ntnon

The Boogeyman (1980) was pretty good. Some fairly frightening elements, I thought. That said, while it worked in context, in retrospect the reflective shard of mirror over the main girl's eye made her look ever-so-slightly like a Borg...

clckworang

If we're still keeping up with equipment failures, the DVR in my living room is acting up. I don't thin kit was able to get any of my regular programs tonight. Ugh. What a pain. My old receiver that I was using for my outdoor theater has also finally bit the dust. I bought a new one, and it's still not working correctly. Double ugh. The curse of October!

DaveyJoe

I tried to like this post but apparently this isn't facebook. We've all been there, especially when arguing about the 6th entry of a horror movie franchise.

Julie Walker

Tonight I had my first double feature of the challenge and it was an odd pairing since the styles of both films are polar opposites.

First up was Christine (1983), which I hadn't seen in years, and still find a well made entertaining movie. A nice polished film, great acting, pacing, camerawork and everything. It's also very subtle in terms of content, with only the language really giving it its R rating. The film is also far better than the book in my opinion. The book is great for the character bits, especially in the first half. But all the stuff with Christine in the novel became laughable and suspension of disbelief went out the window for myself. I guess it was supposed to be darkly funny at that point, but the jarring shift in tone just took me out of it. Those who've read the book may know what I'm referring too for the Christine scenes in the novel.


Then was The Last House On The Left (1972), a low budget film that is amateurish in everything from camera work, editing and acting. It's a completely unsubtle film from the supposed class warfare clashing, to the violence and everything.

Both are great films in their own unique ways. And the blu-ray transfers of both films looked great, and the audio was well done as well.

And I must say, I'm not being harsh on Last House in terms of discussing the quality of the production. But that raw amateurish aspect is part of it's charm and why the film stands a part from everything out there. It works despite all the rough around the edges film-making. And it's far superior to the brutally boring slick polished and safer(despite the content) big budget remake. I'm a huge fan of the film, and love everything about it(the off-kilter tone, the acting, the music, etc). It's an inspiration for anyone interested in making low budget independent movies, but not sure how. You just go out there and make one and give it your all and learn as you go! And that raw inexperience can result in some great unique films, and lots of crap as well.

SterlingBen

Mondo, any problems playing it? About 15 mins in my PS3 decided it wanted no part in this. The 360 had no problem though.

mrcellophane

I finally sat down and watched Interview with the Vampire in its entirety. It's one of those films that was perpetually on television for a number of years, so I had caught portions of it while channel surfing or leaving the TV on for background noise. In fact the last time I saw part of it was last October while celebrating a family birthday and watching a chunk of it (the Paris stuff) with a cousin. Now that I've put all the pieces together, I liked it!

Sure parts of it are clunky (especially the late addition of Antonio Banderas) and uneven, but overall it's an effective film that sexes up vampire but also infuses them with the Gothic tones I often feel is missing from our modern vampire narratives. I was also impressed with the homosexual undertones - though ofttimes the subtext became text. The film acknowledges the sexual nature of vampires turning others, and the relationship between Louis and Lestat plays like a marriage in trouble when Claudia is introduced. Glad I decided to pop this one into the player!

cwileyy

I've been working a ton, and haven't watched anything in a few days. Hoping to break the spell tomorrow with FTV's of Creepshow and Village of the Damned!

PhantomStranger

I thought The Scribbler was a very trippy experience. It did have Gina Gershon walking around with a gigantic snake, so there is that. The movie must have been shelved or something from a while ago, Katie Cassidy looks almost nothing like how she does today on Arrow.

I ended up taking in Rats: Night of Terror. Thinking back, I believe I had seen it many years ago and forgotten about it, especially the twist ending. It does have a couple of effectively creepy scenes for 80s cheese.

Mondo Kane

Oh, I watched it elsewhere (Online) No problems there As for the movie itself, it is what it is. But once that exorcist showed up, I was letting loose with the laughs (Some great dialogue from him!)

mightysparks

Am I the only person who doesn't like any Japanese horror movies? Ok, I like a few (3 out of the 54 I've seen), but I find most of them totally bland and wooden and not scary at all.

shadokitty

I only got one movie in yesterday, due to my annual Halloween excursion, and watching the World Series last night. Plan to make up for it today though.

brainee

I've always had a soft spot for this movie. But I can't stress enough ... avoid the sequel at all costs!!!!!

Trevor

Wait, you've watched 54 of them pretty much knowing you won't like them? Were you held against your will?

Darkgod

Is The Creeping Flesh considered a Frankenstein movie?

mightysparks

As I stated the other day - there's no way of knowing whether I'm going to like something before I watch it

Trevor

True, but if my hit/miss ratio was less than 50% on any genre, let alone subgenre, I would quit trying! Life is too short mightysparks, never watch j-horror again. That's less than a 6% success rate!

mightysparks

My hit/miss ratio is low with films in general though (I think it's like 25%) The guys on my forum are constantly asking me why I even bother watching movies if I don't like most of them... but it's worth it to find just one gem. I'm just hard to please, so I have to do the hard slog to get a reward. This is what my ratings breakdown looks like (my 7s are split into 'really good' and 'love', so consider 7+ as favourite):


But I am surprised people are generally overwhelmingly positive towards J-horror. I don't think I've ever met anyone else who doesn't really like them.

shadokitty

I just started my day off with a very interesting doc on the history of the American horror film. It's called Nightmares in Red, White, and Blue. It had a lot of clips, interview excerpts from some of the great directors, and to top it off, it was narrated by Lance Henricksen.

Trevor

Your chart makes me my disease want to do something similar.

But actually, I guess we all define "good" and "hit or miss" differently when it comes to our enjoyment of films. If 5.5 is average, then you're spot on.

Of course, most of us probably try to watch things we hope be better than average, and avoid stuff we are fairly sure will score lower, so perhaps our averages are higher? I don't know, lots of variability here, but it makes me curious. I don't track my ratings outside of trying to rate much of what I watch on IMDB, research time!

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

I watched Dark Waters and can't remember a thing about it. Watching one japanese ghost girl movie is like watching the same monster show up in a ton of different movies but none of them are ever scary. For me it's "oh no, now the girl is standing over there when she wasn't before and when we look back, she won't be there again" and towards the end of the movie it's "oh no, the girl is standing in many different places in such a short amount of time".

I was going to say this but with the sequels. Neither of them are good.

mightysparks

Yeah, I pretty much just watch EVERYTHING. The guys on my forum call my taste 'mysterious' since no-one (not even I) can predict what I'm going to like. I've been mainly focusing on classic cinema and the like for the last few years (I've almost finished TSPDT, 31 to go), but my true love is horror and I mostly disagree with critics.

And regarding my 'graph'; I keep a spreadsheet with all films I watch (no short films), because I'm obsessed with Excel and graphs Some examples: http://imgur.com/a/82YRZ

BobO'Link

I tend to agree. There are several genres and sub-genres which I do not like at all. I avoid them whenever possible *with* a few exceptions (basically highly rated and/or "classics" of a genre). It's very rare I find something in those areas I would spend time with again. BUT...

I also fall into this trap. Sometimes (often?) I'll watch something I tend to not like hoping it'll be that *one* gem that might prove me wrong about my overall feelings.
Unless you count some of the early Japanese "horror" films like Matango, The X from Outer Space, Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell, and others J-horror I don't know that I've ever really seen one. Mainly because the descriptions generally don't make them sound like something I'd like.
I lean towards stuff I truly think I'll like - but you have to keep in mind that I have a love for 50s/60s "B" SF/Horror films, many of which, at best, rate 5 stars out of 10 from me. I like to think those films I think are *great* are truly few and far between. I've seen so many films in my life that it's difficult to find something I consider "new" or "different" which makes getting a higher score from me (7 or above) a rarity.

brainee

Now I'm imagining a Mystery Science Theater set-up, with mighysparks being held captive and being forced to watch Japanese horror movies

shadokitty

Just looked at my list. I need 31 movies in 11 days, to average at about 3 movies a day to reach my goal of 100 for the month. Sitting at 69.5 right now.

brainee

Even 50 is a pipe dream for me this year But 31 movies in 31 days has a ring to it I suppose