What I've Been Watching: The Catch-All Film Thread

Sammy would have to handle the gorefest end of it, but here's a few suspense/horror films I've enjoyed:
The Thing (John Carpenter remake with Kurt Russell)
Pulse
Thirteen Ghosts
Ghost Ship
The Skeleton Key
Stir of Echoes
Open Water (Mrs dte is the shark nut, but this one was pretty strong)

All of those have been out for a while, so you might have seen them all, but that's what caught my eye from the DVD shelves.
 
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Thanks, dte. The only one of those I've seen is The Thing, and that's probably one of the few films where the remake is my favorite instead of the original. We've been going without cable for almost a year since we got the new house, and watching nothing but network tv is like living on salad--healthy (for the budget) but incredibly boring. I'll be checking 'em out. :)

@JDR --Don't you just hate that? ;)
 
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Carpenter's Thing 'remake' was faithful to the original story by John W. Campbell, jr. (from 1938 IIRC), while the 'original' movie was not.
 
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its been at the top of my to see horror list for nearly five years. even the game which came out a few years ago was decent though i never finished it.

skeleton key is a great movie as well, ian softley is one of my recent favourite directors. also thats one of the movies that melissa kaplan lends her voice to...

haven't seen any of the others on dte's list but if you want horror with a grin, i'd suggest any or all of the evil dead movies.

question: did any of you guys or gals see the 'war of the world' tv series that was on tv in the late eighties/early nineties. scariest television ever in my opinion. gave me wicked nightmares for years:)
 
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oh boy, mags, this is the question Ive been waiting for you to ask! Come sit down by 'ol sammy here a sec and lets see what I gots for ya..

Hmmmm... *sits n puffs on tiger pipe n looks like he's pondering space and time*

well, it all kinda depends what youre looking for, but I have some general goodies here that should cover most bases:

I'd purrsonally recommend:

The Descent - some gal pals go cavin' and run across a race of subterranean subhumans. Besides the creepy crawlers, there's some cliffhangers in this one that had me hangin on to my couch with both paws!

Ginger Snaps - a Canadian "teenage werewolf" flick with a rabid cult followin'. There's a reason why too, because it friggen rocks. The sequels suck tho imho

In the Shadow of the Vampire - what if the actor playing Nosferatu was really a vampire? Willem Dafoe and John Malkovich made this one of my top ten

Audition - No pasty kiddie ghosts here. Just well done Japanese psycho-sexual horror that will creep you out. Watch out for this one, it bites hard

A Tale of Two Sisters We got some little girls here, but it aint the usual spooky kiddies in this Asian horror soon-to-be-classic tale.

The Dark Hours - Psychologist super meanie flips out as a terminal brain tumor rips her reality apart. This one will make your nose bleed.

Cemetary Man - While we're talking reality rending, lets slip into a surreal trip into the nature of life, death, love, & hate. And zombies. Or are they? Pass the catnip, man

From Beyond - Nice little take on an HP Lovecraft mad scientist tale, with one of the best mad scientists there is - Jeffrey Combs (re-animators).

Dagon - and while we're talkin' HP, lets talk Dagon. This is a good, lesser known Cthulu mythos flick. Not great, but it's worth a go

Shaun of the Dead - one great horror-comedy that in one fail swoop both lampoons and pays tribute to the livin' dead genre. Chances are youve seen it

Interview w/ the Vampire - Anne Rice's vampire opus that I'm not embarassed at all to say that I love. Sometimes when I see it at the video store, I just have to hold it for a minute.

Silver Bullet - one of my favorite werewolf flicks of all time and I always plug it

Salem's lot - another King Klassic, that quite frankly kick my ass up and down every time I watch it to this day. Very scary film, youve prolly seen it too

The Fly remake w/ Jeff Goldblum & Geena Davis - not much to say, it's a cool classic remake

and last, and in a way, least....

Joshua- This movie is by all rights, horrible. Yet, I must admit, the last ten minutes absolutely destroyed me with a magnificent, masterful, terrifying, spine-snappin', stomach-churnin', eye-poppin', tail-crimpin' coup de grace 'that temporarily lobotomized me. I wasnt right for days. It's not allowed in my home
 
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Just went to see "Stardust," based on the Neil Gaiman novel of the same name. It wasn't half bad, although nothing unforgettable. They'd straightened out a quite a few of the plot drivers (probably to make it "more accessible") and one of the (IMO) most significant bits in the book (probably because "you can't do that").

Oh, and if you're looking for a date movie, it doesn't get much more date-y than this.
 
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I almost added "The Descent" to my list. Excellent show. Mrs. dte doesn't appreciate good British humor, so she's blocked my purchase of "Shaun of the Dead", but that's a great one as well. I've only seen a couple others on Sammy's list, so it looks like I might have a Blockbuster run in my future, too.
 
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Yes, that's a connoisseur's list of elite horror. Thanks very very much, Sammy.

I've seen Salem's Lot, and it's perhaps the best of the King movies--the little kid at the window is classic. Also, to my shame, I've seen Dagon--really a terrible movie in the best way. :) The Fly remake was also very good (and at the time grossed me out)
I've never seen Interview with the Vampire--loved the book and read quite a few in the Lestat series, til they got too porny corny for me, but I've never been able to get over my aversion to seeing Tom Cruise(!) as a short, egotistical LeStat. Rice wanted Rutger Hauer for the part and it's too bad she got overruled.
The others are all now pasted into my notepad list with dte's recs and c.u.'s Evil Dead and I expect to entertain myself and my bloodthirsty spouse for many weeks to come. Some of those sound like titles that will make you put the popcorn bowl down and reach for something liquid and stronger.

@curiously undead: I don't recall a TV series on War of the Worlds, but I had the privilege--being so old and all--to see the original film at the movie theater as a child in glorious black and white. I was probably 4 or 5 years old and didn't sleep for days. I don't think my Mom did either. ;)
 
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Ginger Snaps - a Canadian "teenage werewolf" flick with a rabid cult followin'. There's a reason why too, because it friggen rocks. The sequels suck tho imho

I can second the vote on Ginger Snaps... truly a great film! I didn't think that the sequels sucked... but they were nowhere as good as the original...
 
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Ginger Snaps opening credits are even pretty cool!

"I cant have a hairy chest B, that's f&%$^!"

Well, my biggest problem with the first sequel was that Ginger wasnt really in it, and Emily Perkins just didnt have the gravitas to carry the film in my opinion, it was the chemistry between the sisters that made the first film so special. She had one look on her face pretty much the entire film, I got tired of looking at her. And who was the werewolf following her? Nothing was ever made of that. The little "Ghost" character, I just thought she was kinda dumb. The film as a whole just rubbed me the wrong way. Katherine Isabelle was so briefly in it, i felt ripped off!

Part III was better, as Ginger was back, but the whole thing was just totally askew, now that somehow magically theyre another place and time all of a sudden? Ginger was killed in part 1, and people want her back, so lets just shift the whole story to pre-colonial times? Just resurrect her somehow already, youre dealing with werewolves here! Part of the fun of the original was it's modern day setting. Now roll out the tired "evil sexist religious zealot unrepentant white man vs pure innocent indians" thing, making sure you cue the hawk screech in the distance at the right time for the indian characters...

it just felt so contrived at times, none of what made the original really good in my opinion. The wolf boy thing was kinda cool I guess, maybe I'm being too hard on it and I should let a film stand on it's own merit, but hey sequels are by their very nature judged in part by comparison to their predecessor.

"it's a secret"
 
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Ginger Snaps opening credits are even pretty cool!

O_O Pretty cool, huh? Pretty disturbing, if you ask me young tigerman. Didn't your counselor tell you to lighten up on the dead girls? It's plain to see you haven't been taking your medication again.



;) Looks quite good, Sammy. I tend to not sleep well after movies like this but that's the whole point, right?
 
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Well, I've watched a lot of movies lately... most of them were ok, but since you guys are talking about horror flicks anyway I'd like to say a word about one of the biggest disappoints of this year... yup 28 weeks later.

*** CONTAINS SPOILERS ***

To understand my disappointment about 28 weeks later you have to know that I consider 28 days later, its precursor, to be one of the best horror movies ever made. At its heart 28 days later was certainly a zombie horror flick, but beneath the surface it dealt, surprisingly enough, with the Conradian theme of what happens if you place a human being into an environment without any kind of external checks. Other movies had done that before, so it wasn't really anything dramatically new, but nonetheless, it much improved an already nice and well made movie. 28 days later was cleverly making use of those aspects of the zombie horror genre that are great and just cut out most of cliché crap. The director's decision to replace the totally stupid cliché ending (explained on the dvd) with a realistic and untypical horror movie ending was just brilliant.

Now, 29 weeks later takes place... you guessed it... 28 weeks after the outbreak of the rage virus in GB. So far so good. The movie begins promising. The first 20 minutes of the movie or so the script writers did everything right. They introduced a new element to the story and for a moment I really hoped this would be not just a simple reproduction of the first movie. There are obviously people who are more or less immune to the effects of the virus, although they are still "carriers" and can infect other people. Untill the virus breaks out again the movie is just great. But from that point on it degenerates into a stupid splatter horror movie and does never even scratch on the quality of 28 days later. The lowest point is probably a scene in which a pilot finishes off a whole bunch of infected with the rotors of his helicopter. At that point I was tempted to just skip the rest of that pos. Over the course of the movie the background story that was built up during the first 20 minutes is simply forgotten. Of course the movie has a typical horror movie ending - something you have seen hundred times before.

28 weeks later is a very bad copy of 28 days later and I will certainly NOT watch 28 months later...
 
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We got RV on Netflix today ... so bad it's bad ;)
 
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The Tingler

Awesome old classic in which Vincent Price discovers a ridicuous invertebrate creature which turns out being the physical manifestation of intense fear. It appears on the spinal column of the terrified, and can only be dissipated by a hearty scream. This is pure William Castle at his finest.

A particularly high point (or low depending on your particular station) is the sight of Vincent Price flipping out on acid. Classic


By the way, here's a nice little 3 min William Castle puff piece trailer that's one of the extras on the Tingler dvd
 
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The best film I've recently seen is "I served the English king". It's Czech film. I very like their sense of humor and their films (e.g. The story of everyday madness). Film is based on Hrabal book of the same title.

The film begins as Jan Dítě is released from prison having served fourteen years and nine months of a fifteen year sentence. The time isn't specified in the film. I think it was 60-70's. Dítě is sent to an abandoned Czech village, where the German residents were expelled after World War II. Dítě recalls his life.

As a young man, Dítě wanted " to be surrounded by millionairers”, lust finds him in the arms of a variety of beautiful women, and love, eventually, marries him to a German girl and places him on the "wrong side of the war". He works his way from a hotel in a small village, to an expensive spa resort, to the grand Hotel Paříž in Prague, taking in the various sites along the way. Oblivious to the political changes, he eventually does become a millionaire, and buys the resort hotel he once worked at. The irony is delicious when two communist messengers come knocking at his door.

Film seems to be light and humorous but at the same time says about important and hard things but without any pathos.
 
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Just went to see "Stardust," based on the Neil Gaiman novel of the same name. It wasn't half bad, although nothing unforgettable. They'd straightened out a quite a few of the plot drivers (probably to make it "more accessible") and one of the (IMO) most significant bits in the book (probably because "you can't do that").

Oh, and if you're looking for a date movie, it doesn't get much more date-y than this.

When I see trailers / posters of "Stardust" I don't feel this atmosphere from Gaiman book. I don't no if go or wait and watch it on dvd.

If I could choose how to make this film I would make sth similar to scenography, costiums and climate from fantasy moments of "Pan's Labyrinth / Labyrinth of the Faun".
 
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