The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

An ongoing project to survey the best films of individual decades, genres, and filmmakers.
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therewillbeblus
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Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#2026 Post by therewillbeblus » Wed Apr 08, 2020 8:28 pm

Agreed, and your spoiler is my other favorite, especially with the camera placement as the whole arm makes its way through towards your vantage point. My girlfriend finally came in during that last ten minutes and said, “What is this, Evil Dead 5?” which I thought was pretty funny

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colinr0380
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Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#2027 Post by colinr0380 » Thu Apr 09, 2020 8:05 am

Evil Dead 5 wishes it could be Braindead!

My favourite part of Braindead/Dead Alive is probably the first attack of the zombified mother that plays out to the theme tune of The Archers on the radio. Either that or the moment where 'for some reason' our hero decides to take the zombie baby created as a byproduct of a couple of zombies having carnal relations to a local park for his daily state mandated dose of outdoor exercise, which is really just an excuse for some violent slapstick in which we get to have the ever giggling baby catapulted around by a seesaw before it gets too unruly and has to be bundled away back into its burlap sack which our 'hero' proceeds to struggle quickly out of the park with, occasionally punching it as horrified parents look on!

I really think that the 1950s setting is inspired. It calls back to the heyday of B-horror films but also it sort of grates in an amusing way against the explicit gore. Surely people who dress as if they have stepped out of Leave It To Beaver cannot get ripped apart en masse? I think the beautiful, aggressively prim and proper period setting mixed with the gore is perhaps the most transgressive thing about it. As transgressive as the local town having 'ethnic types' running the store and doing tarot readings and potentially even seducing the son with their dusky charms, the domineering mother being suspicious about the burgeoning romance and covertly tailing the couple to their date at the local zoo being the thing that really kicks off the horror!

That is probably the main theme of Braindead, the attempts at maintaining a façade of social normality in the face of ever more escalating wildness that is completely out of our main characters hands and they just have to deal with the carnage that ensues (something that unites this with the fantastic The Frighteners, which starts out like GhostBusters light spooky fantasy and ends like a harrowing serial killer biopic. Or The Lovely Bones, where the façade of normality covering up a serial murderer is probably at its most graspable for general audiences (but that's what makes it a bit too conventional and obvious too). Or even arguably Jackson's First World War documentary): the film starts with the potentially 'inappropriate' romance; then it becomes about caring for an elderly parent steadily losing control of both their mind and body (parts) in front of polite company. Then its about having to deal with boorish relatives at a funeral. Then its about trying to keep an entire basement of zombies under wraps and in proper order even when they start having post-death relationships with each other! (Almost as if now that they are dead they can really let loose!). Until finally things get pushed too far by the boorish uncle throwing the house party without warning, which lets all of the repressed behaviours loose in spectacular fashion!

I guess it could be argued that it is really a Douglas Sirk film gone horribly, horribly wrong! If you ever wanted a lawnmower taken to the guests at the party in All That Heaven Allows where high society rejects Rock Hudson for being a lowly gardener, then this is the cathartic bloodbath for you!

(I also think this film works really well in a double bill with the contemporaneous Wes Craven film The People Under The Stairs, which features quite a few of the same elements - a fateful tarot reading to kick things off; social satire; a giant mansion of a house with something(s) chained up downstairs; a brief respite on a rooftop; and eventually complete real estate destruction! Only in this case the ending involves onlookers being happily showered with money, rather than covered in guts!)

Oh and never watch this film with your mother, as I did the first time. Boy, that was an uncomfortable viewing experience even before it becomes explicitly about dealing with mother issues in the final section!

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jazzo
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Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#2028 Post by jazzo » Thu Apr 09, 2020 9:24 am

domino harvey wrote:
Wed Apr 08, 2020 7:42 pm
Coming across Dead Alive unawares on Sundance or IFC back when they were a movie channel at 2 AM was one of the best film watching experiences of my life— at that point in my life I don’t know that anything had ever made me laugh as loud and as hard as the back half of the film. And then whatever station I was watching followed it with Microcosmos and I ended up staying up til like 6 and saw two majestic and radical movies / had my mind blown without incurring the cost of drugs! I revisited Dead Alive a few years ago and it’s still deeply enjoyable, though nothing could replicate the experience of seeing it the first time. Also, when you try to tell people IRL that it’s the goriest film ever made, no one ever believes you but that’s not a bet you’ll lose!
I first saw this at a 1992 Midnight Madness screening at TIFF (back when it was known as The Festival of Festivals!). It's still the most insanely fun thing I've ever attended in-person, very much like the latter scenes of Joe Dante's Matinee, where the kids are howling with glee during the screening of Mant!, joyfully hurdling full boxes of popcorn and drinks in the air with little care as to where and on whom they land. We came out sticky, but, man, did we embrace every fucking second of it.

That was the same year as Romper Stomper, Benny's Video, Reservoir Dogs and Candyman. Jesus, what a line-up.
Last edited by jazzo on Thu Apr 09, 2020 9:37 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#2029 Post by jazzo » Thu Apr 09, 2020 9:29 am

Also, where is Evil Dead 4?

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Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#2030 Post by thirtyframesasecond » Thu Apr 09, 2020 9:31 am

I wonder what Peter Jackson would've been doing if he hadn't got the LOTR gig?

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colinr0380
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Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#2031 Post by colinr0380 » Thu Apr 09, 2020 12:23 pm

jazzo wrote:
Thu Apr 09, 2020 9:29 am
Also, where is Evil Dead 4?
I was assuming that we were counting the 2013 remake!

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Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#2032 Post by dwk » Thu Apr 09, 2020 1:40 pm

jazzo wrote:
Thu Apr 09, 2020 9:29 am
Also, where is Evil Dead 4?
Wouldn't that be the Ash vs Evil Dead television show?

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Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#2033 Post by jazzo » Thu Apr 09, 2020 1:51 pm

Sure!

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Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#2034 Post by jazzo » Thu Apr 09, 2020 1:56 pm

jazzo wrote:
Thu Apr 09, 2020 9:24 am
domino harvey wrote:
Wed Apr 08, 2020 7:42 pm
Coming across Dead Alive unawares on Sundance or IFC back when they were a movie channel at 2 AM was one of the best film watching experiences of my life— at that point in my life I don’t know that anything had ever made me laugh as loud and as hard as the back half of the film. And then whatever station I was watching followed it with Microcosmos and I ended up staying up til like 6 and saw two majestic and radical movies / had my mind blown without incurring the cost of drugs! I revisited Dead Alive a few years ago and it’s still deeply enjoyable, though nothing could replicate the experience of seeing it the first time. Also, when you try to tell people IRL that it’s the goriest film ever made, no one ever believes you but that’s not a bet you’ll lose!
I first saw this at a 1992 Midnight Madness screening at TIFF (back when it was known as The Festival of Festivals!). It's still the most insanely fun thing I've ever attended in-person, very much like the latter scenes of Joe Dante's Matinee, where the kids are howling with glee during the screening of Mant!, joyfully hurdling full boxes of popcorn and drinks in the air with little care as to where and on whom they land. We came out sticky, but, man, did we embrace every fucking second of it.

That was the same year as Romper Stomper, Benny's Video, Reservoir Dogs and Candyman. Jesus, what a line-up.
Hey, I'm quoting myself, so apologies, but since this is the Horror List thread, I thought I'd add one more personal anecdote from my 1992 Festival of Festivals report found above: At my screening of Benny's Video, Geddy Lee walked in and sat three rows from the front, followed quickly by Atom Egoyan and Arsinée Khanjian, who looked at him, sat two rows behind him, and then, halfway through the film, started making out like teenagers on a first date!

I don't know what was more terrifying; Haneke's disturbing vision of disaffected youth, or the passion of those two maniacs!

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Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#2035 Post by therewillbeblus » Thu Apr 09, 2020 3:04 pm

jazzo wrote:
Thu Apr 09, 2020 9:29 am
Also, where is Evil Dead 4?
It was a joke considering how the film is so insane and how sequels tend to up the ante in absurdity. She could have said Evil Dead 75, which would have been more apt

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Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#2036 Post by jazzo » Thu Apr 09, 2020 4:57 pm

Sorry. Working from home while trying to parent full-time has destroyed any sense of humor I had.

It's actually really funny.

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Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#2037 Post by colinr0380 » Sun Apr 12, 2020 2:16 pm

It might have been inadvisable to go through these videos at the current time given that we are supposed to be following the emergency reports on the media that are providing more than enough doom laden pronouncements, but in the wake of that I did find myself drawn to a few interesting YouTube videos that seem to be a new wrinkle in the found footage subgenre, which seems to be getting classed as "Analogue Horror". These take the form of American cable TV broadcasts that regularly get their signal hijacked for emergency messages in all sorts of forms, suggesting anything from wartime conditions to alien invasion to even more Lovecraftian things. I really like the stylistics and in their best moments it can feel like they are a somewhat updated take on the 1938 Orson Welles War of the Worlds broadcast.

With thanks to the Nexpo video for bringing it up, the source of all this appears to be the Local58 channel, which in just eight videos over just over two years has managed to hit all the beats of found footage horror films such as GPS devices in cars driving through the dark to pre-determined meet ups with loud jump scare aliens through to indoctrination videos and worrying exhortions to action (in Contingency which is perhaps the ultimate "oopsie" moment of accidentally broadcasting something to rival the War of the Worlds broadcast panic, only it might not be so easily apologised for after the fact!). It is all something to do with the Moon apparently. I particularly like the most recent video, Skywatching, for all of its sound work involving the wind against the microphone and the technological clatter of different pieces of equipment being swapped in and out.

I would argue that really the final section of that video is unnecessary (much as I did not really need the monster at the end of "You Are On The Fastest Available Route") because the quiet, more grounded part of the videos were the most enthralling parts about them. I'd love hours of slow pans across the surface of an alien planet, or a dispassionate GPS voice guiding through a driving thunderstorm without the payoff! But then again I love 'slow cinema' so I'm biased!

But that is probably the difficult balancing act that these videos (and all found footage films really) have to walk, because with their focus on trying to present a 'real event' it is so easy to tip over into absurdity with just one or two missteps. For example I quite like the other series that tried to do what Local58 was doing, Channel 7, but that is occasionally pushed over the edge by the inclusion of actual people and voices in its footage (really the strange disturbingly lonely power of "Analogue Horror" appears to be scrolling text boxes and on screen text interrupting late night unmanned TV broadcasts rather than the presence of actual announcers or news readers), especially when it seems that there is only one person doing all of the different voiced roles.

However the same people behind Channel 7 have started a new, Lovecraftian seeming, series of videos under the Eventide Media Center channel, which starts off relatively low key with a discussion of Penrose shapes before coming out with perhaps the best of all these Analogue Horrors to date with the slowly encroaching threat shown almost entirely through an oscillation between a weather update screen and radar view of the incoming storm front in Oceanview Forecast, a video that really seems to have learnt the lesson that the lack of a human voice to guide the action only adds an extra level of scariness to things! (It also with the lighthouse setting makes me think of John Carpenter's The Fog!)

EDIT: And Gemini Home Entertainment seems to be the other channel to keep an eye on.
Last edited by colinr0380 on Mon Aug 16, 2021 11:37 am, edited 3 times in total.

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Rayon Vert
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Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#2038 Post by Rayon Vert » Sun Apr 12, 2020 10:03 pm

Hands of the Ripper (Sasdy 1971). (1st viewing) Trauma leads Jack the Ripper’s daughter to continue his work when triggered, in a dissociated state. I was expecting something sensationalistic, but as Mr. Sausage wrote, this is very restrained. Apart from the gory kills, it’s a sober suspense drama involving her Freud-inspired benefactor trying to cure her, well played by Eric Porter. A bit like Dr. Frankenstein protecting his creature even though he knows it’s harmful, but inspired only by compassion, not ambition. A simple but very fine, smart movie, and well executed on all fronts. As it stands right now, it’s just missing the cut for me for this list at no 51.


Twins of Evil (Hough 1971). (1st viewing) As a vampire story, it’s nothing too original. But the role of Cushing as a sort of witchfinder general adds a lot, as does the screen presence of the twins chosen for the girl/women roles. You’ve also got no less than Kathleen Byron of Powell & Pressburger fame as Cushing’s wife. On the whole, another well-done late Hammer.


Altered States (Russell 1980).
(1st viewing) Like The Howling, another 80s VHS I always saw on the video store shelves but for some reason never took out. This gets labeled as a sci fi horror film but to my mind it only threatens at points to get into horror, like 2001: A Space Odyssey for example. The overall feeling isn’t that of threat but of a quest, and it doesn’t end in a gloomy way either. I don’t know why I expected this to be so-so, but it was far better than that. It’s intriguing, and it ends up surprising you – I definitely didn’t expect it to turn into An American Werewolf in London at some point! The whole thing is executed with a lot of skill, the overall vibe, the acting, the effective score, and those hallucinatory scenes are pretty nifty. With Russell at the helm, I expected to be excessive, especially with this kind of material, but a restraint and a certain elegance contained the wildness. It dropped a few points for me just at the very final moment, though, with a sentimental, Hollywoodish note that was at odds with the rest of the film.


Next of Kin (Williams 1982).
(1st viewing) The sedate, very realistic tone of this Australian haunted mansion film is similar to something like The Changeling, and is the thing I appreciated most. On the other hand, even though it’s very well directed, filmed and made on the whole (except for that annoying synthesizer score), I didn’t find the script that innovative or strong, and the film takes such a long, slow time to establish the reality for the main character of something being truly askew that the suspense really starts very late. In the last 20 minutes the film then suddenly jumps from 3 or 4 to a 10 in terms of intensity. I can see why it’s considered a worthy less-known film, but it didn’t work enough for me.

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Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#2039 Post by domino harvey » Mon Apr 13, 2020 1:17 am

Lists are due in one week?!

Image

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Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#2040 Post by Mr Sausage » Mon Apr 13, 2020 7:29 am

Well, shit. I still had a bunch of viewings planned, including a swapsie thing with therewillbeblus (I haven't forgotten!) and some Paul Naschys, but I've done little but sit around playing video games these past four weeks.

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Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#2041 Post by Mr Sausage » Mon Apr 13, 2020 7:52 am

Welp, I had a bunch more viewings planned, but in the likely event I don't get to them, here's what I have so far.

Flesh for Frankenstein (Paul Morrissey, 1973)
More arch and campy trash (to use the term descriptively) from Morrissey. Morrissey has no real talent for comedy, but here and there the broad humour hits. I did like that the mad baron was reconfigured as a kind of totalitarian eugenicist, hoping to foster a master race upon his creations. But the film is slow, with long stretches where little happens, and the horror amounts to just shoving guts at the camera.

The Evil of Frankenstein (Freddie Francis, 1964)
The sequel to a movie never made. A soft reboot as we’d now call it. Universal did two great things for Hammer: first, they warned them at the outset not to imitate the Universal monster films, forcing Hammer to be creative; next, they inked a distribution deal with them, allowing the company to reach new heights of success in the 60s. A side effect of the latter is that Hammer were now free to take advantage of the Universal iconography. So they retconned the previous films heavily in a flashback full of new material and, voila, Frankenstein now uses the buzzing electrical machines of the Universals and the monster resembles Jack Pierce’s famous design in perhaps the worst makeup job in Hammer’s history. It’s amateurish to the point of distraction, and Kiwi Kingston, the stuntman under the pancake, clomps around in Lon-Chaney-Jr.-levels of somnambulism. It sinks what was already not a strong film. Cushing, giving his usual committed performance, is saddled with a shouty, petulant Frankenstein who’s meant to be smart but mostly acts oblivious and boneheaded. Rather far from the shrewd operator of the previous two. The first half of the movie is a preamble to finding the monster; the latter half replays the Ygor-Monster plot from Son of Frankenstein, only without the logic (the film spends a lot of time establishing Frankenstein’s grievances against the town’s leaders, and yet it’s some inconvenienced side-show operator that takes revenge on them). The weakest of the series outside of Horror of Frankenstein, the company’s ill-fated second reboot that retells the Frankenstein story as farce. And yet Evil is far from a sign of things to come, as the next two in the series are among Hammer’s very best.

The Mummy (Terence Fisher, 1959)
The first Hammer film I ever saw, after I’d made my way through much of the Universal monsters and before I really knew what Hammer was. It is easily and without question the best shambling bandaged mummy movie ever made. It takes the dullest series Universal produced and imbues it with life and excitement. Its first trick is to avoid the preposterous stalking scenes that plague these kinds of movies, where the victims are chased down and caught by mummies whose shambling is so laborious that one should be able to evade them at no more than a brisk walk. In Hammer’s film, Kharis bursts in on people rather than running them down, smashing vigorously through doors and windows and quickly overtaking them before they know what’s happening. It gives the scenes energy and excitement, avoiding the disbelief that sets in whenever a mummy chases down someone with good working legs. Hammer’s second good idea was to cast as the mummy an actor, Lee, committed to giving a real performance. Lon Chaney Jr., who played Kharis for all Universal Mummy films but one, rightly despised the role and as a result did little more than shuffle where told. Lee uses his physicality with intelligence, giving his mummy a jerking, crunchy stiffness coupled with a powerful physicality. He powers forward like an ill-oiled engine barely containing its own energy. One feels the intensity in each of his creaking movements. He’s also allowed to show pathos in one scene, his eyes registering profound loss coupled with resignation. The result is both a genuinely imposing mummy and, for a few moments, an uncommonly human one. The only bandaged mummy performance that isn’t utterly boring (this includes two subsequent Hammer mummy films that seemed to think the best way to frighten the audience was to hire bigger and bigger stuntmen to shamble about, never realizing Lee’s mummy worked only because he approached it as an actor). For the previous list, I declared this my favourite Hammer and put it in my top ten. My enthusiasm has dimmed a bit on this rewatch. The film’s pleasures and high points remain, but I was more aware of its pacing issues and somewhat threadbare story this time. I love it still, but it likely won’t make my list. I think I’ll give its former spot to Horror of Dracula, which I had so much fun rewatching.

Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (Terence Fisher, 1969)
Cunning, ruthless, callous, manipulative, sadistic, and utterly cold—this is the most purely villainous Cushing’s Baron has ever been. Granted, he’s never been particularly good, lying firmly in the ambivalent tradition of mad scientists who commit local evils for wider good. Even at his warmest, in Frankenstein Created Woman, he still comes off as disconnected from humanity. Here, in this film, he’s nothing less than the story’s monster. He blackmails a young couple into assisting with a Curt Siodmak-esque brain swapping experiment. The young couple are pleasant enough, but it’s the brain-swapped patient, the ostensible monster of this Frankenstein story, that generates all the pathos. The incomparable Freddie Jones plays the patient and brings a level of emotion to his character that elevates an already excellent movie to the upper reaches of Hammer horror. For the second time in a row, Hammer lets the creation of Frankenstein’s experiments have the verbal and emotional range to express the horror and sadness of their situation. In this, the stories come closer to Shelley’s novel and to the heights of Bride of Frankenstein. The dialogue is delicious, the acting terrific, the direction brisk and stylish—and yet there is one glaring, ugly flaw that has to be dealt with. The rape scene. Fisher, Cushing, and Veronica Carlson all strenuously objected to it, and the Hammer executives weren’t pleased at the idea, but they were overruled by the distributors who wanted to court audiences with more exploitative fare. The scene is all the worse for being shoehorned into the script and therefore never addressed by the narrative or registered by any of the characters. The movie continues on as if it never happened. The assault hangs unpleasantly over the film, an unfortunate blight on a strong gothic horror.

Curse of the Werewolf (Terence Fisher, 1961)
Some fine parts, but entirely too much backstory for a 90-minute monster flick. How are you to work up any sympathy for someone if their dilemma is over as quickly as it starts? Larry Talbot was a sympathetic figure because he was allowed several transformations with which to grapple with his dilemma and express a growing horror and despair. The equivalent character here isn’t even born until 30 minutes in, and we still have to watch him grow up. By the time he’s a full, strapping Oliver Reed, there’s only 45 minutes to get the story we came for. Not much time to work up either sympathy or fright. The movie does have a makeup job to rival the best of Jack Pierce to go along with its lush production design and fine craftsmanship, that’s undoubtable. Yet we don’t even glimpse it until ten minutes before the end. Not one of my favourite Hammers.

Paranoiac (Freddie Francis, 1963)
How sadly underrated among Hammer films these mini-Hitchcock’s are. And yet at their best, as here, they are as fine and memorable as any of the gothic horrors. The forebears of Paranoiac are familiar: Psycho, Gaslight, a bit of Phantom of the Opera, and any number of family mysteries. What distinguishes Paranoiac, aside from the elegance of its style, is the baroque lunacy it ascends to. No amount of genre familiarity can predict the crazed images and perversity of its final act.

Nightmare (Freddie Francis, 1964)
I do enjoy the ominous atmosphere of the first half. It lends punch to the more elaborate nightmarish scenes when they arrive. We all know what’s going on; we’ve all seen
SpoilerShow
Gaslight and Shadow of a Doubt.
The fun is in the elaborations and the style that brings it off. It’s a good, creepy thriller filmed with more than usual control for style and mood. I don’t think Francis has ever been better than in this and the preceding film. He has a facility for black and white thrillers with an ominous edge to them and a hint of perversity, one that doesn’t quite translate to the colour gothics he spent much of his career directing. Perhaps if he’d been allowed to direct more films in the Lewton style, stuff more like The Haunting or The Innocents, he’d be better remembered as a director.

Captain Clegg, or, The Night Creatures (Peter Graham Scott, 1962)
A brisk adventure story of pirates and smuggling in a sea-side English town, full of charm and wit and just a smattering of horror for no other reason, I suspect, than to ride the popularity of Hammer’s gothic output. Like many a fine adventure film, there’s little one can find to say on it. Except, of course, that one should watch it.

The Skin I Live In (Pedro Almodovar, 2012)
While this outwardly plays on stories like Frankenstein and Pygmalion, a less obvious source that I’d like to talk about is The Island of Dr. Moreau. This is a version of that book, too, albeit disguised within a more scientific eugenicist story. Rather than perfecting animals into humans, a remnant of the old evolutionist idea that humans were the perfection towards which the biological world aspired, this one has a scientist looking to perfect humans by fusing our vulnerable qualities with the hardier attributes of animals. Tho’ in both cases, the pursuit of fusing man with animal is a guise for the grossest forms of domination. The film seems aware of its Moreau-ness, or how else to read the costumed man-tiger that shows up? I suppose it wasn’t enough to have so much bestial passion running through the narrative; there also needed to be an outward signifier to declare its lineage. Or perhaps the Moreau story is itself being used as a metaphor for the animal compulsions behind passion and desire, and the male need to control and dominate, to hold captive (cuckolded, left behind, confused for a rapist and then left behind again, the man responds by creating an avatar of his wife to keep safe, control, and punish all at the same time). The film does contain elements of narrativity, tho’, with its comments on the unavoidable recurrence of stories. This is one of the few films I wanted an immediate sequel to. This very good movie nevertheless seems like the set up for an even more interesting one.

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Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#2042 Post by knives » Mon Apr 13, 2020 11:01 am

Wow. This list, I suppose appropriately, got terribly lost as a result of quarantine, nor the bad movie, so thanks for the reminder.

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Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#2043 Post by domino harvey » Mon Apr 13, 2020 11:33 am

Rayon Vert asked for an extension. If four other members weigh in asking for one, I’ll extend the deadline one month

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Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#2044 Post by Rayon Vert » Mon Apr 13, 2020 12:11 pm

I actually only have 7 films left to watch with what I was able to get in the last two weeks, and most probably I'll get 4 in out of those 7 before the deadline, so no need after all for an extension for me. (I'll leave off the few films that are very unlikely to make my list anyway.) But if others need an extension, I have no problem with that of course!

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Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#2045 Post by Mr Sausage » Tue Apr 14, 2020 1:28 pm

The Paul Naschy Collection


Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll (Carlos Aured, 1973)
I don't mind suffering through interminable shit for a forum project, but no way am I doing it twice. My original thoughts here.

Night of the Werewolf (Paul Naschy, 1981)
If you’re going to rob the grave of a famous lycanthrope, probably shouldn’t do it during a full moon. Some occultists who work in academia wish to raise the dead Countess Bathory through a black mass. At the same time, Waldemar Daninsky, long-time werewolf, Bathory’s former slave, and the world’s fastest crossbow loader, is resurrected. The movie is watchable--not a given with Paul Naschy. He’s good as Daninsky. Still, one can’t help remembering that, in the year when Landis and Dante were reinvigorating the werewolf movie with youthful energy, Naschy was still doing the same old thing he’d been at since the 60s. This both looks and feels like a much older movie. That’s either the appeal or the turn off, depending on your disposition.

Vengeance of the Zombies (Leon Klimovsky, 1973)
In spirit, this is pre-Night of the Living Dead. It’s all eastern exoticism and voodoo. The racial politics are what you’d expect for a 70s Spanish film. The lone black person is a leering, bug-eyed maniac, and Naschy plays an Indian swami named Krishna, replete with blue dot on his forehead. The plot’s all over the place. It offers disconnected scenes and events that you’re supposed to watch in patient confusion until they’re tied together at the end. Rather than lend an air of mystery, this kind of plotting simply bores as there is nothing to anticipate nor clues to puzzle over. Just a movie without momentum or coherence. Highlight: geriatric pitchfork duel. Lowlight: chicken beheaded live on camera.

Human Beasts aka The Beasts' Carnival (Paul Naschy, 1980)
Opens with a seriously funky version of the dies irae. The rest is a hodge podge of different movies, none connected to each other with any logic, dream or otherwise. The opening third is an exotic spy/espionage film, with Naschy double crossing a group of Japanese rebels who pursue him to the Spanish countryside and grievously wound him. He seeks safety with a kindly doctor and his three daughters. We get a retread of Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll, with the sisters lusting after him while a mysterious killer offs random incidental characters in the background. The movie shifts into the grand guignol for the last act. The final scene is bonkers and pointless in true European grindhouse style. If the movie’d had more of that, it might’ve been less tedious. Also, it anticipates Hannibal with a graphic scene of pigs devouring a man alive. It’s brutal and well staged, but this is a Paul Naschy film, so he has to intercut it with shots of him having sex because…I don’t know. It’s a typical Eurotrash exploitation film: plenty of sex, gore, and nutty content separated by long scenes of tedium and incoherence.

Horror Rises From the Tomb (Carlos Aured, 1972)
A warlock, played by Paul Naschy, is beheaded and his body and head buried separately. His head so happens to be buried on the grounds of a country villa owned by Hugo, a socialite played by...Paul Naschy. Through convoluted means involving visions and a seance (neither connected, oddly), the head is recovered, reunited with the body, and the warlock returns to fulfill his deathbed curse on his executioners (one of whom was his brother, played by...Tilda Swinton, er, Paul Naschy) even tho' they're all dead and have no descendants in the movie. So, the usual Naschy sense of coherence. Lots of naked women are tortured and murdered in this one, and the movie seems to imply Naschy’s warlock has sex with a girl he’s just murdered. Cheap, exploitative, and takes forever to get anywhere. You know, a Paul Naschy film.

Noiradelic
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2009 12:45 am

Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#2046 Post by Noiradelic » Wed Apr 15, 2020 2:52 am

I have a plot question about Triangle (probably only the most significant of many potential ones, since I just watched it for the first time!):
SpoilerShow
After George and her son are killed in the truck collision near the end, which iteration of George observes the scene and then takes the taxi to the dock? Most of George's iterations appear to have followed a similar loop, as demonstrated by the piles of lockets and human and seagull bodies, so how does this one get to the accident scene minus her car and her son at that point in time?

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therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#2047 Post by therewillbeblus » Fri Apr 17, 2020 12:35 am

Noiradelic wrote:
Wed Apr 15, 2020 2:52 am
I have a plot question about Triangle (probably only the most significant of many potential ones, since I just watched it for the first time!):
SpoilerShow
After George and her son are killed in the truck collision near the end, which iteration of George observes the scene and then takes the taxi to the dock? Most of George's iterations appear to have followed a similar loop, as demonstrated by the piles of lockets and human and seagull bodies, so how does this one get to the accident scene minus her car and her son at that point in time?
I don't know how to answer that without just linking this convoluted explanation

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therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#2048 Post by therewillbeblus » Fri Apr 17, 2020 12:55 pm

I can't believe the other von Trier horror, Riget, completely escaped my mind when compiling my list! Guess I'll be revisiting that this weekend, but if you're quarantined in with some free time (~10 hours) to kill, I highly recommend it. I'm glad I didn't submit early as this will almost surely place, and high.

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therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#2049 Post by therewillbeblus » Fri Apr 17, 2020 2:55 pm

I don't think I'll have room for all of these, but I recently rewatched some horror shorts that can be digested very quickly as potential last-minute additions to lists. Some have already been linked to, and mentioned, in this thread.

The Flypaper

Oh! I can't stop!

A Short Vision

Sredni Vashtar (David Bradley version - 1940)

Swing You Sinners!

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swo17
Bloodthirsty Butcher
Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2008 10:25 am
Location: SLC, UT

Re: The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#2050 Post by swo17 » Fri Apr 17, 2020 3:23 pm

All good suggestions!

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