Holy shit Hellraiser was amazing. Draws heavily from the extended universe like the comics and Hellbound Hearts, with a new puzzle box with it's own keepers and lore. First film really to explore the extended universe stuff, and it was absolutely the right move. And it goes fucking into some real deep lore. Does have some REAL nice throwbacks to the first two films though as well.

What is amazing it is really feels like the Barker story too. Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski
really captured Barker's style.

Will have to check that out.

So other than Frankenstein and Creature From The Black Lagoon I have never really watched the classic Universal Horror films. I picked up a few to check out and there are also several on the Peacock, which has a pretty sweet selection of horror movies, better than what I seen on Prime or Netflix.

But I watched Invisible Man, Wolfman, Wolfman Meets Frankenstein so far. Wolfman was better than I expected it to be, a lot of reviews I've read downplayed it but I thought it was pretty sweet. I really loved Wolfman vs Frankenstein though, that was a good time and had the vibe I was looking for.

Also picked up a double DVD pack of Bedlam and Isle Of The Dead both 1940's movies with Boris Karloff. Neither one turned out to be that great, Bedlam was the better of the two. Both movies felt more like stage plays than movies.

Wow, Werewolf by Night may be the sleeper hit of the season. Very, very good short film from Marvel about a group of monster hunters. Def done in the Hammer / Castle style which they pulled off flawlessly. So hope we get more Marvel horror stuff. Uses a very cool black and white style with other colors mixed in for special impact at times. Leans heavy on practical effects as well.

Just absolutely amazing.

Orphan: First Kill came out this year, creating awareness of a horror film from 2009 that seemingly flew under the radar.

Orphan (Jaume Collet-Serra, 2009)

I saw Orphan when it came out and enjoyed it a lot. A rewatch confirmed my initial positive judgment. It's far greater than your average "evil child" film, and not just for the genius twist. It is a harrowing film featuring a calculated and horrific psychological attack on a family from an outsider. The escalation in the evil deeds Esther commits is both ultra-disturbing and alarmingly logical - from her point of view. Finding out the true motivations for her action is a pretty freaky mini-twist that comes just before the big reveal. The execution is great as well, a nice mixture of shock, terror, and suspense, with only a handful of cheap jump scares.

A psychological horror that does what it sets out to do does really well. It does veer into ludicrous/OTT territory at times (Esther is a little too omniscient) and some details are kinda unnecessary or bad (Esther doesn't look 9 years old at all, she looks at least as old as the 12-year old boy), but these by no means ruin the film, just take it from a 10/10 to a 9/10.

Orphan: First Kill (William Brent Bell, 2022)



SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!



The most remarkable thing about this prequel is that Isabelle Fuhrman reprises her role as the titular Esther. Consider that she was 12 when the first Orphan was released. She's now over double that age, 25, and is somehow able to play the same character without it looking weird.

Orphan: First Kill is best viewed if you have not seen the original, or have a fleeting memory of it. This makes sense as it's 13 years on, after all. It suffers if you have watched Orphan literally the night before, as I had. That's because the first half of the movie is more or less a rehash of Orphan. We are introduced to the Esther character, who breaks out of a mental hospital, killing a bunch of people along the way, in a manner more reminiscent of Anton Chigurh than a diminutive lady. This scene was utterly preposterous and I was already readying myself to hate this film.

Esther manipulates her way into an American family by pretending to be their missing daughter. She does all the psychological warfare tricks she did in Orphan. To reiterate, this is fine if you hadn't seen Orphan the night before, but to me this felt like a retread, just watching the same movie in a different context.

To its credit, there's a huge twist at the halfway mark which flips the script on its head. I won't go into too much detail, but essentially Esther meets her match, and almost becomes the babyface of the film. Not really, I wasn't rooting for her at all, but let's just say the family she is involved with are hardly saints either, unlike the lovely family from the first film. It takes its cues from the first film by ending in a startingly Hollywood-y action thriller sequence, one that is entirely predictable but still pretty exciting.

Although this is the horror thread, and a horror sequel, it doesn't really feel like a horror film. More of a campy psychological thriller. The film appears to be aware of its own silliness, as there are a handful of really goofy montage scenes that sort of harm the overall tone.

Pretty good film, it does some things really well and other things not so well, but a worthy successor, and particularly good if you go in cold. It's certainly more than the cheap cash grab I kinda expected it would be, but I'm not exactly clamoring for more Esther either. Can we give it a rest here please?

Oct 6, 2022 4:08:27 GMT System said:

Already mentioned it in the movie thread but Smile is definitely worth a watch

Much better horror film than marketing would lead you to believe as it looks like it could be on par with Truth or Dare and movies like that, but I thought it was fantastic.

I want to go see Smile but I've been afflicted with COVID so won't be able to leave home this week. Hopefully it stays in theatres for a while.

Well been a few days and still cannot get some of the scenes from My Best Friend's Exorcism out of my head. Def gonna be pushing that one up on the watch list. Plays like a mix of Jennifer's Body and Mean Girls.

Got the VHS/99 trailer finally.  This looks even more insane than the last one.  

Also looks like the AHS Goth Club, err NYC, trailer dropped <.< I assume we just get The Bank, Tunnel, Limelight, and Church mashed together into a superclub and do NYC goth clubs cirra 1990, aka, the Disco Bloodbath era. Did two NYC shows in this era and both were unnerving as the crowd was fucking deranged. People were flashing knives in the pit for Electric Hellfire Club and for Pigface there was an extreme S&M crowd.

A lot of rumored stories about guys turning S&M play into straight abuse as well from the girls.  

Emperor smile is #1 at the box office it will be in cinemas awhile. Completely agree with your thoughts on the twist in Orphan: First Kill.



Speaking of cinemas, advance screening tonight (Wednesday)
🎃 🔪!!

Oct 11, 2022 14:27:15 GMT System said:

Emperor smile is #1 at the box office it will be in cinemas awhile. Completely agree with your thoughts on the twist in Orphan: First Kill.

That's good, I know horror movies have a tendency to disappear pretty quickly, but glad Smile is such a big deal.

Was this thread for new movies or is it ok for me to post about old shit.

I found an old movie I forgot about, The Jacket from like 2004 with Adrien Brody. I remember loving this when it came out but never saw it again and forgot it even existed until last night. Damn it is so good. I don’t know if it classifies as horror though it seemed to be marketed as such.

But yeah on the dvd was the trailer for House Of Wax the remake another forgotten one, the trailer actually looked pretty dope

Post whatever you want here. House of Wax remake was fun. Not a great film, but works in a campy way. Also was the catalyst that would see Paris Hilton audition for Repo. Surprised she stopped horror too after Repo, as the Repo crew put her over so much and would have gladly worked with her on future projects.

I saw a trailer for a sci-fi horror film called MΞGAN earlier tonight while seeing Halloween Ends (I'll get to that in another thread), I just want to say it looks awesome AF. I'm sure c has mentioned it already, but I did a quick look and didn't see it, even if he did though, this gives people a chance to see the trailer who might not have already.

We also saw the trailer for a supernatural horror movie called Prey For The Devil, the Wife wants to see it, although I'm eh on it.

I have two spots on each side of my TV where I have movie posters framed, the two that I've had up for the last year are Rocky and Scarface. But for this month I decided to get some horror movie posters. I had a good time trying to narrow it down to just 2, some that were finalists include Popcorn, The Stuff, Hellraiser, and this Friday 13th part 7 poster. I ended up going classic with The Bride Of Frankenstein and House On Haunted Hill, just classy old school posters that look good framed.

But it dawned on me that part 7 is Such an underrated Friday movie, Jason vs Carrie is pretty epic scrap and Bernie from Weekend At Bernies as the evil fuck psychologist that you want to see get fucked up by Jason is gold. Definitely my favorite poster of the series too. Jason just looks the coolest in this one, it was 1988 so of course he's Arnold Swarzenegger Jason on steroids but they honored part 6 with all of the damage to his body(the propeller to the face). Jason in part 7 is just fucking huge and freakish strong and is at his peak of bad ass-iveness. This one also has some of the best special effects and the un-masking of Jason is gnarly as fuck. 

System is right. Smile is brilliant. Definitely worth the trip to the cinema.

One of the horror trailers stood out to me. Sadly I forget the title, but the premise was sort of like Airbnb horror. I also recognised the main actress but no idea where from. Sucks to be my memory.

Oct 17, 2022 21:24:04 GMT Emperor said:

System is right. Smile is brilliant. Definitely worth the trip to the cinema.

One of the horror trailers stood out to me. Sadly I forget the title, but the premise was sort of like Airbnb horror. I also recognised the main actress but no idea where from. Sucks to be my memory.

Barbarian ?

Yep that's the one!

That has been getting good reviews at fests.

//

Whoo at 92 after 151 review on Rotten Tomato.  Maybe should move that up on my watch list...

Oct 18, 2022 15:24:44 GMT Emperor said:

Yep that's the one!

It’s tremendous, best if you learn nothing ahead of time.

Reviews seem in agreement about going in dark for it. Likely will watch this later this week since the reviews were so solid for it. Clearly I misjudged this film when talking about standouts from the fests as I assumed it was basic by the books home invasion or revenge porn. It was always mentioned but people stayed vague about it.

Piggy is out now too. Not sure if I dropped a trailer or not but this and Barbarian were the standouts from the film fest reviews I saw.

Early reviews on VHS99 are it is the best film of the series. Good news for the series, as VHS94 should be better with the insane quality of directors they roped into it. Likely will become a yearly series.

///

Also finally got a trailer for Something in the Dirt, the new film from Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead who made The Endless and Spring.  These guys are masters of the Lovecraft style.  One line for this x-files meets the blogging age.  Story about two normal guys who find something that may be supernatural and investigate it.  

Early reviews say it is in the universe they created and another one of their minimalistic films where they write, direct and act themselves and shoot generally on a single set.  Also say it is a really good sci-fi story if you like their DIY style of film making.

Looked into Barbarian, the story of the film is unreal. Studios were not interested in at all in the story with A24 and other smaller horror studios passing on producing it. Was picked up by a french studio who's backer died and was almost not released at all as a result, until New Regency picked it up. Got distributed on the limited release because of a deal New Regency had with Fox, which rolled over to Disney who planned to just toss it on hulu with the rest of the trash.

Once it finally made it to test screenings got such a good reception that Disney decided to do a limited theater release.
Film was made on a 4.5 million budget and took 41 at the box so far. Release was originally planned to be very limited but word of mouth and reviews were so strong that the massive second week drop that you see in tickets did not happen, and they been expanding the release and increasing promotion since it's release last month. Gets an international release now next week, and in two weeks comes to HBO Max. Assume this is when the film will blow the hell up.

///

Watched it tonight and it is absolutely amazing. Like holy shit did this go WAY under the radar. Assume it will be a cult classic in no time at all. Not sure I seen a film like this since Martyrs, which this film is clearly inspired by.

Just got back from Barbarian completely agree with everyone else to go in completely blind. I hadn’t even watched the trailer I tagged emperor in, I just knew it had to with airBNB.

Similar to Channing Tatum being credited in the opening of The Hateful Eight, even looking at the cast of this film can be a spoiler.

I really liked it but I didn’t think it was the masterpiece others a claiming, spoiler filled thoughts below:

SPOILER: Click to show

I loved that it’s a film that rewards you for paying attention but once you pick up on what it’s setting out to accomplish you have a suspicion that it is a female behind the proceedings. Once Tess’ line about why is it always the girls getting their heart smashed in, I immediately knew no females were going to die in the film (except the incest woman). Which is where I feel like a lot of the huge praise will come from that it’s mostly men suffering like the original Alien.

The tension and suspense build up in the first act was amazing, excellent use of lighting and delaying the sparing jump scares as long as possible.

The hard shift in the second act was brilliantly done but I feel like this is where the film fell apart in the final act. My cinema was quiet and tense through most of the showing and then when AJ threw Tessa off the silo…bursts of laughter as it looked like something out of a 90s Mortal Kombat film. Completely destroying everything that the film had built up to.

Compliment when the reveal of the “monster” is by far the worst part of the film as it’s yet another ugly creepy woman with dark hair, even if the backstory was different it’s still something seen visually in horror a lot.

Keith being an innocent guy and Tessa being super suspicious of him and later wanting to go back and save AJ who unknown to her is a rapist was an interesting twist within the many twists in the film. Same with Tess mentioning about a guy just waltzing in which is exactly what AJ does later in the film.

I think a much better ending would have been to have AJ basically “framed” for all the stuff in his airBNB as he already looks super suspicious after flying to Detroit after the rape allegation.

I know that doesn’t really work for the whole mother nurturing her children aspect but it seemed like a direction the film backed off on going. A lot of the things hinted at don’t really hold up to scrutiny but neither do most things in horror films.

Not sure when Barbarian releases in the UK, it's generating a lot of buzz!

Have we not talked about Incantation on PW? Taiwanese found footage horror film on Netflix. Two of my friends have seen it and have nothing but good things to say.

As for me, I'm not quite sure how to react. I've never seen anything quite like Incantation before so it's hard to describe. What I can say is that it's brilliantly made, and although I spent most of the film thinking it's a story that asks a lot of questions without providing any answers, but fortunately the answers are provided in full in the end, and it really delivers.

Freaky story with lots of freaky imagery. Could have done without the first third of the movie being so crazily non-linear, and thinking back some of the scenes seemingly don't have much relevance to the overall story, but for the most part I liked it. Super engaging. Not especially scary but unsettling throughout.

I found a comment online that mentioned a resurgence in found footage films.

Now that the hype regarding this subgenre is largely over there seems to be a small found footage/mockumentary renaissance going on. This one, "The Medium", "The Outwaters", "Dashcam", "Horror in the High Desert" and "Howard's Mill" were all decent additions to the genre released just since last year.

c are you aware of any of these?

Incantation and the Medium are on my list to see as they had a lot of buzz. Heard of Dashcam but not the others. Found footage always been a thing since Blair Witch (and Man Bites Dog prior) it is super cheap to make. Always a few that get buzz a year. Watching Deadstream tonight that was supposed to be good. The director's segment in the new VHS movie was absolutely insane. 



Also new VHS has two amazing segments. Flying Lotus blew me away utterly with Ozzy's Dungeon, a take on Legends of the Hidden where a kid gets hurt and his parents kidnap the host and make him do a twisted version of the game. Then Vanessa & Joseph Winter's (who did Deadstream) To Hell and Back was amazing. Two kids in a ritual that goes wrong get sent to hell. Hell was low budget but amazing looking. Mixed in a was a fun monster short by Tyler MacIntyre using a fucking gorgon. First two segments were not great, but decent enough to found out the film.

Anyone else watching The Last Drive-In (except for mikec who’s there) ?

Oct 22, 2022 1:16:27 GMT System said:

Anyone else watching The Last Drive-In (except for mikec who’s there) ?

Nah we saw his speaking tour where he’s doing a presentation called “How Rednecks Saved Hollywood”. It was very entertaining and the wife had quite a time meeting him and Darcy. I put a pic of Joe Bob from the meet and greet in the spoiler tag.

She’s watching tonight so I hang out with the kiddo to run interference. I like him but unless its a movie my wife thinks I’ll like (Frankenhooker and Train to Busan for two) I usually don’t see much. I do enjoy Elvira’s campiness though.

SPOILER: Click to show

Oh man, I missed it when it was released, but watched Deadstream tonight and it was amazing. Low budget found footage film about a youtuber investigating a haunted house. We seen this before a few times, but this was the best take I seen on it. A lot of really fun twists and great effects. Really creepy film too.

Cannot recommend this enough. Between this and their VHS 99 segment this team is gonna be a powerhouse in horror.