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

[White Devil]

It was never confirmed he was retarded. Being a mongoloid does not immediately imply retardation.

F13 is my favorite slasher franchise, and I'm sorry but this nigga retarded. His single minded drive in the movies and hyper fixation on what he thinks is his mother can only be explained by stunted development. Dude's been called a zombie tard for over three decades.

 

[BrunoMattei]

F13 is my favorite slasher franchise, and I'm sorry but this nigga retarded. His single minded drive in the movies and hyper fixation on what he thinks is his mother can only be explained by stunted development. Dude's been called a zombie tard for over three decades.

Stunted development. Sure. I would agree with that. But my point was that he wasn't retarded as a child.

 

[Calandrino]

The most out of character Jason moment is when he turns off the stove in 2.

 

[feral cat #6385]

I'll be honest with you: I had a similar idea except it was a Friday the 13th movie and it proceeded like your typical F13 movie but -surprise- one of the counselors is a serial killer and/or pushed to the brink and kills someone just as Jason steps in. After that, the counselor becomes his sidekick. My idea is that it would proceed as usual but then the counselor is about to kill the children at the camp and Jason wouldn't allow that and goes after him. That's a call back to Part 6 Jason Lives where Jason completely ignored the children in favor of the counselors (of course, this kind of goes against part 4 where Jason goes after young Tommy Jarvis but you could argue if he intended to kill the child or just tie him somewhere as fanboys such as myself have done*).

And after seeing Halloween Ends it convinced me of what an absolute shit idea that was. But I do think the idea could have worked in a stand alone slasher movie not connected to any prior franchise.

*Personally, I think Jason fully intended on killing Tommy.

Agreed. If it was its own thing instead of being repurposed as a Halloween movie it *might* have worked. As a Halloween sequel it was awful.

Spoiler: Spoilers

After being an unstoppable killing machine in the last movie Michael chills in a storm drain for 4 years. Killing nobody in that time and being completely undetected. How does that make any sense? It is deeply unsatisfying having your main draw monster not be in the majority of your movie.

Hellraiser (2022) 7 out of 10. Benefitted greatly by following two sub par movies. Movie is a bit slow the first half but at least features the monsters its supposed to. Main characters are ugly degenerates that would look at home on the Tim Pool show but most of them die so that's a plus.

 

[Commander X]

Since I've been on a Shot On Video/Shot on Analog horror movie kick lately, I rewatched an old regional Shot On Super 8 horror piece that spoke to me years ago, whose makers had an influx of support and funds from a post-Evil Dead 2 Raimi, J. R. Bookwalter's The Dead Next Door. The scope of the film, which is about an anti-zombie squad in search of a zombie plague cure who must deal with a zombie-loving cult led by a Jim Jones-esque figure (I mean, the character is even named Reverend Jones) is impressive: tons of extras, shambling hordes and disgusting gore and zombie effects.

 

[BiggerChungus]

It was never confirmed he was retarded. Being a mongoloid does not immediately imply retardation.

I thought it was said blatantly that he was severely autistic, which is why he needed constant supervision and got bullied by other kids.

 

[BrunoMattei]

I thought it was said blatantly that he was severely autistic, which is why he needed constant supervision and got bullied by other kids.

Nu uh! Show me the receipts! Even in the remake they say "I think he was retarded or something." That is NOT definitive evidence Mr. BiggerChungus.

Case closed.

 

[White Devil]

Stunted development. Sure. I would agree with that. But my point was that he wasn't retarded as a child.

I believe that the official novelizations confirmed he was. Just like the original Halloween novelization had all that shit about the Thorn cult.

 

[BrunoMattei]

I believe that the official novelizations confirmed he was. Just like the original Halloween novelization had all that shit about the Thorn cult.

Take your official novelization and shove it up your ass. FFS, man.

Jeeze. If it didn't happen in the movie then it's not cannon. Simple as that. Deleted scenes maybe count (depends). Do you want Harrison Ford to be a replicant in Blade Runner just because Ridley Scott said so in an interview? Do you want Jason to be a rape baby just because the director of Part 6 said so? Or what about Aliens: Colonial Marines where Hicks is still inexplicably alive and conveniently swapped places with another dude in his cyropod and escaped?

What were you thinking!?

 

[White Devil]

Take your official novelization and shove it up your ass. FFS, man.

Jeeze. If it didn't happen in the movie then it's not cannon. Simple as that. Deleted scenes maybe count (depends). Do you want Harrison Ford to be a replicant in Blade Runner just because Ridley Scott said so in an interview? Do you want Jason to be a rape baby just because the director of Part 6 said so? Or what about Aliens: Colonial Marines where Hicks is still inexplicably alive and conveniently swapped places with another dude in his cyropod and escaped?

What were you thinking!?

https://youtube.com/watch?v=ik0BPKM9WQg:26

I don't care anymore. Everything I love has been raped to death.

 

[BrunoMattei]

I don't care anymore. Everything I love has been raped to death.

Well shit. I was expecting a healthy and good-spirited back & forth but you just gave up and let a little kid kick you to death like in Ichi the Killer.

 

[mensch]

I loathed Halloween Kills. Mainly for leaning back into the supernatural shit in the end (I mean it has to be supernatural when they made Michael Myers seemingly invincible). I also hated the over-the-top mob justice throughout ("Evil dies tonight!"). That movie was so incredibly cornball in its delivery of that theme. A fucking Halloween movie also shouldn't waste my time trying to go into this deep psychological analysis of what it's like for a town to survive a mass murder - this is meant to be a slasher movie, I don't care about the writer's ham-fisted social commentary.

With that out of the way, I liked Halloween Ends a lot more, even if it's still not a great movie. It was a relief that they dialed back the weird, almost preachy messaging from Kills. But some elements of the plot do remain incredibly dumb. It was interesting, I suppose, how an aging Myers now has an apprentice, and I guess a precedent for him possibly being able to hypnotize people into doing his bidding was kind of set in H2018 (when that doctor freed him). But once again, there's this big whiff of supernatural bullshit needed to set all of it in motion. All it takes is for Michael to look into your eyes, and even you can become him! It's like Halloween's version of anybody can be a Jedi / Batman / whatever.

Other problem was that because it's mostly his apprentice doing the dirty work, it doesn't feel nearly as gratifying as Myers himself doing it. This is meant to cap the entire series, and sure enough there are some great kills in it, but it's now off-brand Myers doing it. Some of the tone of the movie was also rather odd. This is meant to be a tense slasher, yet it almost breaks into this upbeat montage when it realizes there's only 30 minutes of runtime left and still needs to show some gore. The original '78 movie was genuinely terrifying and serious throughout; Ends has Diana Prince aka Darcy the Mail Girl practically winking at the camera, while "I Was A Teenage Werewolf" by The Cramps plays in the background of her demise.

In the end there is too much to say about the film, but I don't think something like it warrants spending much more of my time thinking about. Original is still one of my favorite films of all time, H2 was not bad either, and I really liked this edit of H2018. That's just about it for this series.

 

[Iron Father]

Halloween Ends (up being shitty).

Michael Myers crying in a sewer for 4 years until some incel comes along and helps him VS Mick Taylor calling you a slur as he guts you.

"Michelle Myers? Never heard of her mate."

Fuck that movie sucked balls.

 

[Doctor of Autism]

I will say when thinking on about it. Ends at least is passable quality in terms of being a movie, only because it's really hard to be lower than the bar set by 5 and 6, and on the same quality with the Zombie movies. Resurrection is only slightly better because it was at least funny bad.

But this franchise had so many duds.

It probably won't be my last time discussing this shit movie, but I will watch better horror movies to cleanse the taste out.

 

[Iron Father]

With that out of the way, I liked Halloween Ends a lot more, even if it's still not a great movie. It was a relief that they dialed back the weird, almost preachy messaging from Kills. But some elements of the plot do remain incredibly dumb. It was interesting, I suppose, how an aging Myers now has an apprentice, and I guess a precedent for him possibly being able to hypnotize people into doing his bidding was kind of set in H2018 (when that doctor freed him). But once again, there's this big whiff of supernatural bullshit needed to set all of it in motion. All it takes is for Michael to look into your eyes, and even you can become him! It's like Halloween's version of anybody can be a Jedi / Batman / whatever.

Bro were you high when you watched it?

1) Halloween Ends fully continues the preachy plot of Halloween Kills. This time, instead of evil infecting the town with hysteria and mob violence (which leads to a wrongful lynching), the literal embodiment of evil Michael Myers infects the mind of alienated and isolated teen Corey. The subtextual through-line is very obvious with how it relates to evil and its impact on people, whether it be making them act out mob justice, or isolate individuals until they're vulnerable to being manipulated by bad people. It's all the same shit.

2) Michael Myers didn't hypnotize Corey. He was going to kill him until he saw darkness in his eyes, while strangling him in the sewer, and let him live. If Corey were hypnotized he wouldn't have ran for his life at first. He runs, exits the tunnel, and then realizes that Michael let him live. Then the hobo (who originally dragged him in there) demands to know why Michael let him live, because he's never seen someone enter the tunnel and come back out. Corey kills the hobo and this is his first step down the path of murder. Corey decides to lure victims to Michael so he can regain his strength and teach him how to kill.

There was only 1 decent kill in the whole film imo:

Spoiler

 

[BrunoMattei]

I will say when thinking on about it. Ends at least is passable quality in terms of being a movie, only because it's really hard to be lower than the bar set by 5 and 6, and on the same quality with the Zombie movies. Resurrection is only slightly better because it was at least funny bad.

It looks like a movie. It sounds like a movie. That's not saying much. Anything more competently made than Things (1989) is not a bragging right.

Worst Halloween movie. Without question. If they truly wanted to be "bold and experimental" then do another Halloween 3. Or, if Myers absolutely positively have to be in the movie then work up some bullshit that Myers is a part of another evil thing that wants to take over. Fuck it. Any fan fiction sequel would be better. And even though the idea behind Ends is very fan fiction-y (because it's eerily like my idea for a Friday the 13th movie) I guarantee you that such fan fiction would not belittle Myers to some weakened shriveled and pathetic killer. He would still be Myers. He would still be the unstoppable thing.

 

[Calandrino]

more competently made than Things (1989)

Wow, how much is Blumhouse paying you to shill this hard? Still not buying a ticket.

 

[Iron Father]

The soundtrack and cinematography of Halloween Ends were on point. But the writing was pure AIDS.

 

[mensch]

2) Michael Myers didn't hypnotize Corey. He was going to kill him until he saw darkness in his eyes, while strangling him in the sewer, and let him live. If Corey were hypnotized he wouldn't have ran for his life at first. He runs, exits the tunnel, and then realizes that Michael let him live. Then the hobo (who originally dragged him in there) demands to know why Michael let him live, because he's never seen someone enter the tunnel and come back out. Corey kills the hobo and this is his first step down the path of murder. Corey decides to lure victims to Michael so he can regain his strength and teach him how to kill.

The problem is that several characters in the movie contradict the idea of evil already being in Corey prior to his meeting with Myers. It's only after meeting Myers that Laurie Strode suddenly does a 180 from thinking Corey's misunderstood boyfriend material to "I see Michael in his eyes". It's a very abrupt shift. A lot of the people who are close to Corey think he is a good boy who dindu nuffin, and indeed the way the character is portrayed before he meets Myers paints a very sympathetic picture to the audience. He is unfairly treated by the town, which causes some understandable resentment, but he is not an evil character by any stretch. He just wants to be left alone. Even the child who died's father gives a monologue in the bar which alludes to the evil in Corey's eyes being a very recent development ie. after his encounter with Myers ("yesterday on my way to work there he is" ... "it's not him").

Corey's encounter with Myers annoys me for many reasons, because all roads lead to it being supernatural in nature. My original interpretation was of Myers imparting part of his murderous consciousness into Corey. I viewed it almost like planting a seed in Corey's mind, preying on his existing resentments, which would gradually blossom to become a full-blooded killer like Myers. It wouldn't necessarily need to be an immediate, outright mind control. Possession, hypnotism, call it what you will - any scenario of Myers being so mentally influential as to turn someone into his minion, which I assumed happened on my viewing, would imply a supernatural element.

I suppose Myers could just be a 4D chess grandmaster at troubled incel manipulation, but even that would imply Myers had some telepathic powers. If Corey becomes a killer of his own volition because Myers lets him go, that only happened because Myers was somehow able to see all of Corey's past when staring into his eyes. The flashes of images on the screen of Corey's troubled life do convey to the audience that Myers is perhaps 'reading' Corey. If that's how it really was intended by the filmmakers, it would still imply a supernatural element to me.

Either way, as you say the result is the same: Corey kills the hobo (in self-defense) and then starts luring people to Myers. In my 'hypnotism' interpretation, Myers was using Corey to lure people to him so that he could kill them and regain his waning power. As Kills established, his power grows with each kill. When the hobo demands to know why Myers let Corey go, that is why. In your interpretation of Corey's self-actualization as his own serial killer, him luring people back to Myers does also make sense because Corey wants to learn how to kill from Myers. The film accommodates both interpretations.

I just think that the explanation of Myers seeing a relatable evil in Corey and letting him go for that reason is quite flimsy. If Myers was capable of seeing into Corey's soul like that, well then he shouldn't really see evil in Corey at all, since a) we know the child's death was an accident and b) Corey's resentment towards the townsfolk is pretty justified because of his mistreatment. I suppose it's trying to riff on the idea Laurie presents later in the movie about how everyone has the potential for evil within them (perhaps the filmmakers were trying to make some ham-fisted point about how "aNyOnE cAn BeCoMe A kIlLeR!")... but then why is Corey necessarily the exemplar of that, and why doesn't Michael let more people go?

 

[Ita Mori]

Do like the slasher villain gets a apprentice idea would like to see another horror movie try it out with better success.

It's what Seed Of Chucky should've been.

The problem is that several characters in the movie contradict the idea of evil already being in Corey prior to his meeting with Myers.

The entire film is a contradiction to the films it's sequel'ing. Laurie went on a moral tirade at the end of Kills about how evil cannot be physically defeated in Kills and how Michael is the greatest threat to her life so long as he breathes and yet she's baking pies and trying to get her granddaughter laid with incels.

The movie demands you take it seriously and pay attention, yet the moment you do you realize it doesn't respect your time spent invested in the story up to this point. It doesn't want to be a sequel, it wants to be a spin-off. It's a troon turned film.