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

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Monsters was basically a continuation of Tales from the Darkside by the same producers. They didn't seem to spread the budget evenly across episodes. You never knew what you'd get, but it's consistently entertaining. I think both of them benefited from having shorter episodes (half hour minus commercial time) than some of the other anthologies. Most polished (ie expensive-looking) episode was probably the Monsters pilot, where the dude fist fights with a disease.
 
Calandrino said:
Most polished (ie expensive-looking) episode was probably the Monsters pilot, where the dude fist fights with a disease.
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That was a great way to open the show. Such a fun story about a world where there are people that literally get to fight diseases.

We've been rewatching Tales from the Darkside. My favorite Darkside episode is the one with the doctor that cures a guys back pain by getting his nag of a wife killed. I just loved how the doctor framed it as a "happy little accident" I remember watching Tales from the Darkside, Monsters, Friday the 13th the series, and Dark Shadows in the summer on SYFY, back when it was known as SciFi.
 
Antiviral.jpg

I watched Brandon Cronenberg's (son of David) Antiviral (2012) last night.

I has it PVRed for some time. I must've confused it with another movie because I thought it was going to be similar to Dustin Hoffman's Outbreak.

I know vaguely who Canadian David Cronenberg is, but not enough to remember anything from his films.

I read a little about this film and Redditors compared similarities a lot to his father's work. They referred a lot to "body horror".

The lead, Caleb Landry Jones, is a ginger who would later go on to play the unstable brother in Jordan Peele's Get Out.

The film was obviously set and shot in Canada, as I recognized a lot of the supporting actors from other Canadian fare.
The premise of the movie is that celebrity worship culture has progressed to such a level that boutique cosmetic clinics offer obsessed fans the opportunity to be injected and infected with strains of viruses that top celebrities have contracted themselves (cold sores, influenza, etc).

The viruses are bioengineered with copyright so that they are no longer contagious once sold and injected into a paying client.

Celebrities themselves work directly with the cosmetic clinics to sell exclusive copies of new viruses they acquire for distribution. There's also a high demand for lab grown butcher meat made from cloned celebrity muscle sell lines that sell as high-end steaks.

The new paparazzi involves entrepreneurs trying to obtain new copies of celebrity viruses and profiting from being first to bring them to the black market.

The lead, Syd, works at a leading cosmetic Lucas clinic offering personalized celebrity injections. He also works as a double agent for money, sneaking virus samples out of his facility by injecting them into himself and then using a stolen "console" in his home to break the copyright encryption to make the smuggled virus contagious for re-sale again. He then sells them to a local butcher Arvid under the table.

The story begins when a fellow salesman at his clinic Derrick is busted for similarly selling stolen proprietary virus samples.

Syd is tasked with going to collect a blood sample from starlet Hannah Geist who has come down with a new illness, a post previously trusted to Derrick.

Syd attends her hotel suite finding her ill in bed. He collects the sample but injects it into his own bloodstream before return it to his clinic.

He subsequently passes out from delirium on his apartment floor. He awakes to news that Hannah Geist has died from the new illness. His landlord informs him strange men have been looking for him during his stupor.

Syd runs his own blood sample in his home console, but the sample fries his equipment.

He turns to the black market and his butcher contact Arvid for replacement parts as he progressively gets sicker, but there is no honor among thieves.
________________________________________________

The film has an interesting premise, but didn't seem to know where to take it and falls off for the second half.

It's cinematography is also unique in that backgrounds are all sterile and clinically white with everyone dressed like Men In Black.

As I watched it, I was thinking it has elements of Total Recall meets Gattaca.
 
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Mordecai 3 Finger Brown said:
The film has an interesting premise, but didn't seem to know where to take it and falls off for the second half.

It's cinematography is also unique in that backgrounds are all sterile and clinically white with everyone dressed like Men In Black.

As I watched it, I was thinking it has elements of Total Recall meets Gattaca.
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It's very student film in a lot of ways but it remains interesting. Brandon massively evolved as a filmmaker by the time he made Possessor and Infinity Pool which both are recommended to watch but especially Possessor.
 
Mordecai 3 Finger Brown said:
I know vaguely who Canadian David Cronenberg is, but not enough to remember anything from his films.

I read a little about this film and Redditors compared similarities a lot to his father's work. They referred a lot to "body horror".
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David Cronenberg is known for doing body horror movies and his stuff is really good, many of them classics now. If you're in to body horror you should check him out. He's done movies like The Brood, Scanners, Videodrome, Naked Lunch, and the remake of the Fly.
 
BrunoMattei said:
It's very student film in a lot of ways but it remains interesting.
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It did feel very student film, but with gorgeous visuals.

Supposedly it was originally a short that was developed into a feature length due to his last name. Then toured at Cannes.

The whole "celebrity worship evolves into literal bug chasing" was an interesting premise.

It just didn't really go anywhere.

I noticed Brandon didn't make another film for another 8 years post.
 
BrunoMattei said:
It's very student film in a lot of ways but it remains interesting. Brandon massively evolved as a filmmaker by the time he made Possessor and Infinity Pool which both are recommended to watch but especially Possessor.
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Although I will utterly devastated when David Cronenberg dies, it's comforting knowing that his son inherited his dad's talent. May the Cronenberg family keep making a lot of gross movies featuring bodily fluids for a long time to come.
 
Flaming Carrot said:
Although I will utterly devastated when David Cronenberg dies, it's comforting knowing that his son inherited his dad's talent. May the Cronenberg family keep making a lot of gross movies featuring bodily fluids for a long time to come.
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Long live the new flesh, right?
 
Out of the blue I decided to have a double feature with The Fan (1996) and Der Fan (1982). Both movies are very different interpretations of the same basic premise of an obsessive fan taking things too far with their obsession and going Bjork Stalker by the end.

The Fan (1996) is an underrated "psychological thriller" with a great cast of DeNiro and Wesley Snipes. Benicio Del Toro has a small role as well. As a child, I remember seeing the trailers and advertising everywhere and it looked interesting but it was perpetually on my "to watch" list for as long as I can remember. It's directed by Tony Scott and he brings his usual lavish style to the proceedings about an obsessed baseball fan. All of this results in a somewhat average picture carried by DeNiro's great villain performance and Tony Scott's direction. I'd recommend it to any fan of DeNiro or Snipes. Bonus points for using several tracks from NIN the Downward Spiral as well. 7/10 movie.

Der Fan (1982) is maybe a masterpiece? I'm not sure? Perhaps minor masterpiece is a better term? This goes hardcore psychological horror and does not paint a pretty picture of either the stalker or the object of their obsession. The ending is such a fucking gut punch that I refuse to spoil it and I would consider this among the great 80's horror films and one of the best German horror pictures. 10/10 movie.
 
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BrunoMattei said:
Out of the blue I decided to have a double feature with The Fan (1996) and Der Fan (1982). Both movies are very different interpretations of the same basic premise of an obsessive fan taking things too far with their obsession and going Bjork Stalker by the end.

The Fan (1996) is an underrated "psychological thriller" with a great cast of DeNiro and Wesley Snipes. Benicio Del Toro has a small role as well. As a child, I remember seeing the trailers and advertising everywhere and it looked interesting but it was perpetually on my "to watch" list for as long as I can remember. It's directed by Tony Scott and he brings his usual lavish style to the proceedings about an obsessed baseball fan. All of this results in a somewhat average picture carried by DeNiro's great villain performance and Tony Scott's direction. I'd recommend it to any fan of DeNiro or Snipes. Bonus points for using several tracks from NIN the Downward Spiral as well. 7/10 movie.

Der Fan (1982) is maybe a masterpiece? I'm not sure? Perhaps minor masterpiece is a better term? This goes hardcore psychological horror and does not paint a pretty picture of either the stalker or the object of their obsession. The ending is such a fucking gut punch that I refuse to spoil it and I would consider this among the great 80's horror films and one of the best German horror pictures. 10/10 movie.
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Now do a triple feature with the Fanatic.

The Fan is a good movie. I'm going to check out Der Fan. There are some good German horror movies out there.
 
The next Quiet Place should be set in a movie theater and have an all black cast. To survive, they must face the ultimate challenge of sitting through a whole movie without talking.
 
Has anyone seen Maxxxine yet?

I'm worried that it does more final girl/femme fatale stuff than horror stuff because that's what the trailer looks like. I liked X and I REALLY liked Pearl, so I'm interested to see this new one.
Edit: people were talking about the Creepshow tv series, oh my god it was terrible.
Shot terribly, acted terribly, written terribly.
The worst fucking thing I've ever seen from that show was the "werewolf support group" or whatever it was called, with special Guest Appearance by Little Yachty for literally 10 seconds, I'm not making that up.

The first season has two good episodes, the Dollhouse one, which in my opinion had actual creepy scenes, and the genie one just because it's funny and the costume looks like the fluffy monster from original. Rest of the series is complete shit and forgettable.
 
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The Nothingness said:
The Perfect Host, which is more of a psychological thriller, falls in this category. It's one that you need to go into blind since the trailer spoils one of the major twists (even if you've already figured it out based on the title).
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This was outstanding. I can't believe I hadn't seen it before. I'd call it a black comedy more than anything else, but it is very tense once the action starts. The director Nicholas Tomnay also did the recently released What You Wish For, which has a similar set up but is sadly a much more ordinary thriller. It's not bad, but it's not going into rotation like The Perfect Host is.

I also watched The Bay (2012), For The Sake of Vicious (2020),and Digging Up The Marrow (2014) recently. The Bay I would describe as 'imagine if that episode of Community where they make a sci fi film based on unused footage of Chang, but with sporadically excellent special effects. But you could tell the actors had fun making it, and we had fun watching it.

For The Sake of Vicious I did not have fun watching. It felt like a dumb, pointless mess, but the truth is everyone was shouting at and attacking each other over nothing for so long that I started zoning out during the violence. So either they explain why anyone other than the bearded lunatic was there midway through a hammer assault or it was just a mess of pointless brutality. Two of the main characters get approximately one minute of character development - between them, while the third is a plot device in a beard, and I just can't get into movies when I don't care about the characters.

Digging up the Marrow was fun on the other hand. I always like seeing directors playing themselves, the monster designs were cool, and Ray Wise is awesome, as always.
 
BrunoMattei said:
Out of the blue I decided to have a double feature with The Fan (1996) and Der Fan (1982). Both movies are very different interpretations of the same basic premise of an obsessive fan taking things too far with their obsession and going Bjork Stalker by the end.

The Fan (1996) is an underrated "psychological thriller" with a great cast of DeNiro and Wesley Snipes. Benicio Del Toro has a small role as well. As a child, I remember seeing the trailers and advertising everywhere and it looked interesting but it was perpetually on my "to watch" list for as long as I can remember. It's directed by Tony Scott and he brings his usual lavish style to the proceedings about an obsessed baseball fan. All of this results in a somewhat average picture carried by DeNiro's great villain performance and Tony Scott's direction. I'd recommend it to any fan of DeNiro or Snipes. Bonus points for using several tracks from NIN the Downward Spiral as well. 7/10 movie.

Der Fan (1982) is maybe a masterpiece? I'm not sure? Perhaps minor masterpiece is a better term? This goes hardcore psychological horror and does not paint a pretty picture of either the stalker or the object of their obsession. The ending is such a fucking gut punch that I refuse to spoil it and I would consider this among the great 80's horror films and one of the best German horror pictures. 10/10 movie.
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Funny, I have these two movies logged at 6/10 and 9/10, respectively.

I might also add The Last Horror Film (1982) which is also sometimes known as "The Fanatic". Very good Joe Spinell slasher that is somewhat explicitly a take off of Taxi Driver, though in my opinion much closer in plot and themes to King of Comedy. King of Comedy wouldn't be released for another year, so make of that what you will. Personally, I think this is Spinell's best film. The plot is a lot more engaging than your typical "masked bad guy stabs random people" slasher of the era. Being shot on location at Cannes adds some cool production value as well. 8/10.
 
Ged! said:
I might also add The Last Horror Film (1982) which is also sometimes known as "The Fanatic". Very good Joe Spinell slasher that is somewhat explicitly a take off of Taxi Driver, though in my opinion much closer in plot and themes to King of Comedy. King of Comedy wouldn't be released for another year, so make of that what you will. Personally, I think this is Spinell's best film. The plot is a lot more engaging than your typical "masked bad guy stabs random people" slasher of the era. Being shot on location at Cannes adds some cool production value as well. 8/10.
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I'd give The Last Horror Film a 6/10 personally. It's not bad but it's a poor man's Maniac but it's only really interesting if you've seen Maniac and can see Joe do a different spin on that character.

Best parts were all the posters and marques from Cannes and the ending with Joe and his real life mom on the couch smoking pot.
 
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