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Comments
I saw ff's review up yesterday but did not read it until now, I wanted to watch it first.
It was very good! You are thrown into the tension and feel her fear right off the bat. The opening scenes made me think of Sleeping With the Enemy. The huge, sterile house with all the windows looking out on the sea. I was frustrated with Elizabeth Moss' character at the beginning because you know she is trying to get away but man, she made so much noise!
The tension is constant throughout the movie and I too, liked that there was not a bunch of CGI. It was more believable, and more scary, to be combing every detail of a room over with your own eyes, trying to find where he might be lurking. Elizabeth Moss does an excellent job. Really liked this one.
10. Thirteen Ghosts 2001
I love, love, love the original b&w 13 Ghosts. This one is a hot mess. I thought I would watch it again to see if my opinion has changed over the years but it hasn't. Love Matthew Lillard but this movie...I just do not like it. Some cool looking ghosts, but they are flashed so quickly at you it almost gives a person a headache. Kind of like trying to follow the plot. Just wish they had done a more straight forward remake. As with The Invisible Man before, if they had stuck to the bones of the original movie, relied on a story rather than special effects, it would have been a much better movie.
This is an Italian horror movie.
A man returns to his ancestral home in Italy with his fiancé and her daughter. Enter the creepy mother-in-law and the relatives. The little girl becomes the focus of something malevolent. Is the family bad? Are they trying to help? Finding this out wasn't that exciting or interesting. Pretty weak story. I did love the home and the scenery.
There were moments of the film that were extremely dark and you have to count on your hearing (which I'm practically deaf so that didn't scare me because I didn't hear half the crap that was supposed to scare you) and maybe an occasional flash across the screen. I think the story was so weak, they hired Dark to try to ramp up the scares. If you can't scare them with an actual good story, throw them in the dark and that'll get 'em.
I'm sure Dark was really arrogant on the film set, demanding bowls of cornnuts and iced bottles of Root Beer; smoking those long, brown cigarettes while pinching the butts of everyone. No #Metoo on this set, Dark is the star!
1. Ghost Stories*
2. American Murder*
3. Christmas Evil*
4. Vault of Horror
5. The Green Slime*
6. The Blue Elephant 2*
7. Theatre of Blood
8. Ghost Ship
9. Deathdream*
10. Fiend Without a Face*
11. Maniac* 1934
12. Books of Blood*
13. Escape Room*
14. The Severed Arm*
15. The Binding*
I watched this one a few years ago for this challenge and enjoyed it, so watched it again. Good, fun Halloween anthology movie.
8. Horrors of Malformed Men (FTV)
An man with amnesia escapes from an insane asylum and assumes the identity of a dead man who looked exactly like him, only to end up on the island of a mad scientist who wants to create an army of the deformed.
Part "Island of Dr. Moreau", part Alejandro Jodorowski weird-out, this 1969 Japanese exploitation film defies categorization. The story is only occasionally coherent, packed with gratuitous female nudity and bad makeup effects, saddled with overly expositional voice-over that harkens to old 40's film noir. But it is propelled by the sheer force of its weirdness and nightmarish "anything goes" storyline, and despite the confusion, it has its own internal logic, however impenetrable. A nice blend of 60's trippiness and the more traditional Japanese magical tale. I'm still scratching my head, but I think I'll be watching this one again with the commentary on and see if that sheds any light. And what a title, am I right?
3 out of 5 stars.
Bob's October 2020 Horror Movie List
*FTV denotes first-time viewings
1. Viy (1967) 4/5 (FTV)
2. Night Visitor 3/5 (FTV)
3. Tigers Are Not Afraid 5/5 (FTV)
4. I Trapped the Devil 4/5 (FTV)
5. Vivarium 3/5 (FTV)
6. The Kiss of the Vampire 3/5 (FTV)
7. The Invisible Man (2020) 4/5 (FTV)
8. Horrors of Malformed Men 3/5 (FTV)
2. Halloween
3.Amityville Horror
4. Halloween Resurrection
5. The Shining
6. Carrie
7. Ghost Ship
8. House of Wax
9. The Mummy
10. Friday the 13th-Final Chapter
11. Friday the 13th-A New Beginning
12. Friday the 13th PartVI Jason Lives
Linda Cardellini plays a social worker and widowed mom of 2 in the 70s. She is forced to remove two boys from the home of one of her cases because signs point to abuse. But it is really La Llarona, the mourning mother at the center of the folk tale. Then La Llarona sets her sights on the social worker's kids.
This one was pretty good. It, like The Invisible Man, does not rely too heavily on special effects. There are some really cool shots, one that I especially liked, the little girl was playing in the backyard and opens a clear umbrella, and freezes, because she can see La Llarona through the clear plastic of the umbrella, but not when she lowers it. Was pretty cool. Also like The Invisible Man, it uses the "us against the world" way of telling the story. Pretty soon, Mama social worker is also being investigated for child abuse. She finds help from an ex-priest, played by Raymond Cruz (Tuco from Breaking Bad.)
There are more special effects in play once they start to fight back, but it still is not heavy handed. La Llarona can only be seen through a reflection of some kind, so there were a lot of creepy scenes where she is there, you just can't see her.
I enjoyed this one.
Thank you for this recommend, NB. This is the best movie I have seen so far this season. It came out in 2017 and I am sure I passed it by (if I gave it an ounce of my attention at all) because it was zombie crap. I'm not a big fan of zombie shows. With few exceptions, they are really all the same. Not this one.
I loved that it was set in Ireland and that right there made it different from most zombie things I've seen. Observing this outbreak in a not common zombie movie setting was fantastic. I watched the background closely, loving seeing Ireland in this creative way.
I say this as an outsider looking in, relying on my absolute pitiful knowledge about The Troubles, but I had such strong feelings that many of the scenes and situations might have been influenced by Ireland's Troubles. Only in this case, we had Infected/Cured vs. the uninfected.
I really liked the cast. Great choices for the characters. My heart was just with Senan the whole time. The actor who played him was brilliant. I felt his physical struggle, inner turmoil, pain, anger, fear, hopelessness. I have to say, I was choked up and teary eyed at the end. Definitely left it open for a part two. If they got the same cast to return, I would watch a second one. This was good.
1. Ghost Stories*
2. American Murder*
3. Christmas Evil*
4. Vault of Horror
5. The Green Slime*
6. The Blue Elephant 2*
7. Theatre of Blood
8. Ghost Ship
9. Deathdream*
10. Fiend Without a Face*
11. Maniac* 1934
12. Books of Blood*
13. Escape Room*
14. The Severed Arm*
15. The Binding*
16. The Cured*
ya'll know the story.
1. Ghost Stories*
2. American Murder*
3. Christmas Evil*
4. Vault of Horror
5. The Green Slime*
6. The Blue Elephant 2*
7. Theatre of Blood
8. Ghost Ship
9. Deathdream*
10. Fiend Without a Face*
11. Maniac* 1934
12. Books of Blood*
13. Escape Room*
14. The Severed Arm*
15. The Binding*
16. The Cured*
17. Friday the 13th
9. Come To Daddy (FTV)
A young man reunites with his father who abandoned him at age 5 at a remote seaside home, but all is not as it seems as his father seems to involved with some really bad people.
While marketed as horror, this is more quirky violent dark humor mixed with suspense, like if the Coen brothers did a cabin-in-the-woods type of movie. Much of the fun of this movie comes in not knowing what could happen next, so I'll avoid going into much detail here. There are great characters, plenty of deliberately awkward moments, a few misunderstandings, and even some emotionally touching moments. Elijah Wood (with a terrible monk-like haircut and mustache that's perfect for his character) gives a great performance but the real scene-stealer is actor Stephen McHattie, who plays opposite of him. They couldn't be a more different father/son pair, so it's great to see them sparring. McHattie has a great way of making you uneasy, his eyes are full of secrets and mischief, as is the movie.
4 out of 5 stars.
Bob's October 2020 Horror Movie List
*FTV denotes first-time viewings
1. Viy (1967) 4/5 (FTV)
2. Night Visitor 3/5 (FTV)
3. Tigers Are Not Afraid 5/5 (FTV)
4. I Trapped the Devil 4/5 (FTV)
5. Vivarium 3/5 (FTV)
6. The Kiss of the Vampire 3/5 (FTV)
7. The Invisible Man (2020) 4/5 (FTV)
8. Horrors of Malformed Men 3/5 (FTV)
9. Come to Daddy 3/5 (FTV)
This is the worst thing I have watched so far this season. It was hosted by John Carradine, and Lon Chaney, Jr. was in it. Every single person in this sucked. Their acting was stiff and horrible. I could act better than this.
Terrible stories. Terrible terrible acting. Embarrassing acting. Every single one of the people who appeared in this should have walked away from acting and got a nice steady job at the mall selling Cinnabons or Vans or something.
Cringe worthy.
1. Ghost Stories*
2. American Murder*
3. Christmas Evil*
4. Vault of Horror
5. The Green Slime*
6. The Blue Elephant 2*
7. Theatre of Blood
8. Ghost Ship
9. Deathdream*
10. Fiend Without a Face*
11. Maniac* 1934
12. Books of Blood*
13. Escape Room*
14. The Severed Arm*
15. The Binding*
16. The Cured*
17. Friday the 13th
18. Gallery of Horror*
Someday I will see this. Hopefully someone else will watch it and answer your questions. I think ff was thinking about it. He'd be a good one to hear thoughts from.
In reading the reviews after watching they called it a cult movie. I had never heard of it.