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DolphinKiwi said:
What are your opinions on the Smile series?
I watched the first one, and I do like the concept but it’s a little repetitive, similar to possession themes that are overdone atp, however the storyline is great to follow.

There’s a new one out now and I’m pretty excited to see it.
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First one is a generic Zoomer jumpscare horror. 6/10 movie. The 2nd one is leaps and bounds better and goes for the gore and plot twists. I HIGHLY recommend the 2nd one and I would even bump up my score of it to an 8.5/10.
 
DolphinKiwi said:
What are your opinions on the Smile series?
I watched the first one, and I do like the concept but it’s a little repetitive, similar to possession themes that are overdone atp, however the storyline is great to follow.

There’s a new one out now and I’m pretty excited to see it.
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Its the most overrated "okay" films. I feel like the standards of horror movies dropped in the last decade that a movie that is "okay" is portrayed as amazing. It didnt help this movie came out after "Truth or Dare", which had a similar gimmick, right down to the smiling stuff.

It has some unsettling imagery but I think the second one wrote itself into a corner with its ending because it feels like it either will have to go on a different direction or go full on ahead with the implication, tho the consequences is that it wont feel like a Smile movie anymore.

Nvm its one of those "dont think too hard on it" sort of movies because once you do, it starts to somewhat fall apart.
 
I remember Smile having some creepy visuals and other wise being forgettable. I'm tempted to watch 2 on the threads recommendation but I don't know how much I trust the thread's opinion. Too many people liking time wasting horror movies where the scariest thing is how much it cost to film when paint drying would have been more entertaining.
 
The handsome tard said:
I feel like the standards of horror movies dropped in the last decade that a movie that is "okay" is portrayed as amazing.
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What movie from the last ten years would you say lived up to the hype? Or have they all ranged from "pretentious garbage" to "okay" because of how low the standards have gotten?
 
The Nothingness said:
What movie from the last ten years would you say lived up to the hype? Or have they all ranged from "pretentious garbage" to "okay" because of how low the standards have gotten?
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The surfer didn't get much hype but it's a good movie about a man mentally declining where you're unsure what is real and isn't. I thought it was genuinely disturbing and one of Cage's best performances.
 
The Nothingness said:
What movie from the last ten years would you say lived up to the hype? Or have they all ranged from "pretentious garbage" to "okay" because of how low the standards have gotten?
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The only one I can think of is the Terrifier series. I remember seeing the first one just as the cult following was growing and was like "Okay, this is the new thing."
 
I saw Final Destination: Bloodlines. I'm not even sure it's a horror movie, but you know what it was? Fucking fun. Actually entertaining. Not irritating. It even had a couple of unexpected "twists" that were funny.

I mean, don't get me wrong, the movie is dumb as shit, and the gore isn't really gore, people just turn into bags of jelly when they die. But it's not trying to be smart or good or realistic (or if it is it does an amazing job of hiding it).

The characters aren't even irritating (well any more than the ones that are supposed to be irritating are). It even lets you feel a little bad when a couple of them die, because they're not unredeemable, unrealistic assholes.

I have only 2 complaints- no titties in it and it's a bit pushy with some of the Rube-Goldberg starters that you know are going to be red herrings. But I haven't seen any of the other FDs, so maybe that's just a thing.

The movie even had a good ending. If they don't gay ass retcon it, I could see myself seeing the next one in a theater. 3.5/5 stars, a tight, fun, goofy 80 minutes.
 
Sat down and watched Sketch the other day, and I think it's the first real example of a gateway horror movie for kids I've seen since Paranorman and Monster House. It uses all the tropes and techniques of a horror movie, and it uses them well, but it's tame enough that even my wife (who had to turn off Happy Death Day because it was too much for her) was able to sit through it from beginning to end and actually enjoyed it. Gonna check out Ick next, because someone I know described it as being a shitty modern The Faculty, and that's about where I am as a person right now.
 
Random recommendation: A Bell From Hell.


This is in my top 10 and it's one of those criminally underrated movies for me. It's sometimes labeled as a gothic horror but it really is not. It's kind of unclassifiable what this movie is exactly without just going over the entire plot. Darkly comic psychological horror is as close as you can get in terms of genre summary. The saddest and most fascinating bit of trivia it has is that the director committed suicide by jumping from the bell tower as seen in the film. Once you know this, the film has another quality about it that makes it even more unique. It truly feels haunted. It's as though the director's ghost is watching it with you. It's one of the most unique horror films ever made.
 
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Kofi Drinka said:
The surfer didn't get much hype but it's a good movie about a man mentally declining where you're unsure what is real and isn't. I thought it was genuinely disturbing and one of Cage's best performances.
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It's not capital H Horror but it's very good. I'm surprised how bad the RT audience score is [85% critic 46% audience] but I guess people don't like being jerked around or the stylized camera/editing. I quite liked the weirdness and "Am I seeing things???" of it. A rare movie where the script earns a Cage freak out scene.
 
Pretty Sneaky Cis said:
It's not capital H Horror but it's very good. I'm surprised how bad the RT audience score is [85% critic 46% audience] but I guess people don't like being jerked around or the stylized camera/editing. I quite liked the weirdness and "Am I seeing things???" of it. A rare movie where the script earns a Cage freak out scene.
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I would compare it to the Wickerman in what it's trying to do. A slow burn psychological break down where you know something is wrong but you don't know what. It's ironically what elevated horror is trying to be and fails.
 
Thriller: A Cruel Picture is a film I tried to get into but the pacing is too crap. It does have moments the fascinating bit of trivia where they used an actual corpse for the eyeball stab scene.


I just wanted an excuse to post this.
 
Anyone who likes practical effects and gore should check out Dead Reset on Steam, Just came out a couple of days ago. It's an FMV game but it actually feels like a movie the whole way through, with no lag like motion-cap loading time slight loading time like in a Supermassive game. I had my spine torn out because I got so into the movie I forgot to make a choice even though it was right in front of me. Give it a pass if you are squeamish about eyeballs though. I got ending 4 of 4 my first playthrough.

Going to eat supper and play hands free to see what happens/what the canon storyline is now that I know the basic plot.

Wear headphones.
 
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I just got back from The Long Walk. As I'm sure everyone knows by now, it's based on a Stephen King (as Richard Bachman) novel, one of his very best.

This is a strong King adaptation despite its departures from the original story. (The ending is changed.) My only complaints are Hammil's performance being less subtle than the movie's tone demanded (I feel he was miscast though not terrible)... and maybe this would have been better handled by the king of King adapters, Frank Darabont.

But the movie itself is excellent. King's horror is often less effective the further it gets from reality, and The Long Walk is something that could actually happen.

What it isn't, despite what I'm sure Hammil himself would have wanted (or perhaps imagines, I haven't kept up with his social media sperging), is a tiresome, predictable indictment of the Trump's America that deluded shitlibs think they're already living in. There are no MAGA hats, nothing that on the nose. (There's one line from the Major about rebuilding America into a rich, successful nation again that you could read that way if you're sensitive, but I didn't. ) Rightoids might not like the juxtaposition of Americana with a brutal military dictatorship, but that's kind of the premise of the novel itself (downstream, it seems, of an America that lost WW2).

This is not an anti-American film. It's a character study of the best and worst of human nature. And it's a very strong adaptation.

I was worried about the age of the cast (they are older than depicted in the book), but it all works very well, and I'm honestly not sure you could do this movie with 15 and 16 year olds. It might be unwatchably brutal. Aside from my reservations about Hammil's performance, everybody in the cast is great.

And the cinematography. A movie like this, where people are walking down a road for almost two hours, needs a strong DP, and whoever did this killed it. The movie stays visually interesting the entire time, with striking, sometimes bizarre imagery along the route the boys walk. The world building is very subtle but, I think, effective. It's a light touch, but it's just enough to imply the state of the rest of America in this world.

I must also mention the soundtrack. This is a simple story (in one sense), and an overly flowery or showy soundtrack would have been a real mistake. But the soundtrack has a light touch, swelling at the right moments and receding when it should. I was very impressed.

And about the ending... I wasn't outraged by the change because the original ending would be pretty hard to execute in a film. I am, however, not certain they went with the best version of their ending.

I think it would have been better with Peter not firing the rifle, being restrained by a Major who reassures the crowd that Peter is simply at his wits end after such an ordeal, praising him as everyone's hero, and Peter having an emotional breakdown as he realizes he was always powerless to change anything in the country no matter what he did.

But the ending, as it is, is very satisfying in the moment. And it seems to shade into metaphor after he fires: no soldiers try to stop him afterwards, the crowds disappear, the streets are dark and empty, and he walks off into the darkness alone. I think it's clear he's killed, before or after his attempted assassination.

Hypersensitive right-wingers might feel this movie is insensitive or wrong after Kirk's assassination (or Trump's two assassination attempts), but I don't think that's what the movie is about at all. And, come on... Americans know what the ultimate purpose of the 2nd Amendment is, and it's not hunting.

Again, if Hollywood made this movie about Drumphler, they did it with such a light touch that it doesn't read that way, thankfully.

Final verdict: go see it unless you're determined to bitch about the movie for some political reason that has nothing to do with the movie itself.
 
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Your Starter for 10 said:
I have only 2 complaints- no titties in it and it's a bit pushy with some of the Rube-Goldberg starters that you know are going to be red herrings. But I haven't seen any of the other FDs, so maybe that's just a thing.
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90% of FD's kills (especially after the first one) are Rube-Golberg sequences. Some are good, some are eye rolling. Its kind of the series's thing and its implied Death prefers to kill people this way out of sick enjoyment because it could just give its victims terminal diseases and heart attacks Death Note styled but it doesnt until they were able to find a spot where they cant get rube-golberg-ed and stay there for long enough.


frozen_runner said:
I just got back from The Long Walk. As I'm sure everyone knows by now, it's based on a Stephen King (as Richard Bachman) novel, one of his very best.

This is a strong King adaptation despite its departures from the original story. (The ending is changed.) My only complaints are Hammil's performance being less subtle than the movie's tone demanded (I feel he was miscast though not terrible)... and maybe this would have been better handled by the king of King adapters, Frank Darabont.

But the movie itself is excellent. King's horror is often less effective the further it gets from reality, and The Long Walk is something that could actually happen.

What it isn't, despite what I'm sure Hammil himself would have wanted (or perhaps imagines, I haven't kept up with his social media sperging), is a tiresome, predictable indictment of the Trump's America that deluded shitlibs think they're already living in. There are no MAGA hats, nothing that on the nose. (There's one line from the Major about rebuilding America into a rich, successful nation again that you could read that way if you're sensitive, but I didn't. ) Rightoids might not like the juxtaposition of Americana with a brutal military dictatorship, but that's kind of the premise of the novel itself (downstream, it seems, of an America that lost WW2).

This is not an anti-American film. It's a character study of the best and worst of human nature. And it's a very strong adaptation.

I was worried about the age of the cast (they are older than depicted in the book), but it all works very well, and I'm honestly not sure you could do this movie with 15 and 16 year olds. It might be unwatchably brutal. Aside from my reservations about Hammil's performance, everybody in the cast is great.

And the cinematography. A movie like this, where people are walking down a road for almost two hours, needs a strong DP, and whoever did this killed it. The movie stays visually interesting the entire time, with striking, sometimes bizarre imagery along the route the boys walk. The world building is very subtle but, I think, effective. It's a light touch, but it's just enough to imply the state of the rest of America in this world.

I must also mention the soundtrack. This is a simple story (in one sense), and an overly flowery or showy soundtrack would have been a real mistake. But the soundtrack has a light touch, swelling at the right moments and receding when it should. I was very impressed.

And about the ending... I wasn't outraged by the change because the original ending would be pretty hard to execute in a film. I am, however, not certain they went with the best version of their ending.

I think it would have been better with Peter not firing the rifle, being restrained by a Major who reassures the crowd that Peter is simply at his wits end after such an ordeal, praising him as everyone's hero, and Peter having an emotional breakdown as he realizes he was always powerless to change anything in the country no matter what he did.

But the ending, as it is, is very satisfying in the moment. And it seems to shade into metaphor after he fires: no soldiers try to stop him afterwards, the crowds disappear, the streets are dark and empty, and he walks off into the darkness alone. I think it's clear he's killed, before or after his attempted assassination.

Hypersensitive right-wingers might feel this movie is insensitive or wrong after Kirk's assassination (or Trump's two assassination attempts), but I don't think that's what the movie is about at all. And, come on... Americans know what the ultimate purpose of the 2nd Amendment is, and it's not hunting.

Again, if Hollywood made this movie about Drumphler, they did it with such a light touch that it doesn't read that way, thankfully.

Final verdict: go see it unless you're determined to bitch about the movie for some political reason that has nothing to do with the movie itself.
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I was interested but your positive review it legit changed my mind.

Impressive.
 
The handsome tard said:
I was interested but your positive review it legit changed my mind.

Impressive.
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I'm a right-leaning libertarian. I went into this movie dreading what I fully expected to find since Hammil was in it: anti-Americanism, anti-Trumpism, and general wokery. (Because I love the book and didn't want it destroyed.) I didn't find any.

I can't say if the filmmakers intended there to be a partisan political message, but I didn't see one. YMMV. I'm just happy it was a good movie.
 
Saw the new Conjuring movie, not as bad as the third one, but it wasn't as good as the first two.

Way too much focus on the Warren's daughter, Judy, and her fiancé. Took a good like, ninety minutes before the Warrens finally went to the family in need. It was to the point that the "main" girl of the family in trouble basically stopped having lines halfway through the film. And there was this huge deal about the demon controlling the ghosts, but we learn nothing about it or why it wants Judy so bad. For the final case of the Warrens, it didn't feel very final or particularly deadly, no more than the others at least. Also Annabelle keeps getting shoved into things, like she was somehow haunting the house (in a completely different state) for about five minutes and then just vanished? It made no sense. I feel like they just really want to make another Annabelle movie but can't or won't for some reason.

Also a quartet of black women were loud and annoying as fuck, talking and laughing through the entire movie, so that really made things less enjoyable. Two theater trips in a row where some obnoxious fuck really spoiled the experience. Used to have really good luck with theater trips.
 
Pretty Sneaky Cis said:
I agree about The Long Walk. It is odd seeing they are too old at first but having a bunch of visibly 16 year old kids get murdered would be a tough watch.

...did you spot the pooners???
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Oh God, there are pooners in the movie?

Rest assured they get their heads blown off.
 
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