mightysparks

Yesterday was pretty disappointing...

8. Devil's Due (2014) 4/10
A newlywed couple find themselves with an early pregnancy, that appears to have strange effects on its mother. This was pretty awful, and felt way too similar to many other pregnancy-horrors. The found footage format did not work at all and seemed to only be used in order to chop up the narrative. It was very boring and didn't really have anything to say about anything. All of the characters are exceptionally unlikable; the awful cutesy couple crap was painful, their relationship was horrible. Also, Sam claims she's been taking the pill religiously and yet they are overjoyed about her unexpected pregnancy, that really pissed me off.

9. Honeymoon Horror (1982) 4/10
Three newlywed couples arrive at a honeymoon resort on a secluded island and find themselves being killed off one by one. With the secluded island setting and a plot surrounding young newlyweds, you'd expect this film to be a bit saucy and a pretty fun slasher romp, right? Nope. No sauce or a lick of fun to be had here. It is mostly filled with talking and aimless wandering, with some really lame kills. The effects aren't good and the editing sucks too. The acting is terrible and the dialogue is weird, with random lines tacked on to the end of scenes or thrown in awkwardly during a scene.

10. I Married a Vampire (1987) 5/10
A naive girl moves to the big city and finds herself taken advantage by everyone she meets, until a nice, handsome vampire enters the picture to get revenge on all those who mistreated her. For a low budget film, this is actually not so bad. The acting is ok - the lead is the worst, but the supporting cast are all campy and fun - and it's kind of amusing and funny at times. However, it never comes through with its promise, there is very little romancing with the vampire, there is no wedding, and the 'revenge' is too little, too late. Even without considering Troma's involvement, there is almost no on-screen gore or violence and it's kind of disappointing to have these sleazy characters all set up for us and we don't even get to see them really pay.

11. The Green Slime (1968) 5/10
A team of scientists destroy an asteroid heading for Earth, but bring back a slimy green substance which feeds on energy. This isn't that great, but isn't really deserving of its bad movie status (especially compared to many similar films that aren't). It looks good, and with better acting and effects it would've easily been a pretty fun B-movie romp. Its biggest letdown is the 'slime' creature itself; the initial slimy substance they found is promising, but then it turns into the most boring and lame squealing, slow-moving vacuum monster thing that is not in the least bit scary or threatening. The last hour is a real drag.

JOE29

Got in a couple of tens today. The Horror of Dracula and Anthony Perkins in Psycho. I was very happy watching both of these movies today.
Love the ending of Psycho when Norman is in his jail cell. Creepy.

shadokitty

I saw Psycho ​​​​​​ this morning too Joe. It was also a very late first time view for me and I loved it. I’ve been working my way through disc 1 of A Haunting ​​​​​​ the past couple of days. I perked right up when I saw Hans Holzer on one episode. I never heard of him before this year, but I know the name now from a commercial on The Travel Channel about his files.

Undeadcow

Saw a bizzare film called Who's Watching Oliver? that's totally stupid but weirdly entertaining featuring a nerdy british lad gruesomely murdering people while an older woman, apparently his mum, gleefully cheers him on by laptop webcam. It's ten times more awesome that any description could make it sound with a compelling mix of overacting, gore, sleaze, and psychodrama that is enjoyable but inexplicable.

Brightburn was a disappointment - seemed more keyed into lampooning Superman than delivering tension, too tongue-in-cheek.

Checking out Der Fan for today's playground theme. It's a shame Mondo Macabro's red case limited editions started getting so scarce and hard to grab. A Haunting is a really under-rated show, for a docudrama it's one of the more frightening shows on television. I'll admit the pilot movie A Haunting in Conneticut (not to be confused with the lame studio movie, I don't think it's on the disc set) scared me for a while after seeing it.

cwileyy

Watched Tombs of the Blind Dead, and was surprised to see that IMDB say it has a PG rating! This one had torture, nudity, rape... that can't be the correct rating, right?

jacob_b

Was it from back in the day? Usually those films had some low ratings if I'm not mistaken.

cwileyy

It's from 1972, and you're definitely right about the PG rating being more lax at that time. But, I still found myself surprised to see a PG rating for this one after watching the movie.

Darkgod

does Lair of the white worm count as folk horror

mallratcal

I'm going on strike tomorrow. Been averaging 5 movies a day (I'm on vacation) This will slow me down a bit but at least I'm not dying this year.

MysterioMan007

As far as zombie apocalypse musicals go, Anna and the Apocalypse is pretty fun. Anna walking down the street obliviously singing a song about how great of a day it's going to be while zombies maul everyone in the background rivals Shaun of the Dead's zombie intro scene. Fun stuff, but also a fun zombie flick.

WillieMLF

I really need to give Anna and the Apocalypse another try. It has some really positive word of mouth, and I tried to watch it a few weeks ago. Couldn't get through the first ten minutes.

MysterioMan007

Once the zombies show up, it turns into a totally different movie. The comedy aspect slowly disappears from the narrative the longer the movie goes...I really enjoyed it. It was different, but I'm not sure how often I'll watch it.

Chad

Caught three supernatural films over the past two days...

Hell House III: Lake of Fire - These films get progressively worse as they go along. The first I thought was actually somewhat scary, and one of the better found footage films. The second overexplained everything. This one was full of dime store effects and just plain dull.

Crimson Peak - Another lavish, big budget production with terrible CGI that took me right out of it. With convincing practical effects this could have been a classic.

The Ghost of Seirra De Cobre - I really dug this lost TV pilot turned into a film. Very eery and moody, and reminded me a bit of The Uninvited.

Undeadcow

Personally I'd count it on the premise that folk horror encompasses natural woodsy rural settings and/or elder creatures such as form the basis of mythology.

DaveyJoe

I watched the original [REC] for the first time, I really enjoyed it and I'm not a huge found footage fan, though I'm not a hater either. One thing that does bother me about the sub-genre is they always open with a scene of a somber person sitting in an edit suite talking about how they found footage from a tragic event, and they're going to show it to you, the viewer, in all its uncensored glory, because the story of that tragic day must be heard by the world. So cheesy once you've seen it a few times. [REC] just dives right into the story, trusting the audience to be smart enough to keep up with it, and I thought overall the film was quite well done. Going to check out part 2 tonight and 3 tomorrow.

Trevor

I haven’t read much horror fiction, especially modern stuff, and am curious to what people are reading.

I’ve heard good things about Thomas Ligotti. I’ve really enjoyed Joe Hill’s comic book work, so may try one of his novels.

Chad

Needed some lighthearted reading while prepping the challenge and read "My Best Friend's Exorcism" by Grady Hendrix and currently in the middle of "Video Night: A Novel of Alien Horror" by Adam Cesare. They make for a great back-to-back read since both are set in 1988 and brimming with 80's nostalgia.

Also Paperbacks from Hell is amazing. (another Grady Hendrix).

DaveyJoe

House of Leaves is one of the craziest and most unique horror books I've read. It's sort of like reading a David Lynch movie, you're not entirely sure WTF is going on but you also can't look away.

mightysparks

Spoils of yesterday.. In Fabric is definitely worth checking out if you like weird, unsettling stuff. Looking forward to a day of zombies today.

12. Der Fan (1982) 6/10
A teenage girl develops an unhealthy obsession with a pop star. This was recommended to me by Carota some time ago on iCM, so I saved it for this challenge. The slow build-up of Simone's obsession was good, and used the music really well (that song was really catchy too). But once the climax rolled around, it felt like it had been for nothing as her obsession never really totally resonated strongly enough, you know, like that her heart was just going to burst out of her kind of thing. Though the film is a bit stylized, it lets itself down at the climax because it's not stylized enough, and it feels too stagey. Still an entertaining watch, with a good, likable performance by the lead actress (though, a stronger actress could've brought more to the role).

13. Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? (1971) 5/10
A widow who lost her daughter many years ago invites orphans to her home for an annual Christmas party, but this year she decides she wants to keep one of the little girls. Shelley Winters is pretty amusing in this, with some creepy/weird moments (eg, the apple munching), but otherwise it's kind of dull and there's not a lot of horror. The kids are horrible and impossible to care about; the boy does an ok job acting-wise, but the girl is awful and the character is a greedy piece of crap and it would've been better if Winters was going to eat her. It's not a very interesting take on Hansel and Gretel, though the idea of the kids believing she was a witch could've been cool.

14. In Fabric (2018) 6/10
A lonely divorced woman is convinced to buy a red dress that seems to have a sinister background. This film was pretty weird and creepy, and also quite funny. There were moments that you just get lost in its weirdness until it snaps you out of it. The acting was really good, but the narrative can sometimes feel a bit tacked together. It's more about the atmosphere here, which it does really well, but it has all these great moments with no coherency. Though it's not really an anthology film, the first 'story' was much stronger with more interesting characters and dynamics and general creepiness, while the second was a little more comedic and silly.

15. Gurotesuku (2009) 6/10
A sadistic doctor kidnaps a young couple to torture. This is a pretty cheap and nasty film, and when pretty much the definition of 'torture porn', but it's somewhat effective in its nastiness. The film doesn't hold back from getting its hands dirty, or from letting the audience see anything and it keeps the torture going pretty much non-stop. It takes a while for it to grow on you and for its sense of humour to come out. At that point though, it's disappointing that the victims weren't a little more... sympathetic; you do root for them, but at the same time you don't really care. The speech the woman gave at the end was weird as well, though it was interesting to me that he had no sense of smell (since I don't either) and I kind of wish this had been a bigger part of his character.

16. Man's Best Friend (1993) 5/10
A reporter rescues a genetically engineered dog with psychopathic tendencies from a laboratory. A real borefest, with the cute dogs being the only thing making it worth watching. It's listed as a comedy on IMDb, but there isn't really much 'comedic' about this (aside from Frederic Lehne's goofy character), it seems like a straight sci-fi horror. The concept of the genetically engineered dog is wasted on a dog that can understand humans, but otherwise just barks a lot and attacks and kills people for no reason. The human characters are even more pointless, and the whole thing just really drags.

JAX036

Thank you for all your hard work. It is greatly appreciated!

cwileyy

I need to revisit this one... saw it in theaters and felt incredibly underwhelmed, as it was marketed as a horror film but really was not much of a horror film at all. Also felt a bit predictable, but it was gorgeous.

Regarding the CG, I was actually surprised how much I thought was CG ended up being practical. I can't search for them right now, but there are some videos on Youtube showing this.

Greg MacGuffin

I read this collection a couple years ago and really enjoyed it.

cwileyy

Saw Annabelle on Day 2 for the first time. I never really had interest in this one until hearing the good word on Annabelle: Creation, and had to watch part one before checking that out. It definitely wasn't bad as I expected but there was a jump scare where and wow that was a great moment! It's been 2 days since I saw the movie, and I'm still thinking about how well that jump scare was done.

Fist of Doom Jr

Question: Do the horror-ish docudramas on the ID channel count? I'm talking about stuff like:

Relatively Evil
Fear Thy Neighbor
American Monster
Your Worst Nightmare

WillieMLF

I really like some of the stuff A24 puts out. There's a screening this weekend, and I may try and catch this one. Read some good reviews on this.