31 Days of October

[niminy-piminy]

yikes jiri. i also watched a deranged sculptor film.

added to my "horrors of the artworld" watchlist. thx!

[thoxans]

blacula (william crain) i'm not one to toss about the term willy-nilly, but the fact my tv guide gave this 1.5/4.0 stars seems kinda racist to me. i mean, it's a bad flick and all, but 1.5...?

[rischka]

put the christensen in the place ♥ ♥

[Silga]

Eye of the Devil (J. Lee Thompson, 1966) 7/10

What a beautiful film with Gothic horror atmosphere and supernatural undertones.

Kim Novak initially starred in the film and had almost finished her scenes when she fell from a horse and wasn't able to complete her work. She was replaced by the great Deborah Kerr while David Niven was his usual charming self + Donald Pleasence and David Hemmings. This film also introduced Sharon Tate in her first starring role.

I'm enjoying all these earlier J. Lee Thompson's films where I can finally confirm that he was once a proper director before those Cannon movies took over his career. Here he delivers a competent direction, showing a deserved respect for the medium. I particularly liked the score which might feel out of place at times, but also fitting if one tries to merge it with the character development of the Deborah Kerr's Catherine de Montfaucon.





Other notable recently watched horror films:

The Hand (Oliver Stone, 1981) 6.5/10 - Stone's first major studio film, starring Michael Caine and his hand. A lot better than it is given credit for. I see others complain about it being unintentionally funny, but I think it is one of the saddest films I've seen in a while.
Bedlam (Mark Robson, 1946) 6/10 - Pretty much on the same level as the previous Lewton/Robson collaboration - Isle of the Dead.
Child's Play 3 (Jack Bender, 1991) 6/10 - Why do I enjoy these Chucky films so much? It might be that corporate/techno thriller vibe and just simply because Chucky is one mean "Good Guy".
Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (Producer's cut) (Joe Chappelle, 1995) 5/10 - Might be my favorite Halloween sequel yet. I no longer expect for Michael's story to surprise and yet this one took a decidedly brave turn and introduced a sinister cult behind Michael's actions. It introduced Paul Rudd too. And he looks just as he does today. The guy must be cursed or something. Also, regrettably, the last major role by Donald Pleasence.

[thoxans]

Eye of the Devil

crazy! just started this one, about an hour into it, so stopped reading your post immediately. will most likely comment after i’m done

[Silga]

Eye of the Devil

crazy! just started this one, about an hour into it, so stopped reading your post immediately. will most likely comment after i’m done

A spooky coincidence it is. I look forward to reading your take on this film.

[nrh]

yikes jiri. i also watched a deranged sculptor film. the man who could cheat death from hammer which was quite good, thx to nrh for this tip in terence fisher poll

he's a murderer and immortal life enthusiast first and foremost, the sculpting is just a sentimental reminder of all the glands he's harvested.

still think the reason this is an underrated fisher is that horror kids aren't interested in clothing and wallpaper.

curious about the 1940s american version of the play starring nils asher, who i think i've only seen as general yen?

[sally]

i had no idea he acted into the sound era!

yum

[greennui]

I watched Ulmer's Bluebeard the other week in which Asther played an inspector, though he was kinda playing it as Charles Boyer, which led
me to believe that it was Boyer until I had a look at the cast list after a while.

[sally]

christ. i've seen that but never made the connection. anna sten all over again! i think i must just go for mustaches. (and young boys obviously)


anyway i watched the house of wax because i needed some vincent price. he has a mustache.

[greennui]

Regarding Asther, It does seem like Yen is generally the only film people have seen him. Known as 'the male Garbo' in his pomp but remembered as 'the hot Warner Oland'.



It's a shame Mauritz Stiller died so early, could have had a stellar trifecta of gay Swedish Hollwood people.

[greennui]

Two new favs.

Loft (Eckhart Schmidt, 1985) - Loved the thumping, monotonous synth soundtrack. One could say a thing or two about the writing but meh, I was too busy digging it's energy. Reminded me a little of Pierre Clementi's In the Shadow of the Blue Rascal.

The Witch Who Came from the Sea (Matt Cimber, 1976) - Yikes. A woozy tale of sea captains, waterfront dive bars, alcoholism and child sexual abuse, with grimy 70's shaving commercial aesthetics. Sort of a bridge between Curtis Harrington and Raoul Ruiz. Mollie Perkins gave one of the most commited and offbeat performances I've seen from an actress in a long while.

[rischka]

Sort of a bridge between Curtis Harrington and Raoul Ruiz.

ok i have to see this

[nrh]

also fwiw seema was watching glow on netflix this last month, it's not bad, but the maron character is 100% based on the director of witch who came from the sea

[greennui]

Sort of a bridge between Curtis Harrington and Raoul Ruiz.

ok i have to see this

Ruiz connection is a stretch but it does feel like a demented sister film of Night Tide.

[pabs]

We Are Still Here (Geoghegan, 2015)

First 25 minutes were sometimes quite creepy but from that point it went downhill really fast and became quite stupid.

4

[brian d]

i just watched that one last night. not too impressed either. at least it was short

[pabs]

Well brian, just in case you were planning on watching Lemora: A Child's Tale of the Supernatural (Blackburn, 1973), you can save yourself another hour and 20 minutes, because it too was a yawn.

It looked really cheap and the acting was atrocious. The main girl/victim (Lila) and the vampire woman were silly. Lila never once looked the least bit frightened, nor even perturbed, even as she was being chased by troupes of zombies and vampires. Maybe their terrible makeup and silly mannerisms had something to do with why she looked more bored than anything else. The added sound fx of these ghouls' moans and groans, with real dogs' growls on a sound loop thrown in for good measure, were something else. Was this a junior school film project? Looks like it might have cost a total of $500 to make, maybe less.

I was frightened only once, and that was when I discovered only eight minutes had gone by when I was sure I'd been watching for at least 30.

2/10

[MrCarmady]

Saint Maud doesn't quite live up to the glowing critical consensus but I had a good time anyway. Clark is terrific in the titular role and Ehle provides a good foil in the early bits which are more psychological drama than horror. The ending is semi-predictable but still effective. Great use of scenery, think it was filmed around where tdm is from?

[nrh]

revisited salem's lot for the first time since renting that old vhs clamshell box as a kid. pretty much all the issues i have with this boil down to the source material, which sets up this slow burn of small town peyton place drama gradually shifting into full on vampire takeover, with a creepy house kind of hanging over the whole thing. it's early king so the small town drama is painfully thin and the fact that it's vampires is not exactly a surprise, so all you really have for like an hour is like real estate agent fred willard having an affair and smarmy old man james mason being suspicious.

the slow burn structure means tobe hooper can't be totally destabilizing from the start, but there is a real sense of care to the staging and camera even before the supernatural events start taking prominence. the vampire children floating outside the windows are probably them most famous example, and rightly so, this eerie slow technology special effect that seems to come from a different time than 1978, as does the murnau-invoking design of the lead vampire. and the lengthy final sequence, when they travel into the creepy house to kill the vampires, is brilliant even as it requires some "why are the splitting up?" horror movie logic. not the all time classic i've seen some people position this as, but still very good...

[Lencho of the Apes]

Can I just quickly rep for Return To Salem's Lot, by Larry Cohen? Vampire-Americans want their slice of the Identity Politics pie, and Samuel Fuller plays a nazi hunter who switched over to vampires.

[nrh]

^your letterboxd blurb put me onto that awhile back, have been meaning to do a larry cohen thing for awhile...

also just realized that the plot of salem's lot is two wealthy bachelors move to a small town from the city and open an antiques shop and run out all the townspeople, which is exactly the "gays caused gentrification!" story i've been hearing from my hometown for the last decade or so...

[Lencho of the Apes]

Oooh, that's good! I also read "vampires = gentrification" onto the Jarmusch one, Only Lovers... Maybe it's a trend.

[thoxans]

escape from tomorrow (randy moore) wow. people really seem to hate this film, based on the boxd reviews. but it also seems like people don't understand the film. it's about a guy unraveling amidst a midlife crisis. let go from his job at the beginning of the story. needing to put on a happy face while he and his family are on vacation at disney world. pondering life choices by questioning his fidelity and loyalty. what coulda been. what could be. the film's title is escape from tomorrow ffs! not sure how people missed out on that one. all that being said, it's not a good film. characters are either annoying or one-note. it can't quite figure out what register it wants to work in, moving between dark comedy, childish grossout humor, the surreal, and satiric, never quite succeeding at any of those things. mostly it acts as a curiosity piece, a 'wow i can't believe they did that' kinda thing, so can't really rec it. mostly i just wanted to write this little capsule review to point out how dumb most people are most of the time. 'ewww guy so misogynistic cuz he looked at girls.' that's the point! god forbid you ever watch a cassavetes film, or you'll have to shut yourself away in your safe space for a full month to recuperate, you child...

the invisible man (leigh whannell) not as bad as i thought it was gonna be, but still not good. really needed to be an independent production, without the hollywood pressures of having to fulfill what the major studios seem to presume draws mass audiences. while i actually didn't mind the social commentary - in fact, the idea of the lingering trauma of a toxic relationship as a horror film is a good one - it's all the padding around that central idea that just causes the film to stumble time and time again. strangely enough, it's with the reveal of the invisible man as a tangible figure that forces everything to start to unravel. from that point on, it's basically all about predictably stupid decision-making on every single main characters' part, silly and ineffective and unsatisfying deaths (seriously, do security cameras not exist in this universe?), and a totally unnecessary fourth act, triggered by a pointless and inane plot twist. slimmed down to a trim 90min indie flick, this coulda been pretty damn good, like some feminist version of repulsion

[rischka]

hey i think i have that one too ^ sorry i haven't been as active as usual but i watched



this is a BBC film from 1993, sort of a mockumentary about ghosts. and it's all very fake. but the end is a tiny bit creepy tbh

i had an old boyfriend who LOVED ghosthunting shows and we once camped out in a cemetary at halloween. nothing happened. he's now deceased and that's how i know ghosts aren't real; he would haunt me for sure if he could

[thoxans]

^

the invisible man? you should watch it! i'd actually be curious of your response. it's not bad bad, but it's hollywood. when it works, it really works; but there's lots of obligatory ::eyeroll::

[rischka]

oh no i meant escape from tomorrow. i read a lot of lame reviews too but it seems interesting based on your comments

[thoxans]

oh yeah, it's worth a watch. most of the critiques i read seemed kinda shallow. there's certainly stuff to dislike, but not the surface-level contextual stuff. that's just missing the point

[rischka]

halloweenie strikes again

[greennui]

halloweenie strikes again