Webhead123

7 hours ago, Sumez said:

I don't think the movie was trying to obscure that. The only thing that's really undetermined for the first few beats of the movie is whether the protagonist is an unreliable narrator.

I think you're right. Again, I think Moss' performance may be the only saving grace of the film for me. You do kinda buy her sense of paranoia and desperation. But yeah, the entire rest of the film just did not hold together for me and I was positively begging for it to end. I blame the script.

Barbarian kind of surprised me. I mean, I knew the concept going in but I still found more to like than I expected here. It's not all a ringer. There are some kinda stupid and contrived elements to it but I think the core script and filmmaking were strong enough to pull it through. It's not going to make an all-time-rewatch list for me but I do think it was one of the more clever and interesting horror films of recent years and deserves attention for that reason.

Oh, I hated The Invisible Man remake. For whatever reason, and I acknowledge that it is probably undeserved, I don't like Elisabeth Moss as an actress. So, anything she is in is already a hard sell for me. But my wife wanted to watch this and I thought it might be fun. As it turns out, I didn't mind Moss in this film. I wasn't particularly wowed by her performance but I actually think the film would have been far worse if it hadn't been for her talents to save it. I suppose it was just the overall script, the pretty blatant telegraphing (I don't know if I'm alone in this but I knew IMMEDIATELY what was happening, who the villain was and how things were going to end) and the frankly quite stupid approach to try to make "invisibility" plausible within the film's setting. Yeah...this film felt frustrating to watch and one of the least enjoyable "person becomes invisible" stories I've seen.

I originally passed on Malignant thinking that it was going to be "just another possession/Conjuring spook-um" but from everything I've heard (which, at this point, is pretty much the entire film) it actually sounds like a level of shlock that I'll find rather fun. So, I plan on checking that out at some point.

Update: Watched it as part of a double-feature night with the wife. I'm torn on the film as a whole. The schlock was pretty much everything I had imagined based on what I'd heard and that helped keep it entertaining. My favorite element was probably the effects used during the "transition" scenes, as the scenery melts away and transforms into another location. Every time it happened, I was furiously scanning the image, trying to soak in all the details of those morph effects. There were also the "centerpiece" scenes which featured some really great camera work and fight choreography. It was occasionally difficult to track exactly what was happening in those moments because I think it would sometimes jump-cut too aggressively but they were probably the highlight of the movie. The rest of it (the majority of connecting scenes, the script, score, acting, etc.) was...passable-to-bad. I also think the film would have been much, MUCH stronger if the opening, pre-credit scene had been left out. Maybe it was added out of worry that the opening would otherwise be too slow for the average audience member but it actually kind of ruins any suspense by essentially explaining what's happening before the movie even really begins. I seriously got some Darkplace vibes from that opening scene...and I don't think that was intentional. It contributed to the constant giggling I did throughout the film. So, did I enjoy it? Overall, yeah...I think so. It was the kind of ridiculous absurdity that kept me entertained just enough to suffer through the less interesting bits. Would I watch it again? Probably not. Outside of revisiting those cool-looking "transition" moments, I just don't think there's enough there.

I don't know that I've even heard of Smile but I'll have to look into it.

Green Room is also on my watch list. I suspect I'll enjoy that one. Update: Watched it with the wife last night. I enjoyed it, more than she did, I think. It gave me some Assault on Precinct 13 vibes at times. I tend to like suspense/thriller stories that take place within a very confined location, as it lets the audience get a sense of intimacy with the events and characters. This one worked for me. Stewart and Yelchin were both great. I really liked how subdued and logical Stewart was as the villain. It wasn't overplayed. No dramatic, villainous monologue. No indignant, raving tirade at the end. He was a businessman and he just conducted everything in a collected manner. Even apologized for slapping one of his henchmen around. Good filmmaking overall.

I respect what Peele did with Get Out and I think, for what it is, it is a mostly well-made film. That said, I've found that Peele's films work much better in concept than execution and I don't like a single one of them. I think Get Out is the least bad of his big three but I still don't think it's good. Us actually insulted me and made me angry, with how lazy, contrived and nonsensical it was. Nope was a neat idea that just wasn't serviced by a very good script. If I had to grade them, Get Out gets a "C" for effort, Nope gets a "D" and Us is a straight "F" with no hope of redemption.

Like my comments about Ringu, I've been thoroughly bored and unimpressed with The Conjuring and the deluge of movies of its ilk. I tried setting aside my biases when my wife wanted to watch it but I couldn't help but roll my eyes and shuffle impatiently in my seat through the whole thing. Ghosts and demons don't scare me. Ugly dolls don't scare me. The people in these kinds of movies always act like complete morons when attempting even the simplest tasks. I think the actors delivered pretty good performances but that isn't enough to save me from the feeling that I'd just much rather be watching The Exorcist than any other film about this subject. The Exorcist works because it is a story that is primarily about the characters and their psychological/emotional journey, not about the haunting itself. The Conjuring didn't offer any of that to me.

I do, however, still intend to watch It Follows because I've heard the filmmaking is superb and the twist on the haunting concept seems novel and I may eventually get around to watching The Babadook for the psycho-horror element seemingly lurking within.

I was excited for Drag Me To Hell and I definitely like parts of it. The overall thing was maybe only a "B" grade for me but it was still worth watching. The ending did bother me a little, although I'm not sure exactly why. Maybe it felt a bit...contrived...or mean-spirited or something. I'm okay with "twist" endings, particularly in horror but I think maybe this one felt a little undeserved or perhaps like it exists just for the sake of subverting audience expectations without having narrative justification behind it.

I've seen both the original Let the Right One In and the American remake Let Me In. I have a hard time deciding which version is better. Honestly, I think they both have their strengths. My favorite part is probably the exploration of the lore...what would it be like for a child vampire, eternal youth and all that? What would they need in order to survive/conduct their ghoulish business and what would it look like for the people helping them. All pretty disturbing stuff, yet the film(s) do a pretty masterful job of playing with your emotions to hate certain characters and feel sympathy for others.

Slither was complete and total shlock...and that's what made it such a fun watch. While not in my top-tier of favorite monster flicks, it doesn't miss the mark by all that much and it has plenty of gusto to make it worth watching.

And I know people are divided on The Mist, especially with regards to the ending being so bleak...but that's the point. It is perhaps one of the most truly Lovecraftian finales to any film and I've always thought it mostly worked. This is a send-up to classic "trapped in a house" horror films and actually works great when seen in black-and-white.

28 Days Later is one of my personal favorite films and I've seen it several dozen times. Between it and Return of the Living Dead, I call them the pinnacle of zombie cinema (the former of the more serious, dramatic variety and the latter of the satire, deconstruction and reimagination of the zombie survival trope). I like the small cast and the razor-focus of 28 Days Later on the trials and tribulations of the characters. I didn't like 28 Weeks Later much at all, watched it twice and quickly forgot about it.

I think I used to like 2004's Dawn of the Dead more than I currently do. I still think of it as a film with plenty of good going for it but I don't think it has aged for me quite as well as other zombie films that I feel have more to offer in terms of story/character nuance, special effects or just plain nostalgia.

The Descent was...okay...but nothing that stuck with me. Probably better than most horror films of the last 20 years but that's not quite enough for me.

When I finally got around to watching Ringu (and The Ring for the sake of comparison), I found myself...unimpressed. I found nothing scary or even all that tense about it (not even the attempted jump-scares), most of the story beats were predictable and I never developed any reason to care about any of the characters. To be fair, my feelings on this extend to most films about ghosts, hauntings, curses, exorcisms and paranormal shenanigans. For whatever reason, I've just never been afraid of the idea of ghosts. Maybe it's just not my genre. I know these films are beloved by many but they honestly felt like time I'll never get back and I have no real interest in revisiting them.

Schlocky and nonsensical as it can be if you examine it closely, I still love Event Horizon for the atmosphere and the grand concept of it. However, my wife refuses to watch it because she is personally unsettled by any horror movie with implied demonic-like possession, so this is a film I don't revisit as often as I otherwise would.

If any director had the talent to realize Lovecraft-inspired material and make it feel properly Lovecraftian, it was Carpenter.

Night of the Creeps is one of my wife's favorite shlocky horror movies. I enjoy it a fair bit but I definitely wouldn't call it a personal favorite. To be fair, I didn't grow up with it, so the nostalgia factor is limited but I recognize it as an enjoyable film from a time when monster movies were at their peak. It fits the archetype of the great, gory horror-comedies of the 80's.

It must be said: your father, based on his taste in movies, is an incredible human being!