Mondo Kane

Just got done with that. Nice 80's cheese!!! It contains the best false alarm (i.e, cheap scare) that I've seen yet (It involves a tractor)
I see that the director also did Blood Diner. That will also be another first-time viewing for me when the subset comes along.

Just one so far (From Dusk til Dawn....Still wish QT would do one for one of his own damn movies someday!)
Witchboard will be my next commentary. Might get around to that one within the next few days.

Undeadcow

Spider Baby was a lot of fun and a highlight so far in my challenge participation - it's a good mix of cartoonish absurdity and creepiness. It definitely lives up to the hype and has a great theme song.

Devil (2010) was an interesting 'better than I thought' watch but like many of Shyamalan's films probably won't have great replace value.

V/H/S/2 is really good so far with some creepy point of view effects. The first story genuinely scared me and overall it's got some subtle self-aware humor but gets weaker in the last half.

No commentaries so far - still trying to decide on a good one. FWIW The original I Spit on your Grave commentary with Joe Bob Briggs is one of the best.

Julie Walker

I finally got my first two viewings for the month in. Also I thought I had reserved a spot on the list thread, unless it was posted in the wrong challenge thread. So I'm near the end of that thread, unless more people join in after me.

I had a terror at school double feature which both happened to be on Vestron Video, and feature similar 'twists' in the ending in terms of

First up was Slaughter High, the R rated version. This is a fun little flick, and delivers a nice body count, good gore, and a real shocker of an ending. It's extremely cheesy and stupid with illogical plot devices and situations, and yet the film has a sense of fun, and even is a bit disturbing and 'evil' feeling in some spots. The

Next it was on to college with Splatter University, the R rated version. This is a Troma distributed film by Richard W. Haines. I've run into the director on some forums before, and it was amusing when I complained that the film was boring, and had no idea the director was posting in the forum! I thought I'd give the film a second chance all these years later, and it's an okay film, but nothing great, and it is a long 78 minutes(R version, unrated is 79 minutes from what I recall). It's not as bad as I first recalled, but still nothing great either. I think only two gory moments were cut from the R version, but then the film was never that gruesome to begin with despite the title.

Originally I planned to start the challenge off with the new blu-ray of Halloween. But my excessive work schedule and other matters taking up all my time this past week, I postponed my viewings. So today, I finally said 'enough' and decided to get into it, since I have some down time finally.

jacob_b

I met Joe Bob Briggs...he's a very quiet man in person. Didn't know he did a commentary for that movie, which is funny, because Camille was also at the same convention. So is that commentary on the DVD of the movie?

Undeadcow

The Joe Bob Briggs commentary is on the DVD of I Spit On Your Grave (1978), at least it's on the Elite Entertainment Edition and Anchor Bay blu-ray. That's one celebrity I'd love to meet, Joe Bob Briggs... too bad he doesn't seem to do much anymore.

jacob_b

I'm surprised he was at the convention I was at, then, since it was a first time convention. Got to talk with him for a bit as I walked him from the train station to the hotel (he enjoyed walking and trains I guess). But good to know. Why did he do the commentary for the movie, anyways? I know one of the guys that was apart of the movie and turned to porn hated the movie and hated being apart of it for some odd reason =/

Dick Laurent

Tonight was my first (or maybe greatest) treat of the challenge thus far: Frankenstein's Army. I was skeptical due to all the hype and press this film was getting, but holly crap is it fun. A pure entertainment treasure. And the best part is all of the SFX are on screen, which was no easy task for Unreal.

Imaginative, unique, fantastical, and at times truly mesmerizing. Highly recommend watching, or even buying. Blind buy for me, and probably my best blind buy to date.

brainee

I just watched this ... and while I overall enjoyed it, it looks like I had the opposite reaction. While the first two stories were alright, they were things I'd seen many times before: a guy seeing ghosts after an eye operation and a zombie POV story. The third segment was just insane and really made the movie for me. The characters in the last were annoying and the alien abduction plot nothing new. But the aliens were creepy (especially with the blaring lights and horns).

mightysparks

I suck at screenshot/poster type quizzes, but I took a stab at this one. Some of them I only knew due to luck (one I just happened to have on my watchlist for this month and another was one we had a copy of for years and the cover both interested me and turned me off at the same time).

I also had this idea to put a header in my list of the posters of the best 5 FTV's I did during the challenge, but so far I've only seen one that I liked enough to include Not having much luck so far...

ntnon

Oh, good. That pleases me - I ordered it into the library for today, but didn't get it in time, so I was wondering whether to suffer through splat another day, or send it back. Now, I might watch it...

I was quite pleased that most of Lords of Salem wasn't nearly as nasty as I'd been expecting - "splat", Rob Zombie - so although I wasn't terribly enamored, I wasn't disgusted and actually partly enjoyed it.

EdTheRipper

None yet, but I am intending to finally getting around to completing my Masters of Horror discs. I've watched all the episodes, but have skipped the bonus features. I started watching them with the commentary tracks last year, but just didn't finish. I'll get around to it this year. And in keeping with last year's idea, I'll watch the interviews and other stuff and add up a bunch of them for my wildcards. That way I will have finally watched EVERYTHING on those discs.

JOE29

Starting World War Z in a few minutes, haven't seen it yet. Then hopefully get in a couple more after that.

Spiderbite

The movie looks pretty horrific to me. The situation scares the shit out of me. I don't see why movies like The Reef would count and Gravity would not. Chad?

JOE29

World War Z, was predictable as usual. Reminded me of I am Legend, Resident Evil, etc.

Cardsfan111

Just finished Red State. Not sure how I'd missed hearing about this one considering it has several big names in it--John Goodman, Stephen Root, Kevin Pollak, Melissa Leo. This was one of those intense films that I'm glad I watched, but I don't think I'll check out again.

ntnon

None. I'm trying to decide whether to personally justify finally buying Repo! and hoping there's a commentary, or picking a Universal Monster. And if the latter, whether I should watch it 'properly' first or not, in my own vague chronological attempt. (Which was such a great idea I borrowed it...)

EDIT:
Oh.

I wrote a big long piece about just how good Repo! is, and apparently it didn't post. Anyway, it's really good: the whole cast does an excellent job - even Paris Hilton, playing Paris Hilton - and the music is by turns both operatic, rock-y, satirical and cleverly-awful. The whole thing works on every level, and probably now ranks in my personal top ten in every one of it's multi-genres: horror, sci-fi, satire, spoof, musical, family drama... It even breaks the meta- barrier at the end, when most of the cast wind up on stage at the finale of an opera, partly singing about how operatic their own lives are!

Anthony Stewart Head is a great flawed hero/antihero/hero/villain, torn by his "secret, Repo life!" and his familial duties. Alexa Vega as his daughter gets to do full opera, mock-opera, rock and pathos and handles them all well. Some of the lines in many of the songs are just brilliantly awful but my impression is that they are pointedly and deliberately so. The plot is by turns ludicrous and believable; crazy and worryingly accurate.. this could well seem like a musical documentary in a few years' time. Paul Sorvino is an excellent pater familias and main villain, while the whole occasional fade-to-comic-strip allows all the different aspects and genres to mesh really well and allows the backstory to be easily interpolated during the main story.

It's a very good film. Excellent social satire, great "body horror" (which I don't enjoy, but this is both restrained and briefly comedically over-the-top so it never crosses over into nastiness. And the music is great. Mad, but great.

Undeadcow

V/H/S/2 is a really interesting movie because you're right some of it has been done many times before but I think that it was parodying the genre while still being creepy on it's own. That third segment was crazy and fun, definitely different - it was good but the first two felt more suspenseful/creepy then it switched to nuts WTF mode. A lot of the V/H/S/2 segments felt self-aware, the park segment seemed to bask in being derivative of other movies or the cheesy transparent special effects in the kids with cameras segment felt intentional to lampoon b-movies, while still being scary (damn those sirens and lights). Altogether V/H/S/2 has been a highlight of the challege so far for me; hopefully they make a third one.What first time viewing was the standout this month?

So far for me it's been Spider Baby, Mama, and V/H/S/2.The more I keep hearing about Frankenstein's Army the more I want to see it. The trailer looks really good but that cheesy cover art isn't doing it any favors at a glance. I'm sure if they were more transparent that Frankenstein's Army is the movie teased for years as Worst Case Scenario (which is still on some "greatest movies never made" type lists) then it'd do a lot better.

shadokitty

Started my day with not only a first time view, but also my first Mario Bava film, as Baron Blood was being aired on Epix Drive-In this morning. Took me a little bit to get into it, but after a little while I actually started to enjoy the movie.

Gobear

My copy of Repo! has two commentaries: director and actors, and director and composers. The Blu-Ray is only $8.81 on Amazon right now, so get it!

I watched The Caretaker last night, aka early this morning. It's an asskicking vampire flick from Australia. The basic premise: a mysterious, mosquito-borne illness sweeping through urban centers turns out to be vampirism, and after scenes of slaughter in a hospital and a pub we hear from radio in the background that civilization has fallen. In a small town, a quartet of survivors are holed up in a house where a doctor-turned-vampire has made a deal with them to watch him during the day and he will guard them from other vampires at night.

The tension in the film isn't from the vampires, but from the humans in conflict with each other, especially with the house's owner, a middle-aged creep who is using the vampire apocalypse for his own advantage. For a movie made on pocket change, it's absolutely beautifully filmed.

pacaway

Maybe there's an argument to be made there. Are there wild-cards in this challenge?

mrcellophane

Last night, I cracked open a hard cider (if a sorority girl would love a particular drink, so would I) and watched Gremlins all the way through for the very first time. When I was a kid, I tried to watch it, but the gremlins scared me too much, and I never really attempted to watch the whole thing, only catching bits and pieces on television. I really enjoyed the comedic tone as well as the sweet moments. I loved that the mother used all of her husband's flawed inventions to make him happy and that Phoebe Cates was so nice to the patrons of the bar. Great film!

pacaway

Saw Gremlins at the theater last year during a digital film festival. It was great to see it again that way.

mrcellophane

That must have been awesome! I've only seen a handful of classic films put back on the big screen (Beauty & the Beast, Ghostbusters, Singin' in the Rain). Unfortunately, the closest theater that has any of these programs is a good 45 minutes from my house.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

Had a day to cool off some but part of the reason is that I don't feel a connection here that I used to and it a side order of seeing the same thing happen again with the challenge. In fact, I silently left mid-July and came back September just to see how I felt about coming back for this challenge.

Another reason to stop the fighting would be that it's not going to look good to any sponsors that come in to see how things are going.

I will give it another go here. I think part of my frustrations with everything also relate to things going on at work over the last few months and it's hard to find a positive attitude working on a huge project that's horribly underfunded with huge workloads, no time to work on it and do the regular job, no ability for overtime, yet it's a critical project that absolutely has to be completed. In addition, we recently averted a strike, budgets are poor, and there's huge changes going on with how things are going to run yet there doesn't seem to be any real planning for the future. It's just years of the same things we've heard before about having to be nimble and flexible yet it seems like there's a new plan every year where much of it just gets put off.

A speech that was given a couple weeks ago, it was brought up if the plan was going to save money. I says a lot about the planning of things when the answer was, "It has to." Now to me, that sounds a lot like your plans involve praying for things to work without actually researching things before going ahead with them.

I think it was edited to make it seem like an accident but the designers knew what they were doing since those guys are going to hell too(according to their beliefs).

mightysparks

Well, I can't say it was amazing, but Dead Heat. It was a lot better than I expected and it was a lot of fun.