Seen and not seen's, recommendations and queries on top films in general.

[JLIAT]

Father Grandier, is played beautifully by Oliver Reed, it's an incredible performance. The actor is most commonly known in our time as the slave owner/former gladiator who won his freedom in Gladiator. He also stars in Cronenberg's "The Brood" as Dr. Raglan.

Oliver Reed was certainly a magnificent actor, another great part was his in Women in Love, another Ken Russell film, which was quite shocking in its day, based on the D H Lawrence novel which explores sexuality... and also in The Devils was Vanessa Redgrave who also stared in Blow Up, another film which is a “must see” explores insanity and for noise fans a scene with the Yardbirds – from 1966!!!. As a tangent some of the filming of Gladiator was done on Malta. We used to holiday there, and a small bar is now called “Olie's last stand”. The story goes he was drinking there when a British Navel ship docked, which resulted in a drinking session in which he died in the pub. We stayed in a Hotel in Valletta where some of the crew stayed. The barman remembered him well, and his late night sessions with the film crew.

[aububs]

women in love is hilarious. every line that oliver reed speaks is pure comedy. the naked wrestling with alan bates is the highlight.

there's another incredible movie called The Shout, with alan bates as a man who can kill people with his shout. a very power electronics movie, actually, now that i think of it. one of the characters is an electronic sound composer

[ConcreteMascara]

I'll have to check out Women in Love and The Shout, they sound interesting.

Well the last two nights I've been burning the midnight oil to watch some very good and very bad movies.

Monday night:
The Exorcist III [dir. William Peter Blatty, 1990] - the unexpected highlight of the last few nights maybe even the last week or two, damn was this movie awesome! My friend and I assumed it'd be shit because you know it's the third sequel and 17 years after the original. Until the last maybe 30 minutes we kept waiting for it to get terrible but at some point it hit us that it's just an awesome movie. I'd say the worst thing about it is the silly sequence where a crucified christ statute opens its eyes and it looks silly and dumb. Otherwise it's a cold police procedural staring George C Scott as an old man pushed to the edge by a grim world. That sounds a little corny so I'm not doing it justice but he's absolutely awesome. He's got to have one of the most commanding voices of any actor ever. It's a dialogue heavy movie but because Blatty's a skilled writer it's really good stuff. The sound design is also really excellent. The cinematography, the set designs, most of the effects are all good too. But what puts this movie over the top from really good to fucking awesome is Brad Dourif. He just tears up everything around him once he enters the picture. Almost all of his dialogue would be good for sampling in power electronics or goregrind. He's not fully unhinged, just very intense. I love it. Knowing Brad Dourif is going to be in anything makes me willing to watch it but this is the movie to watch for him alone. Oh and the whole Exorcist connection was a re-shoot studio interference thing and sorta works, but I'm very interested to watch the patchwork director's cut that was released a few years ago.

Night of the Demons [dir. Kevin Tenney, 1988] - So my friend and I watched this after The Exorcist III and it kind of felt like we were taking the piss by watching such a silly movie after such a good one. Frankly, I found it tough to enjoy this kind of schlock after such a meaty piece of cinema so my impression is probably less favorable than it would've been on any other given night. I will say, there's a decent amount of nudity but I think they easily could've pushed the amount. The gore is good to mediocre and often too quick for my taste, but it's there.  The whole thing was silly and fun enough, but my biggest complaint is there were a couple of essentially off-screen deaths and for a movie about a specific group of teens dying at the hands of demons in an isolated location, the kills are the reason for the season. Make an event out of each one, not just some of them. Well anyway, this will be a fun one to show at horror movie party, whenever I can start hosting those again.

Tuesday night:
Pulse [dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2001] - my second viewing and I liked it a bit more this time but I still think it's too damn long. trim 20 minutes out of this and eliminate all the of the completely unnecessary CGI which starts popping up at the end and it'd be wayyy better. The first hour is a perfect horror movie so it annoys me that it gets lost in repetition in the second half. Also, unless you're making the Usual Suspects, don't start a movie at the end and then cut to the beginning. Flashback movies take out all of tension because you already know who is alive at the end. And in this movie, like Annihilation it adds absolutely nothing.

Pulse [dir. Jim Sonzero, 2006] - because my friend and I hate ourselves we watched this piece of trash immediately after the original. Kristen Bell is hot throughout but this is just dreadful in every department. If I want to see her be hot and used well I'll watch The Good Place. Anyway in order to make this story "work" they put in some kind of post-Matrix hackers plot, attempt to steal imagery and sequences from the original and bore you to tears while doing it. My main man Brad fucking Dourif shows up in this dung heap to essentially yell at the two mains, Alex Jones style, and is then never seen again. It was an entertaining interruption but is not enough of a reason to watch this. Also the whole thing is color corrected so it looks entirely grey and murky like the inside of a robots colon. And the fucking "ghosts" look like a sillier version of the creature in Aphex Twin's "Come to Daddy" video. Watch that instead of even thinking about watching Pulse 2006. Fuck this was truly awful.

https://youtu.be/TZ827lkktYs

[Atrophist]

Watched a documentary called The Booksellers, which is about -- believe it or not -- people who sell rare and old books, and their customers, the collectors.

Pretty interesting, until about 2/3 of the way in, when they start to go on about (you guessed it) how the traders and collectors are all white men -- even if they aren't, as the documentary itself makes clear. The solution is to introduce a black woman who collects and catalogues old hip-hop magazines. In and of itself a completely worthy pursuit, but the way it's presented in this film was so condescending and tokenistic I wanted to laugh.

[host body]

Lost Boys, Finnish documentary about two junkies recently released from long prison sentences who travel to Cambodia to do all of the drugs and fuck all of the hookers they possibly can. One is dies in suspicious circumstances and the other one escapes to Thailand to live on the streets, until the documentary director finds him and takes him back to Finland. It was very atmospheric and probably the most POWER ELECTRONICS documentary I've ever seen. The voice over by the director sounded like PE lyrics and the soundtrack was heavy electronics that could well work on a proper PE release. Don't want to give it away but the ending is super depressing, and something I did not expect.

Seriously, everyone on this board should watch it. Features a lot of heavy drug use as well as graphic sex. Can't remember when I last saw anything this nihilistic. Oh and hunt down the uncersored version, it has like 10 minutes of footage that was cut for the TV version.

[ConcreteMascara]

Saturday night:

Suspiria [dir. Luca Guadagnino, 2018] - finally decided to watch this, going in with no expectations good or bad. if you sidestep the trap of comparing it to the original the whole time I think it's a very good modern horror film and an example of what a good remake can look like. It has it's own visual language, it uses the story skeleton in a new way and the performances are generally strong. I like modern dancing and there's a lot here, although I could've gone for even more! I also enjoyed that this generally felt grounded in reality, especially for the story it was telling, where the original feels like a candy-colored fever dream. My big complaint was the use of digital blood spray, especially towards the end, and some other editing and visual decisions that felt out of synch with the rest of the movie. I also found Tilda Swinton's performance as the old psychiatrist very distracting at times. I think the audience for this is definitely smaller than for the original, but I liked it a lot.

I took the day off yesterday and wound up watching 3 movies almost back to back. can't complain about that!

Horrors of Malformed Men [dir. Teruo Ishii, 1969] - second viewing and more enjoyable than my first since I wasn't falling asleep. I really have to stop starting movies at 11PM after being up for 18 hours already... My understanding is the story crams together several Edogawa Rampo stories into one (maybe too many), which is why the pacing and exposition dumps are a little funky. But honestly everything leading up to the arrival on the island is a lot of fun, a nice mix of amnesia-noir and comedic elements. And then you get to the island and it's titties and deformities and reveal after reveal after reveal. I mean this movie goes hard. It's relatively tame compared to the torture flicks Ishii was doing simultaneously, probably safe to watch with the wife and kids. A quality family romp!

Gamera: Guardian of the Universe - [dir. Shusuke Kaneko, 1995] - I was really disappointed when I missed Arrow's Gamera box set last summer and it immediately stared selling for x4 the original price. I hoped they'd do additional, less limited releases and they did so happy day. I've never seen any of the Heisei era Gamera but I've read so many good things. Well I was not disappointed! For a movie about a flying turtle that fights monsters with its fireball breath and tusks it feels surprisingly grounded. It felt like the seeds for Shin Godzilla were already growing here too. The pace is brisk, the balance of science talk and kaiju action is perfect and tons of innocent people die. What's not to like? Looking forward to the next two films.

Tremors [dir. Ron Underwood, 1990] - fuck I haven't seen this one in 20 years at least. but I watched the shit out of this as kid along with the first two sequels. It's been so long I remembered some of the main story beats but none of the specifics. On re-watch as a somewhat critical "adult" I'd say this is a near perfect movie, and I can't normally stand Kevin Bacon. tight script, solid performances, awesome creature effects, tight pacing, it's got it all. goddamn this movie rules.

[aububs]

love the susperia remake

it's like he remade susperia as zulawski's possession

[NerveGas]

love the susperia remake

it's like he remade susperia as zulawski's possession

Have heard nothing but horrible things about the remake. Possession is one of my all time favorites. So maybe that will motivate me to check it out. Why they even remade Suspiria is beyond me. Didn’t that dude from Radiohead do the soundtrack? Fucking weak.  I’m going in with a lot of bias, but I’ll give it a fair shot.

[host body]

love the susperia remake

it's like he remade susperia as zulawski's possession

Have heard nothing but horrible things about the remake. Possession is one of my all time favorites. So maybe that will motivate me to check it out. Why they even remade Suspiria is beyond me. Didn’t that dude from Radiohead do the soundtrack? Fucking weak.  I’m going in with a lot of bias, but I’ll give it a fair shot.

I don't know if the disctinction makes sense, but it's more of a reimagination than a remake. It has the same premise and some plot points, but having seen the first will not spoil the remake, it's different enough to stand on it's own. I did like it just fine, it was good for a modern horror movie but naturally nowhere near the original. I didn't even mind ol' lazy eye's music, it fit the movie well. There were a couple of scenes that were really cool and disturbing, like one set in a dance studio. It's well worth watching, much better than say Midsommar or Get Out or other popular horror movies from recent years.

[NerveGas]

love the susperia remake

it's like he remade susperia as zulawski's possession

Have heard nothing but horrible things about the remake. Possession is one of my all time favorites. So maybe that will motivate me to check it out. Why they even remade Suspiria is beyond me. Didn’t that dude from Radiohead do the soundtrack? Fucking weak.  I’m going in with a lot of bias, but I’ll give it a fair shot.

I don't know if the disctinction makes sense, but it's more of a reimagination than a remake. It has the same premise and some plot points, but having seen the first will not spoil the remake, it's different enough to stand on it's own. I did like it just fine, it was good for a modern horror movie but naturally nowhere near the original. I didn't even mind ol' lazy eye's music, it fit the movie well. There were a couple of scenes that were really cool and disturbing, like one set in a dance studio. It's well worth watching, much better than say Midsommar or Get Out or other popular horror movies from recent years.

Like I said I’ll give it a shot. Being better than Midsommar and Get Out is a plus. What fucking stinkers those two were. Crap films.

[holy ghost]

Am I the only one who thought Midsommar was fucking great?

I liked the Suspiria remake too.

I mean when that dude fuckin’ hucked himself off the cliff I was HOWLING. Like The Wicker Man but funnier.....

[cr]

Am I the only one who thought Midsommar was fucking great?

You're not the only one, I thought it was great, too!

Haven't seen the Suspiria remake, but I will do soon. I'm a huge fan of the original, so I'm quite curious.

[aububs]

loved midsommar

amongst other things, one of the best depictions of taking acid i've seen in a movie

speaking of folk horror, this is incoming at some stage. 3hr documentary by kier-la janisse. apologies for the huge image

[NerveGas]

Watched the new Suspiria. Went in with an open mind. Actually liked the total change of aesthetic. None of the over the top Argento color. Grey and depressing. First 30 minutes were good then it devolved into total nonsense. The ending could have been cool if it wasn’t shot like a 90s music video with fucking Thom Yorke playing over it. Ultimately though, I’ll say that this movie should be judged on its own merit and it’s not fair to compare it to the original. It’s clearly going for something else. That something just didn’t resonate with me in the least.

As far as Midsommar is concerned... that director can’t make up his mind in regards to what type of fucking movies he wants to make. Same with Hereditary. By the books horror or super traumatic drama. And he doesn’t combine the styles well at all in my opinion.  I see the potential for crossover and it doesn’t necessarily have to be an “either or” situation. But Midsommar felt like it changed tone at the drop of a hat. One minute it’s emotionally visceral and the next minute it’s basically A24 doing a stupid teenagers making bad decisions slasher style flick. Whatever. I’ll hand it to the guy... that cliff scene was fucking insane, and I enjoyed certain aspects of the ending. The rest was a total mess. Haven’t seen it since it came out, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

[MateriaPrima]

As far as Midsommar is concerned... that director can’t make up his mind in regards to what type of fucking movies he wants to make. Same with Hereditary. By the books horror or super traumatic drama. And he doesn’t combine the styles well at all in my opinion.  I see the potential for crossover and it doesn’t necessarily have to be an “either or” situation. But Midsommar felt like it changed tone at the drop of a hat. One minute it’s emotionally visceral and the next minute it’s basically A24 doing a stupid teenagers making bad decisions slasher style flick. Whatever. I’ll hand it to the guy... that cliff scene was fucking insane, and I enjoyed certain aspects of the ending. The rest was a total mess. Haven’t seen it since it came out, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

Personally I actually really liked Hereditary for what it was, thought it had some great elements and visuals. There were some real memorable images, some even iconic. I thought it had a great combination of eerie disturbing and unsettling elements, shocking violence where it counted, and some great surrealistic bizarre imagery and sequences. It really got under my skin. But then again, despite appreciating the genre, I'm not exactly a horror buff, maybe that's why. One of the reasons I liked it was because it isn't your typical horror film.

On the other hand I can't bring myself to watch Midsommar, the general feel I get from the trailer and the images completely turns me off.