You have got to be ****ing kidding me!" when she sees the craft flying over the field. I liked the ending for this reason.

Re: Mandy/Color Out of Space

I think there is enough to like with both of these to be a solid recommend regardless of Cage. That said, Cage is ****ing awesome in these films. He is totally unhinged and extremely entertaining. If you dislike/are annoyed by unhinged Cage, maybe take a pass, but if you like unhinged cage, these films are the sovereign rulers of your ass.

Mandy is a bit better, but I liked both a whole helluva lot.
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The whole notion of the 'slasher' has a bunch of strands in its DNA, which would range from Halloween to TCM to giallos to grindhouse films like Last House on the Left and Dead End Street. By the time it coalesced into a very specific form and genre though, it had shed much of its disparate influences and became an almost paint by numbers movie genre unto itself. So, while I would also be very hesitant to call TCM a straight up slasher, its influence is very much in there somewhere.



Victim of The Night

Man, such a treat. Every time.
People from Corri and RT before that may remember that this is one of my favorite October films and is my No.1 Hammer Horror. And it did not disappoint me this month either nor my audience of all first-time viewers.

The short version of the story is that the local Count is a vampire that is just brazenly taking the women and children of the Serbian village of Stetl. The villagers finally rise up and kill the Count but, with his dying breath, he curses the town and instructs his thrall/lover (the auburn-haired wife of one of the villagers), to find his cousin Emil at The Circus Of Night, and that he will know what to do.
15 years later, the village is suffering from a plague and has been blockaded by the surrounding villages so that no one can escape Stetl and spread their plague. While the town elders discuss how this must be the curse of Count Mitterhaus, a circus rolls into town. From here, the dying starts as the village falls under the spell of this strange group of carnies, led by an auburn-haired woman and a mysterious man named... Emil.


Lock up your daughters!
Really, this is just such a fun Hammer outing, with more brass than just about anything else they ever did. This is a bloody, gory, and sexy affair with imagination to spare with a whole troupe of vampires and shape-shifters (not to mention a really evil dwarf) wreaking red-revenge on this small, quiet village. These vampires are not a bunch of gothic royalty swishing about in their capes, this is a mean-spirited group of devils who take genuine pleasure in the suffering they cause.



While I must admit that my audience included people who laughed at some of the early-70s vampire posturing, with the fang-baring being such a dramatic moment several times, but for they raved about the movie in the end anyway saying it was "Everything you want from a Hammer movie plus sex and a good try at the effects as well."



Victim of The Night
The whole notion of the 'slasher' has a bunch of strands in its DNA, which would range from Halloween to TCM to giallos to grindhouse films like Last House on the Left and Dead End Street. By the time it coalesced into a very specific form and genre though, it had shed much of its disparate influences and became an almost paint by numbers movie genre unto itself. So, while I would also be very hesitant to call TCM a straight up slasher, its influence is very much in there somewhere.
I guess I can go along with that.



RE: 10 Cloverfield Lane - I always took the ending as sort of a goof by the film makers, and a commentary on how it's usually the human story/interactions that are important in stuff like this, and that the rest is just so much setup and set dressing to house the important stuff. This was brought home to me when Winstead said "You have got to be ****ing kidding me!" when she sees the craft flying over the field. I liked the ending for this reason.
I like the whole film a lot. What I like about the ending is...

WARNING: spoilers below
what it says about the preceding interactions between Howard and Michelle, as well as our preconceived notions about the former's mental state. I mean, not that he wasn't "crazy", but he *was right*.


Maybe it does shed some of its layers of mystery, but I do think it adds some as far as the psychology of the characters.
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I hear ya, but this just isn't how slashers go. If it's a slasher, it's gotta be the most unique one of the bunch, including ANoES.
The Slasher genre comes from the Giallo genre, whereas this shares absolutely nothing (except murder and a mask) with those. TCM is unlike anything really I know of before it except maybe Spider Baby.
WARNING: "spoilers" spoilers below
For one thing there is no ONE killer. It's an entire family. For another, it's all about vivisection and cannibalism, not so much about the stalk and kill of selected victims. These people just wandered into the wrong ****ing place and then were brutalized, vivisected and maybe eaten. The dread isn't built up by pursuit and stalking a la Black Christmas, Halloween, F13, or any of the classics of the genre, it's built up by people stumbling into a house where the furniture is made of bones and there giant meathooks with dried blood all over them, before they are hung on said hooks. It's a completely different type of setup and feel for the whole film.

I would not call this film or House Of 1,000 Corpses or Devil's Rejects or The Hills Have Eyes or Last House On The Left, or most anything like this a slasher, from my perspective. I would say that maybe Hooper's Eaten Alive could maybe be called a slasher, to meet you halfway.
But again, this is just my perspective.
TCM feels nothing like Halloween or F13 or anything classic from the Slasher genre to me.
I dunno. That seems like a bit of a strict designation, I feel. One that, to be honest, I don't think is really widely used. I don't really associate slasher films with criteria like (TCM spoiler)
WARNING: spoilers below
there can only be one slasher - the victims wander into the wrong place when they die, etc.
. Like, I'm pretty sure that a couple of the deaths in Halloween, for example, involve
WARNING: spoilers below
the victims wandering into the wrong house
. You'd have to discount a lot of films as being slashers if you were to apply that. I just define the sub-genre as killers trying to murder a group of people and the people trying to get away from the slasher. It can be more than one slasher and it doesn't matter where the victims were when they're killed. it makes it much simpler for me. Giallos definitely have roots in slasher films for sure and I think you can see that throughout a number of slasher films. Excluding all these films would discount a great deal of slashers.

Like, with The Devil's Rejects, which I actually saw a few days ago, I agree that it isn't a slasher film since it comes from the perspective of the killers (though, the final act kind of pushes this for me), but I feel perfectly fine with labeling both Halloween and TCM as slashers.
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I guess I can go along with that.
Being that I consider calling any movie a slasher as mostly an insult, I get the unwillingness to call what is very close to my favorite movie of all time that. So it seems fair to distance it from its dull ass kin.

Even with Halloween and Black Christmas, which are about as direct an influence on the genre as any Western film ever, it still feels wrong to lump them in with what often feels like more of a cash grab than an actual genre. It seems to minimize them.

I get resisting the term in all cases where quality is evident



Victim of The Night
I dunno. That seems like a bit of a strict designation, I feel. One that, to be honest, I don't think is really widely used. I don't really associate slasher films with criteria like (TCM spoiler)
WARNING: spoilers below
there can only be one slasher - the victims wander into the wrong place when they die, etc.
. Like, I'm pretty sure that a couple of the deaths in Halloween, for example, involve
WARNING: spoilers below
the victims wandering into the wrong house
. You'd have to discount a lot of films as being slashers if you were to apply that. I just define the sub-genre as killers trying to murder a group of people and the people trying to get away from the slasher. It can be more than one slasher and it doesn't matter where the victims were when they're killed. it makes it much simpler for me. Giallos definitely have roots in slasher films for sure and I think you can see that throughout a number of slasher films. Excluding all these films would discount a great deal of slashers.

Like, with The Devil's Rejects, which I actually saw a few days ago, I agree that it isn't a slasher film since it comes from the perspective of the killers (though, the final act kind of pushes this for me), but I feel perfectly fine with labeling both Halloween and TCM as slashers.
Well, like I said, it's my perspective and I don't necessarily hold others to it.
Nothing about TCM feels like a slasher to me, as I said, it feels like that whole other thing that is also The Hills Have Eyes and Wrong Turn and the like. And if those films are slashers, then so is The Descent. And then do we just throw out sub-genres of horror altogether? Some of the other things I think are pretty iconic of the genre, again going back to the Giallo but up through even the meta-slashers, are just not present. I mean, I would add that even to one of your points, the solo killer,
WARNING: "spoiler" spoilers below
the BIGGEST subversion of the genre in Scream, the great meta/subverter of the genre... is that there are two killers! Gasp! That was literally the piece de resistance of the whole film.

But TCM is its own animal to me, although, like I said, very much in the family (ha!) with Spider Baby, and with some imitators since. I mean, I wouldn't call Spider Baby a slasher and I think the two films are really similar, but if you would then there's our difference.
I mean, the line even blurs for me a little bit with F13 2, which has that grungy TCMish feel to it, but only a little bit since it also stays squarely on track with the solo iconic masked killer, and especially with the deliberate stalk-and-kills that are the hallmark of the genre.



Well, like I said, it's my perspective and I don't necessarily hold others to it.
Nothing about TCM feels like a slasher to me, as I said, it feels like that whole other thing that is also The Hills Have Eyes and Wrong Turn and the like. Some of the other things I think are pretty iconic of the genre, again going back to the Giallo but up through even the meta-slashers, are just not present. But TCM is its own animal to me, although, like I said, very much in the family (ha!) with Spider Baby, and with some imitators since. I mean, I wouldn't call Spider Baby a slasher and I think the two films are really similar, but if you would then there's our difference.
Okay, that's fair. For what it's worth, I'm fairly lenient in terms of classifying films under certain genres. I don't put a whole lot of thought into it. It goes back to the Silence of the Lambs debate, I suppose.



Victim of The Night
Okay, that's fair. For what it's worth, I'm fairly lenient in terms of classifying films under certain genres. I don't put a whole lot of thought into it. It goes back to the Silence of the Lambs debate, I suppose.
Do me a favor and go back and re-read that post as I was still editing it when you read it and I added a lot of stuff. Just so we're on the same page with where we are in the conversation. Thanks.



A system of cells interlinked
Being that I consider calling any movie a slasher as mostly an insult, I get the unwillingness to call what is very close to my favorite movie of all time that. So it seems fair to distance it from its dull ass kin.

Even with Halloween and Black Christmas, which are about as direct an influence on the genre as any Western film ever, it still feels wrong to lump them in with what often feels like more of a cash grab than an actual genre. It seems to minimize them.

I get resisting the term in all cases where quality is evident
I agree with the premise of this post for the most part: That most films that are in the slasher genre beyond the initial influential films are commodified cash grabs with little creativity, novelty, or substance. That said, I still find myself popping in Friday the 13th Part 3 fairly often and chuckling at how entertained I still am by it. Some slashers are good for some dumb fun, I guess. I also like some of the deconstructive stuff, like April Fools Day and Scream.

Overall though, the genre is bereft of true creativity, for the most part.



Well, like I said, it's my perspective and I don't necessarily hold others to it.
Nothing about TCM feels like a slasher to me, as I said, it feels like that whole other thing that is also The Hills Have Eyes and Wrong Turn and the like. And if those films are slashers, then so is The Descent. And then do we just throw out sub-genres of horror altogether? Some of the other things I think are pretty iconic of the genre, again going back to the Giallo but up through even the meta-slashers, are just not present. I mean, I would add that even to one of your points, the solo killer,
WARNING: "spoiler" spoilers below
the BIGGEST subversion of the genre in Scream, the great meta/subverter of the genre... is that there are two killers! Gasp! That was literally the piece de resistance of the whole film.

But TCM is its own animal to me, although, like I said, very much in the family (ha!) with Spider Baby, and with some imitators since. I mean, I wouldn't call Spider Baby a slasher and I think the two films are really similar, but if you would then there's our difference.
I mean, the line even blurs for me a little bit with F13 2, which has that grungy TCMish feel to it, but only a little bit since it also stays squarely on track with the solo iconic masked killer, and especially with the deliberate stalk-and-kills that are the hallmark of the genre.
Responding to the edit:

Regarding The Descent and other films like it (Alien, The Thing, Dog Soldiers), I'd put those films in a separate sub-genre of monster films (or alien/ghost films depending on who the killer is in these films, but you know what I mean). I associate slashers more with humans as the slashers. If it's an animal, monster, etc., that's where I'd put them in a different sub-genre. I mainly consider slashers to be films where a human slasher or multiple human slashers are the villains. That applies for both Halloween and TCM, so that's why I'm fine with labeling them as slasher films. As for Spider-Baby, that film is a bit of a stretch for me since there's plenty of non-slasher sequences which occur in it and that it comes from the perspective of both the "villains" and the victims, but I do feel like the slasher elements play a large enough role in the last act that I'm comfortable with classifying it as a slasher film as well. But yeah, I understand that our perspectives our different, so it might just come down to that.

Anyways, hopefully, this makes sense. I have to do something else in 10 minutes and I'm trying to finish this up in time. Sorry if this is a confusing post to read.



Oh, please, can we?

Except for F13's. That dogpile can have the genre all to itself.
Okay, fine, but only if we can agree to put James Wan in a sub-genre of horror called "Crumbsroom's All-Time Favorites".

I'll also put Hereditary in a sub-genre called "Stu's All-Time Favorite" if he wants.



Okay, fine, but only if we can agree to put James Wan in a sub-genre of horror called "Crumbsroom's All-Time Favorites".
I'm okay with this. Anything that might stop someone from watching The Conjuring is totally sympatico with my ambitions.



I agree with the premise of this post for the most part: That most films that are in the slasher genre beyond the initial influential films are commodified cash grabs with little creativity, novelty, or substance. That said, I still find myself popping in Friday the 13th Part 3 fairly often and chuckling at how entertained I still am by it. Some slashers are good for some dumb fun, I guess. I also like some of the deconstructive stuff, like April Fools Day and Scream.

Overall though, the genre is bereft of true creativity, for the most part.
I grew up with F13 and really don't have any issue with them. I sometimes even rewatch and sort of enjoy them. I guess ****ting on them is just a deliberate attempt to make a point of distinction between movies that I believe are pretty interchangeable and empty of inspiration, and those that I feel other people would similarly dismiss, but that I feel are much more interesting and vital.

Clearly, it's important for me that people understand how serious I am when I tell them something like Blood Freak is a film of great substance and that history will one day need to reckon with it.

Illegal narcotics really do turn people into vampiric turkeys! Don't do drugs, children! Watch Blood Freak!



Illegal narcotics really do turn people into vampiric turkeys! Don't do drugs, children! Watch Blood Freak!
Now that I got this off of my chest, I sincerely hope no one actually watches Blood Freak.

No one will like it.



Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight -


Better than its critical reputation suggests, this is an enjoyably terrifying single-location horror movie that is reminiscent of Night of the Living Dead and From Dusk Till Dawn. In a hotel in middle of nowhere New Mexico, it's Billy Zane's titular baddie, a.k.a. the Collector, vs. William Sadler's Mr. Brayker, a man who has the last key the Collector needs to unleash Hell on Earth. Conveniently, the key contains holy blood that keeps demons out when applied to doors and windows. Along for the ride are the kind of people you need and don't need in a situation like this including a loose cannon former postal employee, a sexual deviant who constantly questions Brayker's motives, etc. If you have seen at least one movie like this one, it should be clear off the bat whether each hotel resident or worker is a friend, a foe or neutral, but the movie will surprise you when it comes to who lives and who dies. I also enjoyed the scenes where the Collector tries to seduce the hotel dwellers to join his cause, each of which are surreal, serve as vehicles for director Ernest Dickerson's creative talent and are sometimes very funny. CCH Pounder's no-nonsense manager and the always-reliable Dick Miller also bring quality comic relief. There are plot holes that the movie tries to conceal, but they stick out like sore thumbs. Also, your mileage may vary with Billy Zane, who is convincing in the seduction scenes, but the rest of his performance made me wonder why he's not mentioned more often in the kinds of the discussions that bring up Crispin Glover and Nicolas Cage. Despite being rough around the edges, horror movie lovers are bound to enjoy it, as is anyone who enjoys movies set in one location, bottle episodes or any other visual content that feeds on claustrophobia. Oh, and how many movies feature Thomas Haden Church saying, "my nipples are smoking?"