The scariest film of the year (as released in America) got buried near the beginning of the year, while the young teens on Halloween weekend get stuck with schlock like Exorcist: Believer, The Nun II, Saw X, Friday Night at Freddy's and god knows what other atrocities (Ice Shiksa: Errors Tore?).

Let me revisit the earlier reviews buried deep:

Jinnistan wrote:

Here's the real deal, folks.  This indie, ultra-lo-fi horror film has been polarizing audiences in much the same way as Blair Witch Project once upn a time.  So that's either manna for fans or an omen for the normies, but I'm here to tell you, believe the hype.

There are some preliminary cautions.  This film is very cheap indeed, shot on video but given a '70s celluloid grain.  The film immediately will try your patience.  It is a slow, hypnotic, somambulant experience that is not generous with exposition.  It is more of a subliminal, sensual film that is intended to mimic a nightmare, but not the kind of nightmare that has you waking in a shock of adrenaline.  It's the kind of nightmare that will have you slowly waking in dread and undefined anxiety, haunting your mood for the rest of the day.  It's a film that demands immersion, but beware, although it seems best fit for post-midnight viewing, it could very well lull you into slumber if you aren't tuned into the constant icy terror of something happening at each and every silent, pregnant moment.  The vague, impressionistic camerawork is dark with seemingly random shots of empty walls, corners, frames, spectral television glows and occasional glimpses of shadowy children, whispering to each other.  This creates a surreal blur of spatial definition, as in a dream, shapes and images that evoke primal trepidation, as in the experience of a child who wakes in the night, in an unlit house, and not really knowing whether they're still asleep or not.

There is something of a plot here, although, I admit, even after watching the film twice (because the first time was marred by the dozing I mentioned), I had to consult the wiki for some clarifications on a couple of things.  But mostly, the film is intended not to be completely understood or apprehended.  It is intended to be as vague as a dream, especially a barely remembered childhood dream that still unsettles when you try to think back on it.  The film involves a pair of children, a boy and a girl, who find themselves alone at night, their parents are apparently phantoms, but there's something else in the house with them.  It's spoiler-proof to say that this presence remains unknown.  The film isn't interested in letting you understand its nature.  Like Blair Witch, it's in this unknown, unknowable horror that the film really gets under your skin.  But it's also exactly what will frustrate and infuriate the average movie-goer expecting something like Paranormal Activity.  That's fine.  Let them go home and have the worst night's sleep of their lives.

9.5/10

crumbsroom wrote:

So Skinamarink....

I'm going to have a lot to say about this eventually I think. But I just feel some need to say something in the immediate aftermath of watching it. This is one of the greatest horror movies I've ever seen.

Film for me in most ways is an extremely communal experience. Even though I make it clear that I prefer to watch them alone, they make me feel connected with a world that I usually don't feel terribly connected with. For a couple of hours they make me feel tethered to the same ground as everyone else.

Never has a film made me feel so alone. Never have I ever felt abandoned while watching a movie. But this is the effect of Skimamarink. Many will claim this is a movie where nothing happens. But they are wrong. It is simply that this is a movie that dares never look towards what is happening. I know I saw something absolutely terrible, but I don't yet have the language to describe what that was.

I talk a lot about my personal history with film. I've mentioned many times how one of my earliest memories is watching the Exorcist with my mother when I was about four, and begging her to turn it off, and her refusing and feeling like I had nowhere to run to in our tiny apartment. It was possibly a ruiner of my life.

I've also often mentioned how this was my greatest ever experience with a film. The high water mark. Proof that a movie can be powerful enough to tear down your entire world. How it can leave you completely vulnerable.

I'm 47 now. I'm no longer in a place where a movie will ever do to me what The Exorcist did forty odd years ago. But tonight was the first time since that night where I felt I was similarly in the presence of something evil. Something unknowable. Something that could do harm. Now, I don't know if the emotions I experienced during this film would necessarily be called fear, but can report back that whatever happened, I feel very weird now. I feel uneasy. I don't know what I just watched.

Or....maybe I should just admit that I think this movie just scared the shit out of me.

I feel lots more needs to be said. I feel this is the kind of movie so open to the experience of watching a movie, and allowing it to happen to you, that an enormous thesis could be written about it. I've watched so many movies in my life, and you get jaded something that you start believing you've seen everything there is to see. That every approach has been taken. And then Skinamarink comes along and is such a singular experience it gives you hope. I think it was perfect. I was rivetted by every second of it.

Now, I wouldn't blame anyone for not being able to get through it. It is a movie that is absolutely singular in its vision and it doesn't deviate no matter how impatient it is clearly going to make a huge amount of the audience. The kind of film that would likely make Yarn shoot diarrhea from his ears if he ever had to sit through it, especially played at normal speed. So I get when people say "but...it's just a bunch of furniture and ceilings". Well, yeah, it frequently technically is just that. But that is only if all you are seeing is what is on screen and creating an inventory of household items and nothing else. These viewers are tipping their hat that they do not notice the films narrative structure (which is clearly there). Or how astonishing nearly every image is in this film (each shot is almost a miracle of minimalist composition, worthy of being hung in a gallery as examples of modern art that is actually fantastic). They aren't giving credit to the kind of witch craft the films pace and structure and editing lull you into a world you've never been before. Even though that world is just a house.

This movie absolutely shook me. It jangled out all of those childhood anxieties that I guess I still have stored up in me even into adulthood. Last night I had nightmares about being in a house I didn't recognize and not knowing how to call out of it. I don't even know the last time a movie gave me nightmares. I didn't know they still could work like that.

I know its early in its effect on me, but I liken the films perfection to very few horror films. It is in the league of The Exorcist or Texas Chainsaw or The Shining, where nothing should be changed. There is an alchemy here that shouldn't be tampered with.

The guy who made this should be extremely proud of himself, and I hope the hate he's going to get from many corners of the internet doesn't dampen what a singular voice he has (not that I think this is the kind of thing that can ever be repeated, it's a one off, but maybe he has some other tricks up his sleeve)

For the sake of spoilers, because I think at least Rock has yet to see the film, I'll post my rewatch theory here.
 

crumbsroom wrote:

Wolf's Hole isn't a bad little Czech oddity.

I meant to watch this one this month but ran out of time. I suppose I'll squeeze in more Chytilova before the end of the year. I started getting into her work towards the beginning of the year but got sidetracked.

I wouldn't intend to shoehorn some AV Club hate into the mix, but I did find it funny, and telling, to see an article this morning.  Their writers have fully adopted the corporate line of championing the "IP Era", the attempt at branding this phase of disregarding original concepts in favor of endless recycling of IP content, under the submissive dogma that "all stories have already been told".  So we get an article pimping some new Poltergeist reboot, which starts off with this wisdom:

But how do you come up with a new spooky idea when that’s literally impossible? Well, thankfully, there are countless old spooky ideas that can be endlessly recycled....

"Literally impossible".  When the completely original Skinamarink was literally released just this year.

When are we going to implement a tax on these egregious uses of "literally" anyway?
 

crumbsroom wrote:

I suppose one could argue that if you reduce any story to its most basic components, maybe you could say every story has already been told. Maybe, but only if this is just the crust left at the bottom of the pot after everything else has been boiled away.

I suppose they could try to say, "Well, ghosts aren't new.  That's an old spooky idea!  And children!  We've had lots of stories about children!"

Friday Night at Freddy's is probably a piece of shit, but at least it's an original idea, or at least it was when it came out as a video game a decade ago.  And Babadook.  It's almost as if it might be literally possible to have new spooky ideas after all.

I don't know why.  Yes I do.  I wanted what I thought would be a good pisser of a hate-watch.  I knew, kinda.  But not really.  I was definitely hoping to laugh at it more, but it's just too pathetic.  Too cynical and mean-spirited.  Are they remaking these films now just to intentionally offend the fans of the originals?  I think these filmmakers are confusing spite with suspense.  Producer Fede Alvarez has managed to position himself as some kind of conservator of these horror properties, first with his awful Evil Dead remake (does anyone even care enough to remember that one?) and soon with a new Alien film.  He's like the JJ Abrams of horror films, all karaoke, no vision.  I spent most of the film hoping Alec Baldwin would show up and shoot everybody involved.

3/10
 

Rock wrote:

Too lazy to link to all the individual reviews, so instead here's a list of everything I watched in the spirit of the season. You should be able to click through to the individual reviews in most cases.

Did I not post my review of Footprints on the Moon on Letterboxd?

Doctor Penetration  - now here's an IP just itching to be exploited.

I have a soft spot for Delirium, and Serena Grandi.

I tried to find Alucarda after watching Moctezuma's Dr. Tarr this month but couldn't.

Why isn't Night of the Werewolf on Youtube anymore?

Have I seen White Dress for Mariale?  Maybe?  Urgh, this Euro-Blur!!!

I don't remember boiled eyes in Horror Express.
My loss, no doubt.
And I call myself a fan.

Can't get enough of the smooth brains though.
 

crumbsroom wrote:

You've never seen Alucarda?

*judgy eyes*

Was this one of those Youtube horror films I reviewed back in the day and forgot about?

crumbsroom wrote:

All I remember is screaming.

This is accurate.

Looks like Alucarda is on Internet Archive as well: https://archive.org/details/Alucarda.uncut.angeeParaZoowoman.website