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Vampire Circus (1972)
7.0
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Late-period Hammer horror movie, released on a double-bill with Countess Dracula. When the townsfolk...
Hammer Horror
LoganCrews (2861 KP) rated Pulse (Kairo) (2001) in Movies
Sep 20, 2020
Spine-chilling, fucking exceptional horror. For all intents and purposes, this is the scariest (horror) movie I've ever seen - I couldn't walk around in my own house the same after watching this. Could be personal preference, but this just captures that eerie sense of merging humans and ghosts *just* so to where it's deeply, deeply unsettling. The deliberate lack of any cues as to when the horror is happening, and the vaguely creepy gestural stuff (i.e. moving your arms a little weird, slightly stumbling [almost intentionally so] when you walk) as opposed to outright demon-esque actions makes this feel more real, akin to something like those disturbing LiveLeak types of videos - binding the void between scary movies and snuff films. And this is all not even to mention the emotionally hefty themes and crackerjack dialogue which subvert this even more beyond the pack. Stumbles ever so slightly in its final fifteen or so minutes, but otherwise the work of a genius if you can get past the aged analog about the internet being this mysterious new entity.
Awix (3310 KP) rated In Fabric (2018) in Movies
Aug 7, 2019 (Updated Aug 9, 2019)
Playfully bonkers British comedy-horror, which plays rather like a mash-up of Mike Leigh and Dario Argento, as pastiched by the League of Gentlemen. A woman makes the mistake of buying a cursed dress (from a department store which appears to be run by witches) and finds herself assailed by increasingly bizarre events.
A knowingly silly homage to various seventies horror movies, but done with great style and deftness - the movie shifts from absurd comedy to something with genuine pathos to a sequence of the utmost weirdness and back again, barely putting a foot wrong. The pseudo-portmanteau style is a bit wrong-footing if you're not expecting it and the first segment of the film is certainly stronger than the rest, but this is a very funny and always interesting film.
A knowingly silly homage to various seventies horror movies, but done with great style and deftness - the movie shifts from absurd comedy to something with genuine pathos to a sequence of the utmost weirdness and back again, barely putting a foot wrong. The pseudo-portmanteau style is a bit wrong-footing if you're not expecting it and the first segment of the film is certainly stronger than the rest, but this is a very funny and always interesting film.
Lenard (726 KP) rated Midsommar (2019) in Movies
Aug 26, 2019
Director Ari Aster returns with another homage to the classic horror movie Wicker Man. Every 90 years, a secluded Swedish town holds a festival to honor the old gods. It is expected that anyone raised in the town will ensnare gullible undergrads to serve as guests of honor of the festivities. While this serves as the plot of the surface story, the true horror is the toxic romance of a dying relationship. The woman is an emotional burden who is starting to see the cracks in the relationship. The guy is hanging out with his guy friends too much, he has no future goals and emotionally immature, and is about to forget her birthday. When she suffers a major tragedy, leaving her completely alone even if she has that boyfriend, she tags along to Sweden.
Sarah (7800 KP) rated Scream (1996) in Movies
Nov 1, 2018
A truly classic slasher
While I know that most will say that the classic slasher films are the likes of Halloween, Friday the 13th etc and I’d agree in that they really helped move the genre along, for me Scream is the true classic. Not only is it beyond witty, it’s full of humour and plays wonderfully on the entire horror movie genre.
I love this film because of how it pokes so much fun at your stereotypical slasher films, not least because Sidney isn’t your average damsel in distress and is a very strong protagonist. All of the characters in fact are well developed, likeable and well acted, but I have to admit, my favourites would either have to be Randy or Stu as they’re both highly entertaining. The references to other horror films bring an entirely different spin and completely modernises the slasher genre. This is such a slick, fun and surprisingly unpredictable film that keeps you guessing right to the end. It’s fairly gory and the large amount of humour doesn’t detract from the fact that this is still a horror film. It may not be massively scary, but it’s still very creepy and delivers some classic horror lines alongside an iconic villain in Ghostface. There’s not many films that could get away with killing off their most famous star in the opening scene, and I think anyone watching this for the first time now would still be shocked at this.
Without a doubt, my all time favourite horror film.
I love this film because of how it pokes so much fun at your stereotypical slasher films, not least because Sidney isn’t your average damsel in distress and is a very strong protagonist. All of the characters in fact are well developed, likeable and well acted, but I have to admit, my favourites would either have to be Randy or Stu as they’re both highly entertaining. The references to other horror films bring an entirely different spin and completely modernises the slasher genre. This is such a slick, fun and surprisingly unpredictable film that keeps you guessing right to the end. It’s fairly gory and the large amount of humour doesn’t detract from the fact that this is still a horror film. It may not be massively scary, but it’s still very creepy and delivers some classic horror lines alongside an iconic villain in Ghostface. There’s not many films that could get away with killing off their most famous star in the opening scene, and I think anyone watching this for the first time now would still be shocked at this.
Without a doubt, my all time favourite horror film.
Awix (3310 KP) rated The Lighthouse (2019) in Movies
Jan 31, 2020
Distinctively weird period horror movie. Two men are posted to operate a remote lighthouse off the New England coast. One of them is young and inexperienced; the other is old and annoying. Isolation, terrible weather, and perhaps something else all take their toll; there is madness in the air.
Another one of those really peculiar art-house takes on a genre movie that Robert Pattinson seems to enjoy doing: God knows what his take on Batman is going to end up like. I imagine that not many stranger films than this will get a major release this year, but it is still an impressive piece of film-making: well-played, very atmospheric, with strong performances. In the end it's kind of up to the viewer to work out what's really going on in this movie, but the challenge is worth the effort. In the end this resembles Steptoe and Son as written by H. P. Lovecraft; not quite as awesome as that sounds, but still very watchable.
Another one of those really peculiar art-house takes on a genre movie that Robert Pattinson seems to enjoy doing: God knows what his take on Batman is going to end up like. I imagine that not many stranger films than this will get a major release this year, but it is still an impressive piece of film-making: well-played, very atmospheric, with strong performances. In the end it's kind of up to the viewer to work out what's really going on in this movie, but the challenge is worth the effort. In the end this resembles Steptoe and Son as written by H. P. Lovecraft; not quite as awesome as that sounds, but still very watchable.
EasterBunnyKiller (31 KP) rated Truth or Dare (2018) in Movies
Jul 31, 2019 (Updated Jul 31, 2019)
My wife wanted to see this, because she loves Lucy Hale. Having seen parts of it from working in a movie theater, I knew it wasn't goin to be great, but I decided to bite the bullet and rent it.
I'm glad I used the points I accrued from my Redbox rentals instead of spending actual money to see it. It was exactly what I expected, a movie about young, attractive, and utterly milquetoast characters bumbling from scene to scene and a marginally interesting hook for why the bad thing is out to get them.
The acting is fine, and it's not terrible visually, but this movie lacks any kind of soul. Just your basic Friday night junk food horror flick. And don't get me wrong, I love junk food. But it's the difference between potato skins from TGIFridays and those terrible TGIFridays potat skin flavored chips.
Of course, my wife loved it.
I'm glad I used the points I accrued from my Redbox rentals instead of spending actual money to see it. It was exactly what I expected, a movie about young, attractive, and utterly milquetoast characters bumbling from scene to scene and a marginally interesting hook for why the bad thing is out to get them.
The acting is fine, and it's not terrible visually, but this movie lacks any kind of soul. Just your basic Friday night junk food horror flick. And don't get me wrong, I love junk food. But it's the difference between potato skins from TGIFridays and those terrible TGIFridays potat skin flavored chips.
Of course, my wife loved it.
Monsters in the Movies
Book
Be afraid, be very afraid...a century of cinema nightmare with John Landis From B-movie bogeymen and...
Awix (3310 KP) rated Elves (1989) in Movies
Dec 24, 2020
Bargain-basement everything-but-the-kitchen-sink horror movie. Three young women accidentally summon up a homicidal elf as part of a conspiracy to take over the world. Features a lengthy scene in which a department-store Santa (Dan Haggerty) engages in a gun battle with neo-Nazi agents, while the young female leads are stalked by a knife-wielding glove puppet. (The film is not nearly as good as it sounds.)
Sort of a slasher movie, sort of a monster movie, but definitely tasteless and tacky schlock by any reasonable metric. It seems to be trying to play the knowingly-ironic card at a few points, but it's simply not accomplished enough to pull that off: it looks cheap, sounds cheap, has long stretches where not much happens, and there's the obligatory badly-edited and confusing climax. Would be virtually unwatchable if not for an heroic performance by Dan Haggerty, who for some reason is taking this fiasco seriously. Nasty, brutish, but not nearly short enough.
Sort of a slasher movie, sort of a monster movie, but definitely tasteless and tacky schlock by any reasonable metric. It seems to be trying to play the knowingly-ironic card at a few points, but it's simply not accomplished enough to pull that off: it looks cheap, sounds cheap, has long stretches where not much happens, and there's the obligatory badly-edited and confusing climax. Would be virtually unwatchable if not for an heroic performance by Dan Haggerty, who for some reason is taking this fiasco seriously. Nasty, brutish, but not nearly short enough.
April Rose Mossow (93 KP) rated Child's Play (2019) in Movies
Sep 14, 2019
Contains spoilers, click to show
If you haven't seen the 1988 Child's Play, you'd be surprised by this decent film. If you have seen the original, you may keep looking for comparisons and come up short. There are a few comparisons to the original 1988 movie of the same title. Chucky has been revamped and recast to adhere to a younger generation of horror fans. While I missed Brad Dourif's sinister voice, I enjoyed the new life Mark Hamill brought to the sinister doll we all grew up with. This is a different Chucky, by far. Chucky is comical and slowly grows more and more evil as the movie reels on. But you can't help but feel a little sorry for the little guy. It's basically just bad programming as opposed to an evil soul inhabiting the toy. There are different deaths in the movie. While it's less predictable in comparison to the original, its entertaining to watch and not laggy like most remakes. :)