All The Shrimps Be Haunted

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Posted by Jinnistan
10/11/2023 8:21 am
#41

crumbsroom wrote:

You can do this with a basic slasher premise like Halloween, since most of the audience is going to be too dumb to notice that big a difference. But to do this with a film like the Exorcist, which is basically built upon its real world drama, with the possession really only being a single ingredient in the film as a whole, makes it immediately irrelevant to fans of the original. Not to mention probably or little interest to modern audiences who would call it 'boring'.

I remember about a decade ago when you had this spate of low-budget exorcism films which used 'found footage' (like Last Exorcism, I think, and many others like it), and the business rationale was explained simply as 1) low budget which can easily be recouped on opening weekend, so no expectation for "legs"; and 2) dependence on demographic marketing to minority religious communities like young Hispanic Catholics and Black Baptists who were not likely to be either familiar or as reverent of the original film.

crumbsroom wrote:

Doesn't help my view of critics much though when in many of the reviews you get appeals to the films defence claiming 'less a horror film than a blood soaked character study'.

Interesting way to covertly admit that X had a complete lack of characterization.


 
Posted by crumbsroom
10/11/2023 9:53 am
#42

Rock wrote:

I wish I could be win over by Pearl, but I find West and Goth’s work too deliberate for any of it to breathe. At least the mix of influences is more novel than X.

I don't disagree, but I could deal with that deliberate approach when he's playing with classic Hollywood type filmmaking, as I can just wave away some of its affectations as that old school artifice. It still has a lot of moments where I felt that gap between what it seemed he was intending to do, and what he is actually able to do but...I could live with it here.

His dreadful aping of Grindhouse was way more unforgivable to me. You have to at least get the immediacy of that kind of filmmaking if that's the sandbox youre playing in and his approach was calculated and dumb and clearly slumming in hopes of gaining some lofi cred. So bad.

 
Posted by crumbsroom
10/11/2023 8:31 pm
#43



 

 
Posted by crumbsroom
10/11/2023 9:24 pm
#44

 
Posted by crumbsroom
10/11/2023 9:28 pm
#45

Maybe not straight horror films but, whatever.

This is the road I'm going down.

Interdimensional witches convincing a woman to fuck her friend with a snake.

A dork in a suit following women on the street and stabbing them because he's mad they look better in a dress than him.

Boo!






 

 
Posted by Jinnistan
10/12/2023 3:21 am
#46

I don't believe my eyes.


 
Posted by crumbsroom
10/13/2023 2:00 pm
#47



It’s okay, judge me. It’s what anyone deserves when they let morbid curiosity get the better of them instead of worrying about the moral decay of the universe. But as much as I convinced myself these last few years I was done with these kinds of films, this one just lingered in the periphery. A monstrous shadow looming over all modern transgressive cinema. An omnipresent internet pest, texting me disembodied lols and emojis of claw hammers and severed nipple oops-memes and then some more lols just to make sure I knew it’s all just jokes, man. It’s not like anyone’s actually going to die if I watch it. You’ve defended worse, after all. Let’s see if I can find a diamond encrusted in this shell of basement blood and shit. Stop being such a pussy and put it on. You can take it.

And so I relented. And now here we are. My verdict obvious within seconds of it starting, but not turning it off. A headache for the rest of my life, because I pushed all the way through to the end. And what for? Will I get some kind of prize where they rescind my membership to humanity? Is this what I was hoping for during all these years of watching trash? Not the hope of transcending existence but to finally be excluded from it?

Are my neighbours looking at me weird now? Should they expect I might eat my dog because of what I’ve now got stuck in my eyes? How violently do I need to gesticulate towards the audience this was really meant for to prove it wasn’t for me? And if I begin to solemnly shake my head in disapproval, will I be absolved for ever taking part in this?

But don’t you even dare try and perform your way out of this one. There can be no tsk-tsking after the damage has been done. And it’s why I can’t in good faith employ the cover of giving it zero stars. That feels like a cop out. A way to deny my complicity in its existence. How my morbid curiosity was very much one of the ingredients in the toilet brew it was born from.

If the film does anything right, it is in making anyone who watches it feel complicit. There is no dodge available. The film is deliberately stripped of anything that could be considered a distraction from its central core of human debasement. Most of the victims we don’t even know as people, only as vessels of exhausted suffering. There is no action beyond slapping around the nearly dead. No suspense to be found as it gazes endlessly at wounds and private parts . No humor beyond some terrible puns only the unseen camera man laughs at, in exactly the same way he greets those he finds tied to his basement chair.

Looking away from the screen doesn’t make it cease to exist. Not laughing doesn’t mean it isn’t here for your amusement. Giving it a thumbs down doesn’t hurt it. Especially since it is the audience who truly deserves it.

Instead, give me a zero stars. Pin them to my chest with your deservingly cruel hands. And make sure to laugh at me as I just sit in my apartment with all the curtains drawn against the world outside.

 
Posted by Rock
10/13/2023 2:52 pm
#48

For all the noxious, extreme cinema I’ve seen over the years, I’ve never had any interest in seeing that one or its sequels. I think in part it’s because I’ve never heard a case for theme beyond them being exercised in extremity. But also I don’t have a lot of warmth for horror in that era (except some that are supposed to be actually good, and maybe some of the bozo nu metal garbage that studios were cranking out at the time).

Although I’ve probably watched something just as questionable already this month (my takeaway was that it was a much easier watch than Forced Entry). Will do another review dump soon. So you are not alone in making ill advised viewing decisions.


I am not above abusing mod powers for my own amusement.
 
Posted by crumbsroom
10/13/2023 3:20 pm
#49

Rock wrote:

For all the noxious, extreme cinema I’ve seen over the years, I’ve never had any interest in seeing that one or its sequels. I think in part it’s because I’ve never heard a case for theme beyond them being exercised in extremity. But also I don’t have a lot of warmth for horror in that era (except some that are supposed to be actually good, and maybe some of the bozo nu metal garbage that studios were cranking out at the time).

Although I’ve probably watched something just as questionable already this month (my takeaway was that it was a much easier watch than Forced Entry). Will do another review dump soon. So you are not alone in making ill advised viewing decisions.

If I was going to give it some kind of critical bump, whether intentional or not, the movie does deal with the banality of evil in a way that might have been interesting if the film wasn't otherwise such a blight on humanity.

I could see serious gorehound weirdos finding the film pretty intensely boring due to the fact that there are long scenes of the two villains just hanging out around town, going to small town tourist traps like miniature villages, or buying potato chips, or going to see Korn cover bands at horrible looking bars. During these scenes, there is no indication what they are doing when they go back home. Their existence looks painfully lame and empty. And as a result, these are the moments from the film that stick with me. How the movie is willing to paint them not so much as violent menaces, but as pathetic low-life losers that no one likes or would ever want to be.

Also, it should be stated, not in the films defense mind you, that as vile as this film is (and it is extremely awful, only Forced Entry is even in the same discussion), the vast majority of the violence is implied, which is easy to not be aware of considering how much blood and filth the movie is covered in. We usually rejoin the murderous pair after their finished their round or torture, and so we mostly just watch them berating these people they've violated and cut and humiliated. And, maybe not that surprisingly, this turns out to be almost worse than watching the kind of overt moments of violence you might be expecting.

But, the film is for the most part, mostly a dare. And I find it distressing that the first entry in this trilogy is apparently the 'tame one'. I don't even want to know (or so I say until next October)

 
Posted by crumbsroom
10/14/2023 5:23 pm
#50


Even though I only watched this two nights ago, it is now a complete blank. Suffering August Underground sort of blighted it out of existence. What I remember though it was....alright. I think the end was a decent pay off for a medium slow burn of a film. But I'm just guessing

Also did another rewatch of Scanners and I think it's finally got itself cemented as one of my favorite Cronenberg's, after being all over the place in my appreciation of his filmography over the years.
 

 
Posted by Jinnistan
10/15/2023 3:17 pm
#51

"What you don't know won't hurt you."

Denial and self-deception.  Interesting points of presumption for victims everywhere.




This is one of the few remaining entries in the All the Haunts Be Ours box set that I had yet to get to.  This Norwegian thriller (though shot by a Swede) is very self-aware of its basic psychological symbols - lake, moon, crow - for the subconsciousness, and even has a psychologist character onboard to help navigate the exposition through the fundamentals of dream imagery and interpretation.  This is a very intelligent mythical examination that only really suffers from staging which doesn't take advantage of the Nordic expressionism.  I'm curious if Ingmar Bergman saw the film, and what he felt he could have done with the material, especially as most of this symbolism seems evident in his Hour of the Wolf in a more subtextual subconscious manner.

8/10





Here's another interesting occult/horror film that is mostly about subconscious forces, or at least is capable of weaving base and primal psychological notes of guilt and trauma with archetypal superstition.  The film is surprisingly deep for its budget and presumed target audience, and the only significant liability is that J.J. Barry is a really crummy actor.  But this was a nice under the radar find.  (If crumbs or Rock have posted reviews for this that I don't remember, my apologies.)

7.5/10


 
Posted by Jinnistan
10/17/2023 11:16 am
#52



Mike Flanagan has been considered something of a bright light of modern horror with movies that don't suck quite as much as James Wan or Eli Roth, but to be completely honest he's still essentially a hack whose primary skill seems to be his ability to recycle tropes (Dr, Sleep) and make superficially prestigious looking Netflix series.  This "tale" is ostensibly based on the various stories of Edgar Allen Poe, but is in fact seriously lacking in both mystery and imagination.  Rather than working as an effective horror or thriller film, it's more of a Succession-esque modern soap opera about the dysfunction and ennui of the elite (the "Usher"s here modeled after the Sacklers), dressed up in the garb of numerous Poe references that have no substantial connection (outside of the most obvious) to any of the source material.  So, Netflix viewers, don't worry that you've never bothered to read any Poe, it certainly won't matter here.  I doubt Mike Flanagan has either.

As I said, it does look like it's supposed to be prestigious, with a lavish imitation-David Fincher visual design (which since House of Cards has been the standard for Netflix's empty originals).  So it's dark and moody in a rough estimate of atmosphere, but not very chilling.  And, in addition to the cheap quasi-clever writing in the dialogue, the performances suggest that for all of the investment in its production design there was apparently very little left over for rehearsals.  Old pros like Bruce Greenwood, Carla Gugino, Carl Lumbly and Mark Hamill all manage well enough with what looks like first-take line readings, but the younger cast is doomed to unnuanced emoting.

Well, gee, J, that's harsh.  It does seem misleading.  After all, it isn't as if this series is pure garbage like so many of the more cynical horror product of our day, or so many of the atrocious perversions of IP as of late (ie, Pet Semetary).  This is, on the surface, slick and professional work, and it managed to keep my attention for its eight-hour runtime (no small feat these days).  But it doesn't have to be tangibly nauseating.  It's just a shallowly entertaining but hollow exercise in servicable content with a few highlights to keep the viewer tuned in.  I'm sure Greenwood's "Lemon speech" may even win him an Emmy.

6/10
 


 
Posted by Rock
10/17/2023 12:28 pm
#53

I liked Dr. Sleep, but even that was cursed with that godawful Netflix sheen. The few minutes I’ve watched from his previous series were straight up painful to look at.


I am not above abusing mod powers for my own amusement.
 
Posted by Jinnistan
10/17/2023 6:14 pm
#54

Rock wrote:

I liked Dr. Sleep

I should probably give this a go, but I'm scared.  It doesn't make me feel any better that King is doing his own perversion of IP.


 
Posted by Rock
10/17/2023 7:05 pm
#55

Rebecca Ferguson goes a long way.


I am not above abusing mod powers for my own amusement.
 
Posted by Rock
10/17/2023 8:18 pm
#56

Suppose I should do another roundup...

Got around to the last few Freddy and Jason movies I hadn't seen. Freddy vs Jason is about as good as you could hope for a teamup several years past the sell by date of both franchises. Jason X is lazy, halfassed garbage with a few decent moments. (Also rewatched 4, which is about as well made as these movies could be.) Nightmare 4 and 5 play the same beats as 3, 4 reasonably well and 5 much worse. And the Nightmare remake... oof. Funny how one narrative decision can sink a movie so thoroughly.

The My Bloody Valentine 3D remake is obviously gimmicky but I had enough fun with the gore. Also better made than it probably needed to be.

Giallo time... Death Walks on High Heels, Death Walks at Midnight and Eye in the Labyrinth are all stylish fun.

Porno time... Doctor Penetration is goofy fun, Unwilling Lovers' weirdness helps the grossness of the material go down a lot better, and Porn of the Dead comes up short against the other zombie porno I've seen this month (Dawna of the Dead) and the other movie I've seen from the same director (The Texas Vibrator Massacre).

And for the classics... nicely surprised that The Birds is legitimately great, and The Tingler is nice and gimmicky fun.


I am not above abusing mod powers for my own amusement.
 
Posted by Jinnistan
10/18/2023 9:47 am
#58

Rock wrote:

And the Nightmare remake... oof. Funny how one narrative decision can sink a movie so thoroughly.

Feel free to spoil whatever decision that was.

Rock wrote:

Death Walks on High Heels, Death Walks at Midnight

I've always felt that these represent the clearest link of influence to DePalma's films.  I've never heard DePalma confirm this by mentioning Ercoli explicitly, but I think it's evident in the compositions and style.


 
Posted by Rock
10/18/2023 9:50 am
#59

They turn Freddy into an unambiguous pedophile. I guess it was implied in the earlier movies (I believe Craven “softened” it to child murderer), but it still has him making wisecracks while rubbing this in your face.

The F13 remake isn’t high art, but at least it doesn’t make any miscalculations on this level.


I am not above abusing mod powers for my own amusement.
 
Posted by Rock
10/18/2023 9:53 am
#60

I don’t know if I was necessarily thinking De Palma, but Midnight is especially good when it comes to blocking and compositions that take full advantage of the aspect ratio.


I am not above abusing mod powers for my own amusement.
 


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