Post by Mister Buch on Nov 2, 2009 3:48:07 GMT 1
Every October I try to watch as many horror movies as possible, particularly classics that I have missed. This started a couple of years ago, because up until then I tended to avoid horror movies, finding them pointless (and because I was a big wuss.)
So as October is now done with, I thought I'd put a review in for all the movies I caught up on this year.
I'm watching the very last movie of the season now, slightly late - Sam Raimi's 'Drag Me To Hell'. I don't know. Sometimes I get bored and I like to write lists of my most trivial opinions. ;D
I'll try to do them in the order I watched them.
Prince of Darkness (1987) - Also known as 'John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness', a superior title in that John Carpenter shows incredible hubris by implying ownership of Satan! Alice Cooper was in it, and the music was wonderful, it being John Carpenter. In this movie, a priest and a professor discover a large glass of green slime which is the antichrist in slime form... and it takes over the bodies of the ace postgraduate students they bring in to study it with them. One of these ace students has a huge blond moustache and is creepy, and he was our hero I think. The movie was okay but odd and too serious considering the big-glass-of-slime-form-antichrist plot..
3 members of the cast of Big Trouble In Little China out of 5.
Final Destination (2000) - I watched this because I have managed to miss the entire series of these films. This film was rubbish. I can't imagine how bad the sequels are. It was badly written, badly acted, boring and dumb. A terrible waste of the great premise.
One instance where Stiffler completely took me out of the moment out of five.
Saw (2004) - I missed this entire series too so I wanted to catch up. I'm not sure it actually counts as a horror film, but I enjoyed it a lot. This was the first movie in the list that I actually enjoyed. Cary Elwes was fantastic, as he always is, and the movie was very silly, B-movie-style fun. Also I jumped a couple of times, and I absolutely did not see the twist at the end coming.
Four Princess Bride references out of 5.
Return of the Living Dead (1985) - This movie was fine, nothing special, but I was riveted. But!! I learned a lot about zombies, which was great. The movie was originally planned as a sequel to 'Night of the Living Dead' but ended up being more a rip off or homage.
This is the first movie in which the zombies are specifically looking to eat the brains of the living, rather than just the flesh in general. So this movie is the reason for the old 'Braiiiiiiiiins...' cliche (which you actually very rarely see in movies) and the first movie to feature that line. The zombies can kind of talk in this, and one even holds a sensible, calm conversation with the heroes. Which is incredible. The movie is blokey, off-putting and amateurish (brilliant special effects aside.) But there is a great scene where the zombies set upon the paramedics who arrive to help - and eat their brains of course. And then - and this is wonderful - one of the zombies calls the hospital and groans into the phone, 'Send.... more... paramedics.....!'
Four brilliant animatronic zombes out of five.
Flight of the Living Dead (2007) - This is very new and definitely not a classic so it shouldn't count, but I wanted a 'Living Dead' double bill. It has various titles - and the official title (above) does not actually appear in the film - instead the movie actually calls itself 'Plane Dead'. It is also known as 'Outbreak on a Plane'. The proper title is easily the best, and the reason I watched the film.
This is the same premise as 'Snakes on a Plane' but with zombies. It features a zombie who can't undo his seat belt the entire film because he's a mindless zombie, a zombie nun, a zombie who loses his legs when he's thrown into an engine but still keeps coming, and a character who is clearly meant to be Tiger Woods. They don't even try to hide it. Tiger Woods is a character in this. I have no idea why. The seatbelt zombie is later involved in maybe the best surprise sight gag ever seen in a zombie film.
It's a bad film, but one I enjoyed far more than I expected to, and not in an ironic way.
Three ludecrously-stereotyped characters out of five.
Poltergeist (1982) - was directed by Tobe Hooper and co-written and co-produced by Steven Spielberg, so I was expecting something special. But it was a bit crap. In it, a happy, ordinary family fail miserably to react sensibly to the fact that their house is haunted, or posessed, or something. The ghosts start talking to their child through the TV and they ignore it. They start moving things around violently, and the mum thinks it's funny and has the ghosts do tricks. Using the child as a prop. The ghosts, presumably confused about her reaction, then abduct the kid... and the family just continue living in the house, with their other kids, while they have some paranormal investigaors attempt to explain the plot pver the course of a week or so. Get the kids out the house, for crying out loud!! Finally they get the kid back, and then they decide to... spend another night in the house. And then the mum leaves the children alone while she takes a bath. Wh.... what?!
So the plot of this one is insane. There are one or two great jumpy moments. One involves a creepy doll (that always follows you).
Spielberg puts something like a million clumsy Star Wars references in this movie. It gets annoying quickly.
Two parenting skills seminars out of five.
The Wolf Man (1941) - is one of the most famous Universal monster classics, and very well made. It has a cameo by Bela Lugosi, which instantly doubles its worth. But now, the movie is hard to enjoy as it was intended. It's about an American man who appears in Wales (which oddly is populated by English people and... other Americans) to visit his father (English and about five years older than him) and stalks a girl who he meets after staring at her through his telescope. Apparently that was okay in 1941. Then he gets bitten by a wolf (Bela Lugosi's character after hours) after a stalking date at a gypsy fair, and the usual werewolf plot (which at the time must have been new and exciting) ensues.
It's impossible to judge. Everything about it seems unoriginal to me, but I had to constantly remind myself that it was no such thing. It has aged in a way which makes it in no way frightening, but very interesting.
I guess... three gypsy curses out of five.
Carrie (1976) - now we're talking! I can't tell you how much I enjoyed this movie. Sissy Spacek was incredible, and Piper Laurie was hilariously tongue-in-cheek as the evil mother. This starts out with an insanely long, slow motion communal shower scene, so at first I had serious doubts. The first ten minutes are basically soft porn. But it immediately becomes a great high school drama, and then, in the last 40 minutes, after a sudden switch, it becomes an absolutely incredible horror film. Watching Carrie walking home alone at night covered in blood after killing her entire year group was such a magnificent moment.
The jumpy moment right at the end was absolutely incredible. The drama was great, the acting was great, particularly on Carrie herself. Brilliant film. I wish I'd seen this earlier. This is why I do the Halloween horror education thing. Every year I find at least one that I love.
Five girls who I thought were Heather Locklear the entire movie but actually weren't out of five.
Drag Me to Hell (2009) - I spent so long rambling about nothing that now the movie is over. If ever there was a spiritual successor to 'Evil Dead 2' then this is it. I tried to take it seriously right up until the evil spirit posessed a goat and had it swear at the protagonist.... in a cartoon goat voice. This is a very, very silly film, made as if it was a jokey, lazy student film, but with a multi-million-dollar budget. The comedy is slightly less obvious, and slightly less funny, than 'Evil Dead 2', and it is less creepy. The plot is also more complex, and has to do with a young blonde girl being tormented by the ghost of a hideous gypsy crone she refused a bank loan to. Thus, it is the second movie I saw this month which heavily involved gypsy curses! Horror movies are racist!
In this movie, the monster/villain increasingly becomes the comic relief, and Justin Long is the straight man. That is pretty damn strange.
It's like a cross between an American J-horror remake and 'Beetlejuice'. Actually, a lot of moments looked like they were right out of a Tim Burton movie. The graveyard scene and the opening credits in particular.
I think it is telling that in the last scene, our hero literally turns into a cartoon as CG-stuff happens to her face. That sums it up very well!
Three and a half directors who are clearly enjoying wasting studio money on very silly, stony-faced pratfalls out of five.
--
--
I just realised how long this post is. It was originally going to be just a line for each film. And I cut a lot out too.
If you actually read that, then bless you. And may you forever avoid gypsy curses, comedic zombies and houses built on Indian Burial Grounds. And talking goats.
So as October is now done with, I thought I'd put a review in for all the movies I caught up on this year.
I'm watching the very last movie of the season now, slightly late - Sam Raimi's 'Drag Me To Hell'. I don't know. Sometimes I get bored and I like to write lists of my most trivial opinions. ;D
I'll try to do them in the order I watched them.
Prince of Darkness (1987) - Also known as 'John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness', a superior title in that John Carpenter shows incredible hubris by implying ownership of Satan! Alice Cooper was in it, and the music was wonderful, it being John Carpenter. In this movie, a priest and a professor discover a large glass of green slime which is the antichrist in slime form... and it takes over the bodies of the ace postgraduate students they bring in to study it with them. One of these ace students has a huge blond moustache and is creepy, and he was our hero I think. The movie was okay but odd and too serious considering the big-glass-of-slime-form-antichrist plot..
3 members of the cast of Big Trouble In Little China out of 5.
Final Destination (2000) - I watched this because I have managed to miss the entire series of these films. This film was rubbish. I can't imagine how bad the sequels are. It was badly written, badly acted, boring and dumb. A terrible waste of the great premise.
One instance where Stiffler completely took me out of the moment out of five.
Saw (2004) - I missed this entire series too so I wanted to catch up. I'm not sure it actually counts as a horror film, but I enjoyed it a lot. This was the first movie in the list that I actually enjoyed. Cary Elwes was fantastic, as he always is, and the movie was very silly, B-movie-style fun. Also I jumped a couple of times, and I absolutely did not see the twist at the end coming.
Four Princess Bride references out of 5.
Return of the Living Dead (1985) - This movie was fine, nothing special, but I was riveted. But!! I learned a lot about zombies, which was great. The movie was originally planned as a sequel to 'Night of the Living Dead' but ended up being more a rip off or homage.
This is the first movie in which the zombies are specifically looking to eat the brains of the living, rather than just the flesh in general. So this movie is the reason for the old 'Braiiiiiiiiins...' cliche (which you actually very rarely see in movies) and the first movie to feature that line. The zombies can kind of talk in this, and one even holds a sensible, calm conversation with the heroes. Which is incredible. The movie is blokey, off-putting and amateurish (brilliant special effects aside.) But there is a great scene where the zombies set upon the paramedics who arrive to help - and eat their brains of course. And then - and this is wonderful - one of the zombies calls the hospital and groans into the phone, 'Send.... more... paramedics.....!'
Four brilliant animatronic zombes out of five.
Flight of the Living Dead (2007) - This is very new and definitely not a classic so it shouldn't count, but I wanted a 'Living Dead' double bill. It has various titles - and the official title (above) does not actually appear in the film - instead the movie actually calls itself 'Plane Dead'. It is also known as 'Outbreak on a Plane'. The proper title is easily the best, and the reason I watched the film.
This is the same premise as 'Snakes on a Plane' but with zombies. It features a zombie who can't undo his seat belt the entire film because he's a mindless zombie, a zombie nun, a zombie who loses his legs when he's thrown into an engine but still keeps coming, and a character who is clearly meant to be Tiger Woods. They don't even try to hide it. Tiger Woods is a character in this. I have no idea why. The seatbelt zombie is later involved in maybe the best surprise sight gag ever seen in a zombie film.
It's a bad film, but one I enjoyed far more than I expected to, and not in an ironic way.
Three ludecrously-stereotyped characters out of five.
Poltergeist (1982) - was directed by Tobe Hooper and co-written and co-produced by Steven Spielberg, so I was expecting something special. But it was a bit crap. In it, a happy, ordinary family fail miserably to react sensibly to the fact that their house is haunted, or posessed, or something. The ghosts start talking to their child through the TV and they ignore it. They start moving things around violently, and the mum thinks it's funny and has the ghosts do tricks. Using the child as a prop. The ghosts, presumably confused about her reaction, then abduct the kid... and the family just continue living in the house, with their other kids, while they have some paranormal investigaors attempt to explain the plot pver the course of a week or so. Get the kids out the house, for crying out loud!! Finally they get the kid back, and then they decide to... spend another night in the house. And then the mum leaves the children alone while she takes a bath. Wh.... what?!
So the plot of this one is insane. There are one or two great jumpy moments. One involves a creepy doll (that always follows you).
Spielberg puts something like a million clumsy Star Wars references in this movie. It gets annoying quickly.
Two parenting skills seminars out of five.
The Wolf Man (1941) - is one of the most famous Universal monster classics, and very well made. It has a cameo by Bela Lugosi, which instantly doubles its worth. But now, the movie is hard to enjoy as it was intended. It's about an American man who appears in Wales (which oddly is populated by English people and... other Americans) to visit his father (English and about five years older than him) and stalks a girl who he meets after staring at her through his telescope. Apparently that was okay in 1941. Then he gets bitten by a wolf (Bela Lugosi's character after hours) after a stalking date at a gypsy fair, and the usual werewolf plot (which at the time must have been new and exciting) ensues.
It's impossible to judge. Everything about it seems unoriginal to me, but I had to constantly remind myself that it was no such thing. It has aged in a way which makes it in no way frightening, but very interesting.
I guess... three gypsy curses out of five.
Carrie (1976) - now we're talking! I can't tell you how much I enjoyed this movie. Sissy Spacek was incredible, and Piper Laurie was hilariously tongue-in-cheek as the evil mother. This starts out with an insanely long, slow motion communal shower scene, so at first I had serious doubts. The first ten minutes are basically soft porn. But it immediately becomes a great high school drama, and then, in the last 40 minutes, after a sudden switch, it becomes an absolutely incredible horror film. Watching Carrie walking home alone at night covered in blood after killing her entire year group was such a magnificent moment.
The jumpy moment right at the end was absolutely incredible. The drama was great, the acting was great, particularly on Carrie herself. Brilliant film. I wish I'd seen this earlier. This is why I do the Halloween horror education thing. Every year I find at least one that I love.
Five girls who I thought were Heather Locklear the entire movie but actually weren't out of five.
Drag Me to Hell (2009) - I spent so long rambling about nothing that now the movie is over. If ever there was a spiritual successor to 'Evil Dead 2' then this is it. I tried to take it seriously right up until the evil spirit posessed a goat and had it swear at the protagonist.... in a cartoon goat voice. This is a very, very silly film, made as if it was a jokey, lazy student film, but with a multi-million-dollar budget. The comedy is slightly less obvious, and slightly less funny, than 'Evil Dead 2', and it is less creepy. The plot is also more complex, and has to do with a young blonde girl being tormented by the ghost of a hideous gypsy crone she refused a bank loan to. Thus, it is the second movie I saw this month which heavily involved gypsy curses! Horror movies are racist!
In this movie, the monster/villain increasingly becomes the comic relief, and Justin Long is the straight man. That is pretty damn strange.
It's like a cross between an American J-horror remake and 'Beetlejuice'. Actually, a lot of moments looked like they were right out of a Tim Burton movie. The graveyard scene and the opening credits in particular.
I think it is telling that in the last scene, our hero literally turns into a cartoon as CG-stuff happens to her face. That sums it up very well!
Three and a half directors who are clearly enjoying wasting studio money on very silly, stony-faced pratfalls out of five.
--
--
I just realised how long this post is. It was originally going to be just a line for each film. And I cut a lot out too.
If you actually read that, then bless you. And may you forever avoid gypsy curses, comedic zombies and houses built on Indian Burial Grounds. And talking goats.