/horror/ general megathread - Let's talk about movies and shit.

[Calandrino]

New York is really like that, and it hasn't actually changed despite Times Square no longer being a mini ghetto. Look up Genovese Syndrome.

If you didn't know, the Kitty Genovese rape case was a Jewish media hoax. I'm not even tinfoiling/meming: the accepted mainstream view is that it didn't happen as originally reported, even though it has long been the literal textbook example of the bystander effect.

It is well made and there is effort put into it, but the problem is when a film wants to be taken seriously, the plot inconsistencies become even more glaring. Asking the audience to accept that not a single government or military was able to figure out that creatures with extremely sensitive hearing could be disabled with sonic weapons is a bit of a stretch. I think it would have worked better if they'd set it in a different time period, where the isolation and lack of a technological solution would be easier to believe.

Something about A Quiet Place prompts viewers to try and out-think the movie. I didn't love the movie to death but it's probably not more absurd than any random zombie apocalypse movie.

Just re-watched Rob Zombie's Halloween. People give Rob way too much flack for the remakes (moreso the second) but really I can appreciate what he did especially with the first. He didn't just rehash the original frame for frame the way gus van sandt did with psycho 98. He hit the right story beats and added in just enough of his own touch to make something unique.

Even when it retells the Carpenter movie events and story beats are shifted around or even omitted. Like Linda and Bob getting killed in the Myers house as opposed to the Wallace house before Annie is attacked and she survives too

Also While nobody can ever truly replace Donald Pleasance as Loomis Malcom McDowell did a decent enough job. Not mention Michael is fucking brutal in this one. You can hear the knife as it stabs and cuts people and I swear I can hear bones snapping a few times I swear Blumhouse must have taken some inspiration from this Michael given how in the last two new movies he's crushed a guys face in with his foot, thrown people around and gone fucking savage on them. Tyler mane did such a great job as Michael that i personally think he really should play Jason if they ever get around to making a new movie soon.

I kind of agree with boomerfan69. The Rob Zombie movies were at least unique and unapologetically nasty. They had that going for them and didn't rely too heavily on memberberries (aside from the "Was that the Boogieman?" line which was pure cringe). I don't know where I'd rank them in the pantheon of Halloween movies (soon to be 13 in total when Halloween Ends comes out).

Sorry for the room temperature take but I think Rob Zombie's Halloween is every bit as not-good as it's made out to be. I've never seen a bad Malcolm McDowell performance in anything, and he's been in some real garbage (including this) so it's got that going for it at least. Danielle Harris getting sliced up for what felt like 45 minutes transcends your run-of-the-mill slasher movie "misogyny" and comes across as blatant magical realming on Rob Zombie's part. It might be the only horror movie that's ever actually offended me, and I've seen some shit, so maybe there really is something special there. But I am a fuddy-duddy who thinks Halloween was doing just fine with hardly any blood at all.

I think the Evil Dead remake had a real stroke of genius by having completely different characters than the original (probably because they eventually managed to read the room re: recasting Ash). Not that it ultimately matters too much, but they might as well have called e.g. Malcolm McDowell's character something other than "Dr. Loomis".

 

[White Devil]

If you didn't know, the Kitty Genovese rape case was a Jewish media hoax. I'm not even tinfoiling/meming: the accepted mainstream view is that it didn't happen as originally reported, even though it has long been the literal textbook example of the bystander effect.


Sorry for the room temperature take but I think Rob Zombie's Halloween is every bit as not-good as it's made out to be. I've never seen a bad Malcolm McDowell performance in anything, and he's been in some real garbage (including this) so it's got that going for it at least. Danielle Harris getting sliced up for what felt like 45 minutes transcends your run-of-the-mill slasher movie "misogyny" and comes across as blatant magical realming on Rob Zombie's part. It might be the only horror movie that's ever actually offended me, and I've seen some shit, so maybe there really is something special there. But I am a fuddy-duddy who thinks Halloween was doing just fine with hardly any blood at all.

Genovese was murdered, not raped. And yes, the wiki article covers that.

As for your opinion on RZ Halloween, full agree. That movie was trash and anyone who thinks it did anything positive for the mythology of the franchise needs to share their LSD.

 

[Commander X]

Watching:
Human Lanterns - A 1982 release from Shaw Brothers, which is like a blend of wuxia, slasher, and Gothic atmosphere, a village is terrorized by violent murders. As the skeletal-monkey-masked killer, Lo Lieh attacks with monkey-style martial art skills in contrast to the wuxia swordwork of his opponents, the clash of styles really making him stand out.

 

[Calandrino]

Genovese was murdered, not raped. And yes, the wiki article covers that.

I was going to rebut that she was murdered and raped, but I googled for a minute and I'm not even sure... was that part false too? Wiki doesn't even mention it, but that's how the story is usually told.

Gotta love the irony of how Watchmen has its insane cynical paranoid conspiracy theorist character take the Kitty Genovese case completely at face value after reading about it in a newspaper. It would be wonderful irony, if only Alan Moore had written it that way on purpose.

 

[Emperor Julian]

Just re-watched Rob Zombie's Halloween. People give Rob way too much flack for the remakes (moreso the second) but really I can appreciate what he did especially with the first. He didn't just rehash the original frame for frame the way gus van sandt did with psycho 98. He hit the right story beats and added in just enough of his own touch to make something unique.

Even when it retells the Carpenter movie events and story beats are shifted around or even omitted. Like Linda and Bob getting killed in the Myers house as opposed to the Wallace house before Annie is attacked and she survives too

Also While nobody can ever truly replace Donald Pleasance as Loomis Malcom McDowell did a decent enough job. Not mention Michael is fucking brutal in this one. You can hear the knife as it stabs and cuts people and I swear I can hear bones snapping a few times I swear Blumhouse must have taken some inspiration from this Michael given how in the last two new movies he's crushed a guys face in with his foot, thrown people around and gone fucking savage on them. Tyler mane did such a great job as Michael that i personally think he really should play Jason if they ever get around to making a new movie soon.

Theirs some neat ideas, I think the sequal is were it really goes south. The setting becomes so ugly that I genuinely don't give a shit and resent the ending

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

About Halloween Kills

Apparently the Real Housewife can still actually act. Unfortunately I heard Anthony Michael Hall gives a subpar performance.

But is it true that Judy Greer dies?! She was my favorite character in the first one.

 

[Gaear Grimsrud]

Just re-watched Rob Zombie's Halloween. People give Rob way too much flack for the remakes (moreso the second) but really I can appreciate what he did especially with the first. He didn't just rehash the original frame for frame the way gus van sandt did with psycho 98. He hit the right story beats and added in just enough of his own touch to make something unique.

Even when it retells the Carpenter movie events and story beats are shifted around or even omitted. Like Linda and Bob getting killed in the Myers house as opposed to the Wallace house before Annie is attacked and she survives too

Also While nobody can ever truly replace Donald Pleasance as Loomis Malcom McDowell did a decent enough job. Not mention Michael is fucking brutal in this one. You can hear the knife as it stabs and cuts people and I swear I can hear bones snapping a few times I swear Blumhouse must have taken some inspiration from this Michael given how in the last two new movies he's crushed a guys face in with his foot, thrown people around and gone fucking savage on them. Tyler mane did such a great job as Michael that i personally think he really should play Jason if they ever get around to making a new movie soon.

The Rob Zombie Halloween's have their moments.

I just find most of the characters really irritating. It's like the only direction he gave a lot of the actors was "Be as crass, vulgar, and belligerent as you can, all the time."

I also find it hilarious how many asshole rednecks Michael comes across who want to pick a fight with a gigantic, muscular, 7 foot tall guy. Michael doesn't even really do anything but stand there and rednecks come up to him like "You wanna fight, motherfucker?!"

You'd think these movies take place in the deep south.

 

[TV's Adam West]

A friend suggested I play Alien isolation and pick up the add on Crew Expendable and to my knowledge, they got the entire original cast to reprise their roles and it's so fucking cool.

 

[BrunoMattei]

The Rob Zombie Halloween's have their moments.

I just find most of the characters really irritating. It's like the only direction he gave a lot of the actors was "Be as crass, vulgar, and belligerent as you can, all the time."

I also find it hilarious how many asshole rednecks Michael comes across who want to pick a fight with a gigantic, muscular, 7 foot tall guy. Michael doesn't even really do anything but stand there and rednecks come up to him like "You wanna fight, motherfucker?!"

You'd think these movies take place in the deep south.

I re-watched Rob Zombie's Halloween 2 and I definitely think it's better than Halloween Kills at the least. It's uncomfortable and nasty and vile and I like that. There's a few missteps and you can nit pick things about it but it's at least totally different from the rest of the bad sequels.

A friend suggested I play Alien isolation and pick up the add on Crew Expendable and to my knowledge, they got the entire original cast to reprise their roles and it's so fucking cool.

If you can get that DLC for very cheap like $1 or $2 then go for it. It's great but it's VERY short. You can fuck up a couple times and still complete it in about 30-40 minutes tops.

 

[A Grey Cat]

Theirs some neat ideas, I think the sequal is were it really goes south. The setting becomes so ugly that I genuinely don't give a shit and resent the ending

Blame dimension for giving Rob carte blanche to make whatever movie he wanted for the sequel. The first he more or less had to stay as close to the original as possible was granted just enough creative freedom to give it his own spin.

With the sequel yeah you can tell this may as well have been set in the same universe as Lords of Salem or 31 or even 3 from hell. Homages to other metal and Rock bands are everywhere everything looks like it's covered in grime and dirty. Also the fact that the theme isn;t in the movie till literally the end credits roll. Did Rob take people saying the theme was overused in his first film to mean, "Not use the theme at all save for the one moment when the movie's over?"

 

[Commander X]

Also, was thinking about Carpenter's Prince of Darkness. A while back, I thought the text being typed by a possessed research student sounded familiar.

It sounds oddly similar to Stephen Vincent Benet's poem: Nightmare, With Angels

another angel approached me.
This one was quietly but appropriately dressed in cellophane, synthetic rubber and stainless steel,
But his mask was the blind mask of Arcs, snouted for gas-masks.
He was neither soldier, sailor, farmer, dictator nor munitions-manufacturer.
Nor did he have much conversation, except to say,
“You will not be saved by General Motors or the pre-fabricated house.
You will not be saved by dialectic materialism or the Lambeth Conference.
You will not be saved by Vitamin D or the expanding universe.
In fact, you will not be saved.”

Benet's poem is quoted for the preface of The Prometheus Crisis, frequent writing partners Thomas N. Scortia and Frank M. Robinson's 1975 novel about a trouble-plagued 4 billion dollar nuclear power facility in California soon to be brought online as a solution to the "Energy Crisis".

Incidentally, they also dedicated the novel to

For Bob Heinlein, who thirty-five years ago said: “Blowups Happen.”

So as it turned out, Carpenter worked on a script for a film based on the book, working title "Meltdown", but the project drifted in and out of development limbo for years and nothing came of it.

 

[cypocryphy]

I watched Halloween Kills again and liked it a lot more the second time.

 

[Doctor of Autism]

Genovese was murdered, not raped. And yes, the wiki article covers that.

As for your opinion on RZ Halloween, full agree. That movie was trash and anyone who thinks it did anything positive for the mythology of the franchise needs to share their LSD.

I agree only on the basis of how they try to make you feel sympathetic for Michael Myers and the shit with the kid actor was so fucking horrible. Like it felt like it would've worked better as a Friday the 13th movie since the Zombie Halloween movies feel like a suburban redneck Friday the 13th.

However, it's not the worst in trying to make the killer sympathetic as Texas Chainsaw 3D is pure dogshit in trying to act like a murderous sadistic cannibal family are just misunderstood outcasts while the Mayor and cops who want to kill them are evil and corrupt. It doesn't help the main girl sides with Leatherface and helps him out because "MUH FAMILY" despite him murdering her friends.

About Halloween Kills

Apparently the Real Housewife can still actually act. Unfortunately I heard Anthony Michael Hall gives a subpar performance.

But is it true that Judy Greer dies?! She was my favorite character in the first one.

She dies in the ending but it could always be a fakeout death like the cop's death in Halloween 2018

 

[Gaear Grimsrud]

I thought Anthony Michael Hall gave a really good performance.

It's just that his character is an idiot.

 

[A Grey Cat]

You will not be saved by the holy ghost.

you will not be saved by the god plutonium.

in fact,

YOU WILL NOT BE SAVED!



ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY

 

[TV's Adam West]

Rob Zombie is a guilty pleasure and I'm not even ashamed. He makes gritty, fucked up and violent movies, edited like a music video. He knows his audience and gives them what they want.

It's a cheap thrill. I feel like he knows exactly why most people go to see horror movies, and knows people want good, memorable kills and he delivers.

I enjoy all of his work, they're not inherently good films, but they're great to just put on and eat popcorn to. His movies don't try to be more than they are and I respect it.

 

[Commander X]

I was filling in my gaps of knowledge about the TCM franchise and I did not know that there is a second Leatherface dark reboot origin story movie from 2017 called Leatherface featuring Lily Taylor and Stephen Dorff.

Neither did anyone else, and it's really really bad. It was in production hell for so long then looked like it was shelved, then randomly came out. It was helmed by the directors of Inside which sounds promising, but it's boring, sour, unpleasant, overcomplicated and the titular subject is barely in it. Leatherface feels like an overly portentous Mad Men flashback with old cars and wife beaters and suspenders, and feels overlong at 88 minutes.

 

[BrunoMattei]

I was filling in my gaps of knowledge about the TCM franchise and I did not know that there is a second Leatherface dark reboot origin story movie from 2017 called Leatherface featuring Lily Taylor and Stephen Dorff.

Neither did anyone else, and it's really really bad. It was in production hell for so long then looked like it was shelved, then randomly came out. It was helmed by the directors of Inside which sounds promising, but it's boring, sour, unpleasant, overcomplicated and the titular subject is barely in it. Leatherface feels like an overly portentous Mad Men flashback with old cars and wife beaters and suspenders, and feels overlong at 88 minutes.

I thought it was okay. It depends on how you approach it. It's a grotesque road movie that has a beginning and end retrofitted in to be like a TCM movie. It's at least different from the other sequels and I have a soft spot for movies with a dark ending. But I don't know why there's a sudden focus to humanize Leatherface in the last couple of movies.

 

[Doctor of Autism]

Rob Zombie is a guilty pleasure and I'm not even ashamed. He makes gritty, fucked up and violent movies, edited like a music video. He knows his audience and gives them what they want.

It's a cheap thrill. I feel like he knows exactly why most people go to see horror movies, and knows people want good, memorable kills and he delivers.

I enjoy all of his work, they're not inherently good films, but they're great to just put on and eat popcorn to. His movies don't try to be more than they are and I respect it.

Rob Zombie's Firefly Family films are his best work, and really is him at his best. It's just he works better for those types of fucked up films which is him at his best.

I thought it was okay. It depends on how you approach it. It's a grotesque road movie that has a beginning and end retrofitted in to be like a TCM movie. It's at least different from the other sequels and I have a soft spot for movies with a dark ending. But I don't know why there's a sudden focus to humanize Leatherface in the last couple of movies.

It's not just the Leatherface character, they try to humanize the entire family as just a bunch of misunderstood outcasts and Texas Chainsaw 3D and Leatherface do it really badly by having some family rivalry with "corrupt" authority figures who want revenge on them with them being portrayed as the bad guys for wanting to kill the Sawyers.

 

[Internet War Criminal]

Sorry to necro this thread but Dogfucker goes through the behind the scenes of Spiral that was released with it, and it's really worse.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=aomgMrHf3bk
This movie is much worse with that in mind since originally there was going to be a prequel script with an earlier game of John Kramer's, but they changed the entire thing because Chris Rock met someone involved at the wedding and pitched a saw movie. That led to this abomination being created because Chris wanted to make a Saw movie and the producers thought it would make easy money.

There were also conflicting views of the film behind the scenes and apparently Chris Rock thinks the Saw movies were more about the police investigation despite the fact people wanted to see the Traps and kills.

Well that explains why it was shit, and also Chris Rock is autistic. Like, legit autistic.