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

[Kofi Drinka]

Just finished Hellraiser Deader. The 7th movie and I liked it but you can tell it was another script they put the Hellraiser name on, which kind of spoils it as the original concept was good. We're once again back to "Is this real or not?" but then it doesn't matter because the box is involved. We know the person isn't insane because this is the 7th goddamn movie.

I consider the movie to be a 4/10. It's just below average but it has some beautiful shots and an engaging story so it's not unwatchable just not good. If you like tits and some lesbo action it's got you covered. The heroine has no tits and spends some of the movie showing her knockers. But there's like 20 shots of tits in this movie.

It has one of the funniest Pinhead lines in the franchise when someone has 4 chains through their face. They're about to get shoved into the box face first and he's like "yes, you really are in danger".. well fuck me. 4 chains through the face didn't give that away?

Spoiler: If you nose you nose.

I did not like the child rape story. I really didn't like Pinhead threatening a woman with being fucked by her Dad for all eternity. It didn't feel like something Pinhead would do. Yes he's evil, yes he will punish you for your sins. But innocence was never punished. If an innocent opened the box they were left alone like the autistic girl in 2. Making you have to be a lonely degenerate to open the box fucks that up. And why would Pinhead go full Stephen King and reward a child rapist with his daughter to fuck for all eternity? Is the torture having a sore dick? Total misunderstanding of the concept IMO.

How can you cuck Pinhead out of your soul? He will just chain your hands before you can hurt yourself. The way he kills the deaders is stupid but whatever. Suicide is also a sin so she is going to Hell either way. The box exploding was stupid. It didn't need to happen.

This is an engaging movie. It has a lot more Pinhead in it doesn't hit the mark. Saw and Hostel are clearly on the way when this is being produced and it can't decide if it's 90's psycho thriller, 2000s torture porn or edgy Hackers. It even reminded me of I spit on your grave sequels because it's filmed in Eastern Europe to save money.

 

[Aib Ld]

I'm late to the sex and violence talk but I was thinking on that for a while.

Spoiler: probably autism

I think the problem is both the audience and the film-makers.
Most film makers for horror aren't making 'horror', they are making a movie that happens to have horror elements. The gore effects feel tacked on, the monster is either nonsensical or some metaphor, jumpscares galore, and so on. They're horror movies that make no sense. Throw everything into the wall and see what sticks. They want to play it safe... in a genre you shouldn't be playing safe with.
Back then, there are horror movies that make sense. Alien? You're getting a sexual horror movie mixed with violence. Exorcist? A movie with a exorcist trying to help a girl that gets mentally and emotionally destroyed over the film by a demon. Vampires are also one of the classic monsters for a combo of sex and violence.
Meanwhile, if you look a random modern movie, it either
1. loses the premise past the first act. Like Passenger. If you expected a horror movie about a road trip by the title, poster and/or trailer, you get a religious movie with horror elements instead filled with nonsensical gore to get your attention back. Holy fuck, it was night and day watching this after Obsession.
2. Absolute shit but has a good scene or two, mostly at the ending. So audiences can go "[x] is good because of the ending" and nothing else. No description of the actual movie. Just "watch for [x] scene". I noticed this a lot but I don't know if it is a psychological trick.

But nobody wants to do something with pure evil. Evil Dead usually begins with someone with being raped because of the evil presence having a laugh before freeing demons. As in, actual pieces of shit demons. There are no such thing as 'too far' for them. Back then, when I saw Evil Dead Rise, when the rape was replaced with the woman getting lifted by wires and that was it, I knew it was going to be shit and it would be a 'safe' movie, and the demons wouldn't be demons.

By the audience side, nobody feels sincere.
Feet shots used to mean an earthly character, a shoe-first introduction where the camera scrolls up like femme fatales, or a Tarantino riff. Now its all "Is this a [x] fetish?".
Any specific gore or a character doing a sexual taboo is a fetish. Narrative tricks are seen as quirks. Characters having developments are seen as retcons. Anthology films are seen as connected, despite being unrelated. So on, so forth. Pair these with modern directors and there is a huge disconnect.
They also want movies to be lore filled instead of self-contained. Curry Baker with the recent Obsession fame even shows this in an interview, saying something like "you guys have pretty good theories and I love them but theres no need to ask me for confirmation on your views. I just want to show a monkey paw movie about a wish. its not that deep".

 

[Kofi Drinka]

Twisting that back on it's self.

Why do you think it's good to be extreme and push the taboo? Horror movies were very subversive and pushed by Hollywood. We ended up having to regulate how bad they were getting and now Evil dead has nothing on Mortal Kombat or Sniper elite games.


Why do you think horror films need to be subversive and taboo breaking? Why can't a horror film just be a good creature feature or a comedy? I don't like much modern horror but I do wonder how you can even push the boundaries. It's not like you can top a father raping his own child son unknowingly or creating an ass to mouth human chain. Outside of real snuff films and saying nigger there's no taboos left.

 

[Aib Ld]

Twisting that back on it's self.

Why do you think it's good to be extreme and push the taboo? Horror movies were very subversive and pushed by Hollywood. We ended up having to regulate how bad they were getting and now Evil dead has nothing on Mortal Kombat or Sniper elite games.

It feels like modern horror movies have to be taboo for some reason instead of being a movie. I have no problem if it was already established that it was going to be extreme within reason ala Green Inferno. A group of newbie ecologists decides to visit a tribe of savages beyond their level. You know what will happen next by the plot alone.
Meanwhile, in Lee Cronin's Mummy, you get unnecessary scenes like a scorpion cutting off vocal chords and the person has to keep her throat in to speak for some weird reason. It never made sense in-universe, just did it like "fuck that guy in particular" and its not even done for black comedy. Its like that Jurassic World movie where the woman gets eaten by the Mosasaurus out of nowwhere. You can cut it off and nothing changes. That scene is just... there.

 

[Kofi Drinka]

It feels like modern horror movies have to be taboo for some reason instead of being a movie. I have no problem if it was already established that it was going to be extreme within reason ala Green Inferno. A group of newbie ecologists decides to visit a tribe of savages beyond their level. You know what will happen next by the plot alone.
Meanwhile, in Lee Cronin's Mummy, you get unnecessary scenes like a scorpion cutting off vocal chords and the person has to keep her throat in to speak for some weird reason. It never made sense in-universe, just did it like "fuck that guy in particular" and its not even done for black comedy. Its like that Jurassic World movie where the woman gets eaten by the Mosasaurus out of nowwhere. You can cut it off and nothing changes. That scene is just... there.

What modern horror are you watching? More of them are boring slow burn leftist political pieces. They aren't shocking, they're just boring. White man bad is the most common modern thing in horror.

 

[Aib Ld]

What modern horror are you watching? More of them are boring slow burn leftist political pieces. They aren't shocking, they're just boring. White man bad is the most common modern thing in horror.

Going backwards from recency this year:

• Passenger- expected a road trip horror, got religious horror instead. Only three good shots. The trailer is better than the movie. Main characters are a mixed couple, but I was more distracted at the husband having the wife to abandon their jobs and living van life than them being mixed.
• Obsession- Probably the only movie that is actually good overall because it isn't from Hollywood, just from a youtuber. Basically a wish got monkey paw'd in the worst way possible.
• Lee Cronin The Mummy- Its powerfully okay other than really cruel gore. Generic demon possession movie.
• They Will Kill You- Not really fully horror, but begins as horror, then turns action. Has a lot of racial elements, especially in the intro, but the movie is wild enough for me to ignore it. Kill Bill meets Divine Comedy.
• Send Help- Girlboss: the movie.
• Cold Storage- small-scale zombie movie.

A break because a movie destroyed me so bad that I'm appalled it got awards.

• Sinners- holy shit this was definitely not for me. I tried to see this as a vampire movie, I really did, but the politics are so on your face and it ends with the black guy shooting a group of KKK members for reasons I forgot. Plus niggers twerking.
• Primate- ape with rabies goes on a killing spree. Thats it.

I probably lucked out on not getting a lot of political movies so far this year. Sinners is first place on what you said, followed by TWKY, then Send Help.

 

[Kofi Drinka]

Going backwards from recency this year:

• Passenger- expected a road trip horror, got religious horror instead. Only three good shots. The trailer is better than the movie. Main characters are a mixed couple, but I was more distracted at the husband having the wife to abandon their jobs and living van life than them being mixed.
• Obsession- Probably the only movie that is actually good overall because it isn't from Hollywood, just from a youtuber. Basically a wish got monkey paw'd in the worst way possible.
• Lee Cronin The Mummy- Its powerfully okay other than really cruel gore. Generic demon possession movie.
• They Will Kill You- Not really fully horror, but begins as horror, then turns action. Has a lot of racial elements, especially in the intro, but the movie is wild enough for me to ignore it. Kill Bill meets Divine Comedy.
• Send Help- Girlboss: the movie.
• Cold Storage- small-scale zombie movie.

A break because a movie destroyed me so bad that I'm appalled it got awards.

• Sinners- holy shit this was definitely not for me. I tried to see this as a vampire movie, I really did, but the politics are so on your face and it ends with the black guy shooting a group of KKK members for reasons I forgot. Plus niggers twerking.
• Primate- ape with rabies goes on a killing spree. Thats it.

I probably lucked out on not getting a lot of political movies so far this year. Sinners is first place on what you said, followed by TWKY, then Send Help.

It seems like you're just watching anything mainstream that comes out. A lot of the interesting stuff is on streaming services and you need to pay or pirate them.

 

[Aib Ld]

It seems like you're just watching anything mainstream that comes out. A lot of the interesting stuff is on streaming services and you need to pay or pirate them.

My place usually have free advance screenings, so I didn't pirate most of them. Most of them are one-and-done. The only movie I didn't see an advance screening of is Sinners because I have no interest on it, but I was dragged into it by friends that was caught in the hype when it officially came to theaters. Tried to enjoy the experience but it was impossible. Even said friends hated it after the movie.

Nearly all of my friend group knowledge of older movies are from me, whenever we start up a group. I found out they love movies from the 70s-90s range, even niche-ish ones like Black Roses, but older than that is 'too cheesy' for them.

 

[Brain Problems]

And also, I like BWP2 way more than the 1st one.
There are actual characters, it's a neat little time capsule of the pre-9/11 "goth" subculture, it's not boring as fuck (even if you don't like it, it can be enjoyed as "so bad it's good").

That's another one that I'd kill to get the director's cut of. I think it's a really neat concept in the meta/post-modern post-Scream sense. Lord knows it's better than the piece of shit we got recently.

 

[Kofi Drinka]

Harvey Weinstein is a fucking monster.

Hellraiser Hell world has a peak 2000s theme. Goth kids go to a haunted mansion and bad shit happens. You have a super hot goth girl (who they kill off first). Bunch of creepy shit. Tech of the era.. It's all here and then Pinhead turns up and... fucks around a bit? It tries to be meta but isn't really leaning into it?

Another instance of putting pinhead in a movie spoils it. I like Pinhead, he's great but these cash grabs harm both the movies and the character. All I want is cute goth girl titties and some cheap scares and it can't decide if it's a teen slasher or a psychological movie and any time it leans into one it immediately abandons it.

I saw Pinhead in dead by daylight earlier. Couldn't be more underwhelming. Of all the horror franchises they handled poorly I think Hellraiser is the worst. The first 3 movies are effects movies for people who like gore. Then they're good psychological horror movies and then.. fucked if I know. But the way all this is handled weakens both hellraiser and the movies the Weinsteins slapped the name on and forced rewrites.

I do like trash 2000s techology horror though. So while I give this movie a 3.5/10, I still enjoyed the time capsule of goth teen hotties with safety pins holding their torn shirt together to show off some titties.

 

[Beelzebub's Lawyer]

Why do you think horror films need to be subversive and taboo breaking?

I think horror, just like comedy, has to go against contemporary moral frameworks and social norms.
That's why often, you don't find old horror movies scary, because what is taboo has changed so much that it doesn't feel subversive in any way (such as The Exorcist).

Outside of real snuff films and saying nigger there's no taboos left.

Oh, there are plenty of taboos today and saying "nigger" or showing extreme violence aren't it.
Right now, I would think that showing something like troons or muzzies going after children in a mainstream release would really push a lot of buttons and stir the pot.
But who would distribute that movie?

More of them are boring slow burn leftist political pieces.

And those are the opposite of taboo, they affirm the status quo.

That's another one that I'd kill to get the director's cut of.

You can clearly tell what the movie was supposed to be.
There are nonsensical things added (like the guy being in the hospital and seeing some weird child ghosts, those were reshoots, the "cool late 90's music" was probably not part of the original cut as well) that derail the plot and change the tone.
What I think the original idea was that ... SPOILERS... the main characters took so many drugs during that one night in the woods that they fried their brains and they weren't able to tell reality from hallucination.
Was there a supernatural presence? Or wasn't there? Probably not... but maybe?
Kind of like in the original where... SPOILERS... there is an interpretation where Josh, the guy who goes missing in the middle of the movie, went crazy and killed the other 2.

 

[Kofi Drinka]

I think horror, just like comedy, has to go against contemporary moral frameworks and social norms.
That's why often, you don't find old horror movies scary, because what is taboo has changed so much that it doesn't feel subversive in any way (such as The Exorcist).

And you're wrong. Blair Witch Project does not go against any sort of moral frameworks or social norms. At worst it has them smoking some pot while in the hotel room. There is no social commentary, there is no moral framework at all. It's 3 dudes go to the woods and weird shit happens. It's not gorey, there's no offensive language, there's nothing that pushes any thing at all. And it's a damn good horror film that has held up over time because getting lost in the woods and being fucked with is a scary concept.

The idea that horror has to be subversive is very Jewish. Good horror takes a simple concept and runs with it. It doesn't need subversion, which is just shock value. That's low budget torture porn thinking. Which is funny because the original SAW doesn't break any moral frameworks or social norms either. A serial killer kidnaps two people and forces them to escape an escape room. It's not subversive, it's a story told a hundred times in movie and TV series since the 70s.

The good Hellraisers aren't subversive or going against social norms. Being punished for your sins through a Christian lens is not subversive. The gore is already normalized since the 80s.

Elm Street doesn't go against social norms or a moral framework either. Freddy is a monster who attacks kids in their sleep. There's no moral framework there. "Don't murder pedophiles or they become dream demons" isn't a moral framework or subversive. It's just a scary idea about something in your sleep killing you because we all have to sleep.

I don't remember any social norms or morale framework in Alien or Aliens either. Some dudes in space meet an alien and get killed by it. The chest burster scene isn't even that gorey compared to other horrors of the time.

 

[Beelzebub's Lawyer]

Blair Witch Project does not go against any sort of moral frameworks or social norms

BWP1 suck dick. as a movie.
The reason it got popular was because it was marketed as "found footage" which was for a lot of the movie goers a subversive idea, showing the last footage filmed before death in theaters.

The good Hellraisers aren't subversive or going against social norms

You don't think BDSM sex demons were subversive in 1980's America?
It wasn't the 2020's back then, shit was different.

Elm Street doesn't go against social norms or a moral framework either.

I don't know about that, a pedo murder ghost is pushing some boundaries.

I don't remember any social norms or morale framework in Alien or Aliens either.

Being raped by an alien and then giving birth to it's kids is also pushing boundaries.
As for Aliens, it's an action movie, it's not scary at all.

 

[Kofi Drinka]

The reason it got popular was because it was marketed as "found footage" which was for a lot of the movie goers a subversive idea, showing the last footage filmed before death in theaters.

Found footage was a genre way before Blair witch ever came out. It was all over the VHS era. Cannibal Holocaust was the 70s.

You don't think BDSM sex demons were subversive in 1980's America?
It wasn't the 2020's back then, shit was different.

The good ones are 5 and 6. They were in the 00s. And BDSM wasn't subversive in the 80s. It's all over the damn place.

I don't know about that, a pedo murder ghost is pushing some boundaries.

Try watching British dramas some times. Evil pedo kills children isn't an uncommon story in any watershed drama.

Being raped by an alien and then giving birth to it's kids is also pushing boundaries.

There are plenty of movies before alien that do the same concept. You have invasion of the body snatchers the year before about aliens using human bodies to reproduce.

 

[Beelzebub's Lawyer]

Found footage was a genre way before Blair witch ever came out. It was all over the VHS era. Cannibal Holocaust was the 70s.

No, you misunderstood.
They didn't market this as a found footage movie.
They marketed this as "we found this footage in the woods after these 3 filmmakers went missing".
The marketing even involved putting their obituaries in newspapers.
Seeing this totally 100% real never seen before footage of kids who disappeared right after filming it was not something that was done before.

And BDSM wasn't subversive in the 80s. It's all over the damn place.

No, it wasn't.
It was this weird shit that went on under the radar behind closed doors that everyone was afraid of, especially back then when Christianity had a stranglehold on culture still.
That's why Marylin Manson could still shock everyone by wearing BDSM outfits on stage in the 90's.

You have invasion of the body snatchers the year before about aliens using human bodies to reproduce.

There was no rape and birth shown on screen and the design of the aliens wasn't disgustingly sexual.
Body Snatchers relied more so on the paranoia of society being infiltrated by people who look like us but aren't us (which was also a big fear back in the USSR era among Americans).

Evil pedo kills children isn't an uncommon story in any watershed drama.

Yeah because it scares the target demo of those dramas.

 

[strumpets exeunt]

I don't know about that, a pedo murder ghost is pushing some boundaries.

They never actually said original recipe Freddy was a pedo, right? I seem to remember him being "just" a child killer until the remake came and pushed everything to 11. Supernatural slasher movie icons are by and large a pretty sexless bunch.

 

[Kofi Drinka]

No, you misunderstood.
They didn't market this as a found footage movie.
They marketed this as "we found this footage in the woods after these 3 filmmakers went missing".
The marketing even involved putting their obituaries in newspapers.
Seeing this totally 100% real never seen before footage of kids who disappeared right after filming it was not something that was done before.

No, I don't misunderstand. Cannibal holocaust was marketed as found footage. The Blair witch also had a website that went into detail on the making of and said it wasn't real leading up to the release. I was alive for the Blair witch stuff and it was both marketed as real and fake at the same time. But then when people were buying cannibal holocaust people thought it was real. This is the era of

It was this weird shit that went on under the radar behind closed doors that everyone was afraid of, especially back then when Christianity had a stranglehold on culture still.

Go watch Mad Max. 70s and 80's pop culture is full of leather and latex outfits. People like Madonna and Tina Turner were all over the place in weird BDSM aligned outfits.

That's why Marylin Manson could still shock everyone by wearing BDSM outfits on stage in the 90's.

Manson shocked people because he was a tranny.

They never actually said original recipe Freddy was a pedo, right? I seem to remember him being "just" a child killer until the remake came and pushed everything to 11. Supernatural slasher movie icons are by and large a pretty sexless bunch.

It's left intentionally vague in the movies as I recall. He was very sexual with his victims which gave the impression. And depending on your stance on teen sex, he was going after 16 year olds sexually in the movie. Nancy is 16 in Elm street 1. Legal in some places, not in others.

 

[Calandrino]

They never actually said original recipe Freddy was a pedo, right?

iirc Part 5 has a newspaper headline referring to him as a child molester. I think that's it.

The good ones are 5 and 6.

They're better than one would expect, but let's slow down a little.

 

[Aib Ld]

They never actually said original recipe Freddy was a pedo, right? I seem to remember him being "just" a child killer until the remake came and pushed everything to 11. Supernatural slasher movie icons are by and large a pretty sexless bunch.

Iirc, he was going to start as a pedophile since the first movie. But there was an active sexual predator going around at the time that put last-minute removing or subtle details instead of blatant. Enough time passed where they put more details in since 4 or 5, then the remake outright confirms it.

 

[Kofi Drinka]

They're better than one would expect, but let's slow down a little.

I enjoy the genre they fall into. Psychological "silent hill" style movies if you want to put it that way. I would recommend them to genre fans when the rest of the movies I struggle to recommend. The first 3 Hellraisers are all about the effects, but the third acts are awful. And they don't use the effects well, some look silly. 4 is the in space over explaining movie I hate in all horror. Deaders is right on the borderline of enjoyable but weak final act spoils that one.

Lance Hendrikson is the only redeeming feature of Hellworld.

I wish they would stop putting electric around the box. It spoils the effect. A slow creepy box reconfigure is so much better as a build up.