Iro's October '18 Horror Thread

Hey, another thing we can agree on. I think I've seen all of his movies except Knock Knock and my verdict for him is talentless hack. Death Wish is only one of his films I wouldn't call completely bad but it probably has a lot to do with me liking vigilante films in general.

I don't consider Woods to be techincally cool, but I like to pretend, maybe sadly, even in the same way that hipsters pretend that movies like Troll 2 are cool. I enjoy James Woods for a few reasons - I'm glad I'm not him - he thinks on his feet well when he ad libs, and he's been in some great pictures and always steals the scenes as a sleazeball. He's funny to me. Him walking away from an explosion with that slo mo strut is just icing on the cake.


And I think it's safe to say that you just don't dig Vampires. Fair enough. I'm not a door knocker trying to convert anyone. But I did read your review on Dagon and I think I agree with your thoughts on that one. I also believe that much more capable directors haven't tried on HP Lovecraft for size. I wish someone who could handle it aptly would.

Yes. I was so disappointed that del Toro's At the Mountains of Madness fell through. That could have been a worthy Lovecraft film

Speaking of giving movies second chances..I had to watch In the Mouth of Madness not once, not twice, not three times, but FOUR times!!..before I finally was able to enjoy it. I strongly believe that life is funny like that. Sometimes, especially if a movie is praised beyond your belief, you have to just go back in with your marching papers and try it again. Surroundings, mood, life events - all play a role in enjoying a movie.

I'm a fan of Dagon and would love someone to take on Lovecraftian horror. In the mean time, I'll be eagerly anticipating this instead:

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"A laugh can be a very powerful thing. Why, sometimes in life, it's the only weapon we have."

Suspect's Reviews

I thought this was an interesting video on the subject of Lovecraft movies, would definitely hope that GDT pulling in the Oscars will allow him to make At the Mountains of Madness for real.

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Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

In the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse, the surviving humans living in a sealed-off city must contend with new threats both internal and external.

I've seen Land of the Dead in bits and pieces (including its ending) throughout the years but this is the first time I've ever sat down to watch it from start to finish. Romero's return to the zombie genre he reinvented with Night of the Living Dead happened as a result of the genre having a resurgence in the early-2000s thanks to the breakout success of 28 Days Later... and people understandably wanting to cash in on it by getting the genre's old master to show the whippersnappers how it was done (and on a budget considerably larger than what he was used to). To this end, Land... plays like a large-scale combination of previous installments Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead, combining their main settings (a shopping mall and a military bunker respectively) into creating an inner-city stronghold where the remaining humans are separated into an upper class that lives in an immaculate skyscraper and a lower class that lives in the slums below. The conflict sets in when a mercenary (John Leguizamo) who does supply runs for the city and its sharply-dressed overlord (Dennis Hopper) decides to hijack the high-tech tank used in said supply runs to hold Hopper and the city to ransom. Enter our reluctant hero (Simon Baker), whose goal of leaving the city behind is sidelined when Hopper turns to him for help. That's without mentioning how the zombies outside are starting to develop dangerously high levels of intelligence...

Land of the Dead proves a thoroughly enjoyable experience that's not content to simply lean on former installments but gladly takes advantage of the freedom offered by a higher budget and technological advancements. Its addressing of similar themes and issues to installments from 20-30 years prior is less an indictment of Romero's imagination than it is of how these exact forms of both human and systemic fallibility have not only persisted but thrived and mutated (having the chief antagonist be an old white businessman in a suit and red tie certainly hasn't aged poorly, to say nothing of his main opponent being a disenfranchised Latino). Both major conflicts within the film involve one powerful side woefully underestimating the seemingly powerless other and reaping serious consequences as a result while there are people caught in the middle trying not just to survive but live free. In addition to all that, it's just a well-crafted movie that's paced extremely well and delivers efficient world-building with nary a wasted moment. It certainly doesn't skimp on the horror either, though it's definitely better at the gory type rather than the suspenseful type (and that's always been a good chunk of the appeal of these movies anyway). While I'd ultimately consider Land of the Dead a step down from the first three Dead movies, I still have enough fun with it as not just a 21st-century reiteration of what the others were about but a summation that brings it all home with a view to the future.

I prefer Land to Day, though I really didn't like Day back then. As a piece of entertainment, I might prefer it to Night now. That's how it feel atm, anyway.

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5-time MoFo Award winner.

In the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse, a medical student living with other survivors in a military bunker tries to develop a vaccine against the zombie virus.

It's a hell of a journey to get from the original Day of the Dead to this, the extremely loose remake that is Day of the Dead: Bloodline. Its setup involves a lot of the same specifics - it centres around a military bunker, there are tensions between the bunker's soldiers (especially their incredibly strict leader) and the scientists/protagonists who live there, and there's also a zombie who displays more intelligence and humanity than the rest of the mindless creatures that populate the film. Where it differs...oh, boy, do we have such sights to show you right here. Where the original had Bub, a zombie whose slow attempts to regain his humanity made him far more endearing that most of the film's human characters, Bloodline has Max. The first way in which Bloodline diverges from its original is by showing life before the zombie apocalypse (not before showing us a very brief and very unnecessary cold open of zombie carnage, though) and introducing us to Max as the kind of creepy stalker who will carve his obsession's name into his own skin and proudly show it to them without a second thought. The object of his affection is our protagonist, a medical student named Zoe whose only contact with him is having to take samples of his scientifically interesting blood for her professor's research. Fast forward to five years after the apocalypse and Zoe is now the doctor in aforementioned bunker. When not curing the other inhabitants, she wants to fight the zombie virus itself by curing it or at least vaccinating against it. A series of events unfolds that brings her into contact with a now-zombified Max, but it turns out his special blood (which has allowed him to retain both his humanity and his fixation on Zoe) may just be the key to unlocking the secret of combating the zombie virus.

When it comes to incorporating a sensitive subject like abusive behaviour and the lingering trauma that it leaves behind, Bloodline makes at least some effort to treat the subject with tact and use it as a sincere emotional core that is played for tenderness (it affects Zoe's capacity for intimacy with her boyfriend) and discomfort (every single time she has to interact with Max). That really does seem to be the only thing that Bloodline gets even halfway-right in the midst of what is otherwise about as rote as a low-budget zombie movie can get. Characters are largely flat and not particularly well-acted (especially not this film's equivalent of the original's Captain Rhodes), plus the world of the bunker is not fleshed out all too well and its most throwaway details just raise further questions (such as children not only being present but also playing soccer out in the open near fences that are frequently lined with zombies). The plot itself is extremely thin and features nothing of particular worth or ingenuity in its conflicts or themes - even the aforementioned abuse subtext is itself barely present and hardly has any significant impact. Even when the film actually does try to indulge in the kind of horror and violence that the genre is known for, it's technically clumsy and lacks the imagination necessary to make things stand out. For these reasons, I might have been able to just shrug off Bloodline as yet another zero-budget zombie movie that could easily disappear into the ether, but the ways in which it not only provides a lifeless (sorry) remake of a Romero classic but even tries to turn its greatest element into a half-baked metaphor more than make it worthy of additional ridicule.

Do you give zeros?

No. I think of 0/10 the same way I do an 11/10 - they are unnecessary extensions of the ten-point scale that can be avoided simply by being a bit more precise about which films get 1/10 or 10/10.

I use 0/10 (or 0/5) just to indicate I didn't finish the film. I like to separate those from the trash I bother at least to finish.

I almost never leave a film unfinished if I can help it and even when I do I simply don't rate it at all. There's only so much you can (or even should) care about the films that don't get finished.

A group of college students volunteer to be part of a reality show where they must spend the night in the childhood home of an infamous serial killer only for the killer to actually show up.

I noted before how interesting it was to see how long-running horror franchises tried to keep things interesting, especially when it came to slasher villains whose methods of murdering hapless humans only had so much variety in the first place. These often took a turn for the absurdly surreal such as Friday the 13th sending its villain to space or The Texas Chain Saw Massacre making its villain a pawn of the Illuminati. Halloween Resurrection - the eighth film in the franchise by that point, never mind the issues with separate continuities - opts for something that is at once a little more grounded in reality (as least as grounded as movies about a supernaturally invulnerable murderer like Michael Myers can be) and yet still so patently absurd that you can scarcely believe what you're watching at times. There's no bizarre reveal or over-the-top change of scenery or anything that makes this an obvious jump off the deep end - however, it does have a high concept that really doesn't gel with the starkly cruel and minimal nature of Michael and Halloween. Resurrection begins with a lengthy prologue that retcons the seemingly definitive ending of Halloween H20: 20 Years Later by revealing that series final girl Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) had not decapitated Michael but a hapless paramedic who got dressed up and used as a patsy by the real Michael. Now institutionalised, she plans on escaping before Michael can finish her off once and for all...

SIKE.

Turns out the real story of Resurrection (that the first 20 minutes of this 90-minute movie have no connection to whatsoever) is about a media entrepreneur (Busta Rhymes) who plans to set up a viral streaming site that follows six painfully generic college students as they are given cameras and locked into Michael's long-abandoned childhood home on Halloween night. The apparent goal is to explore the house and figure out what made him so evil, but it turns out that Michael himself is back on the premises and has no problem showing everyone how evil he can get.

Aside from the odd sub-plot such as a dorky freshman watching the stream at a crowded house party because he's infatuated with the final girl, it's stab-happy business as usual that is barely elevated by the relative novelty of the found-footage aspect granted by having each character wield their own camera (which does beg the question as to whether or not this might've worked better as a straight found-footage movie). What really makes things stand out for better and for worse is Rhymes's braggadocious businessman whose scenery-chewing antics make him fun to watch at first but definitely wear thin as the film progresses (especially when you see him repeatedly go head-to-head with Michael). It soon becomes clear that the film wants to treat him as a charmingly roguish anti-hero even though his dangerous buffoonery is such that he would make more sense as a secondary antagonist. Resurrection is all kinds of bad - it's an incredibly dated mess (thanks in no small part to a plot that relies far too much on anachronistically efficient Internet technology), its unnecessary prologue guarantees its place as a low point for the franchise, and what little entertainment value it offers comes from all the wrong places. It's no surprise that the next Halloween after this one ended up being a remake (and the next proper sequel after that ignores every other sequel to boot) - after Resurrection, this franchise needed actual resurrection.

I don't know which Halloween film I hate more, this one or Zombie's H2.

I haven't seen Zombie's H2 - it, Curse of Michael Myers, and the new one are the only ones I haven't seen yet. I'm liable to catch all three by the end of the month so stay tuned.

A young American woman enrols at a prestigious German ballet academy only to find that there is something secret and dangerous going on.

One of the first scenes in Suspiria happens when a shell-shocked student, having run away from the ballet academy that serves as the film's main setting, tries to explain to a friend what's got her so jumpy. "It's useless to try to explain," she says. "It seems so absurd, so fantastic..." Within minutes of this exchange, they both die horrific deaths at the hands of some barely-glimpsed creature. This exchange (and the ensuing violence) encapsulates Suspiria perfectly - absurd and fantastic serve as accurate descriptors for not just the school's dark secrets but also the strange and wondrous variety of tones that the film hits in telling its tale of malevolent forces lurking within the academy's pristine dance halls. Admittedly, this means that a lot of what sticks out at first is how campy it all seems by modern standards - obvious dubbing accentuates bizarre dialogue, bright red blood accompanies gruesomely over-the-top deaths, and everybody from the actors to the musicians to the lighting crew seems to be working off the instruction to go above and beyond in every possible regard. It's understandable if one's initial response to Suspiria is to laugh at its all-encompassing hysteria, yet at the same time I don't think that automatically undermines the overwhelmingly sensory experience that Suspiria aims to accomplish through its simple but effective story of a wide-eyed ingenue (Jessica Harper) being targeted by the academy's authoritarian staff.

If there's one rule by which I judge a horror movie's true worth, it's that it's got to give me a reason to appreciate it beyond just being scary (assuming it manages to do that in the first place). This can manifest in any number of ways, but a key one would be conjuring a strong atmosphere through every tool at the filmmakers' disposal. In this regard, Suspiria is pure atmosphere. Everything about its mise-en-scéne builds a world that is at the very least mesmerisingly off-kilter in its production design (most memorably in doorknobs being at the characters' eye-level) and at most an eye-watering kaleidoscope that synchronises perfectly with Goblin's creepy and frequently cacophonous score. It throws itself headfirst into a dark fairytale aesthetic that's perfectly emphasised by its garish colour scheme that splashes red and green and blue across the screen with reckless abandon, further highlighting that the inside of this academy exists at a severe disconnect from the protagonist's (and, by extension, the audience's) sense of reality. This only accelerates as she proceeds to either succumb to its supernatural madness or fight back against it and the strange collection of individuals that maintain it. Though she is weakened by those who would attempt to drain her of her life, it is her eventual gathering of inner strength and willpower that allows her to overcome her wide-awake nightmare.

It also helps that Suspiria keeps a steady pace that spreads its actual scenes of terror and murder out enough while allowing the creepiness of the situation to steadily build in the interim and wisely clocks out with a blast (thus living up to its tagline's bold claim that the only thing scarier than the last 12 minutes are the first 92 minutes). As such, while this marks five times through Suspiria as of writing and I'm not sure I find it all that scary at this point, I'm not about to deny its worth as a film. It's a legitimate curiosity that manages to strike out in all directions - funny, scary, arty - and hit enough of the right notes to make for a consistently compelling experience. In this regard, I would honestly compare it to one of my other favourite horror movies - Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. While they couldn't be much more different on the surface (one's a European tale of black magic rooted in ancient folklore, the other a distinctly American account of all-too-human cannibals that takes inspiration from true crime), I find them to be similarly well-versed in a particular type of horror that grabs the viewer with its opening narration and forces them to soak in the unnerving world of the film all the way until the credits suddenly hit like bricks. That's why they are both huge favourites not just as horror movies but as movies full stop.

The staff of an American research outpost in the Antarctic wilderness encounter an alien creature that is capable of imitating any life form.

Original review found here.

Additional notes: I think for films I've already reviewed I'll just link to the original reviews and leave it at that unless the difference is so great that I feel compelled to knock out a couple of paragraphs' worth of retraction. Anyway, I still reckon The Thing is one of the best horror movies ever made (and still an all-time favourite). That review could use some work, but you don't need me to sell this movie to you twice.

A team of researchers travels to a Norwegian research outpost in the Antarctic wilderness to investigate a shape-shifting alien only for it to break free after they arrive.

Original review found here.

Reading your old reviews can be a tough (if sometimes necessary) experience, and seeing how I originally wrote about 2011's The Thing after having revisited it for the first time since its release was an interesting experience. Originally conceived of as a direct remake of John Carpenter's iconic 1982 film of the same name, The Thing ultimately ended up being reconfigured as a prequel that traced the events leading up to two crazed Norwegians flying a helicopter into an American research station in order to kill a seemingly ordinary husky. The Americans in Carpenter's film investigate the Norwegians' station only to find it burnt-out and strewn with corpses, plus there's a conspicuously hollow block of ice. They eventually learn that this horrid tableau is the result of the Norwegians discovering a spaceship buried in the ice and excavating its occupant, which turns out to be a shape-shifting alien that consumes and imitates all other life forms it encounters (which naturally causes problems when it starts targeting the American station next). Van Heijningen's film aims to tell the story of what had happened at the Norwegian station when it was targeted by the creature better known as the Thing...but first, it's got to introduce a handful of token Americans who fly in to join the largely European (and conveniently English-speaking, with one especially inconvenient exception) ensemble already occupying the station.

Much has been made of how The Thing ultimately resorts to using CGI for its creature effects instead of repeating the original's iconic use of practical effects (though the filmmakers have claimed that their practical effects were replaced by CGI in post-production). While none of those effects have aged particularly well, I don't think bringing back the practical effects would solve enough of the film's issues to salvage it as a whole. In trying to both do right by its source while also providing something new, it ends up being unable to accomplish either goal. Tension and terror are attempted through excessively frantic pursuits that are rendered even more inert by an obtrusive score. The original's other foundational strength - that of the increasingly strained relationships between the characters as they start to suspect one another of being the Thing - is also undermined by an impatient approach that depends a little too much on an audience's familiarity with the original in skipping straight to recognisable story beats without giving the characters the time or the sufficiently effective shorthand storytelling needed to develop them beyond some extremely simplistic archetypes. Even when taking into account the ways in which this doesn't play like a hastily-retooled remake (primarily during the film's third act), it tends to raise further questions that not only plague this film but might retroactively affect its source. As such, I'm disappointed (though not overly so) that The Thing didn't hold up a second time around. It may do a good job of replicating every little detail it could from the original, but the focus on superficial replication over crafting substance or even just avoiding more contemporary horror clichés is definitely clear here.

In the year 2093, a scientific expedition follows clues left behind by a race of aliens to a distant planet in an attempt to find out the truth about human existence.

Original review found here.

The first time I saw Prometheus in theatres, I vaguely recall being ambivalent about it. The second time I saw it was on TV, where I was considerably harsher towards it. This third time, which happened on DVD well after I watched its sequel Alien: Covenant a couple of times to boot, may be the most I've actually liked it. At the end of my old review from 2015, I remarked that Prometheus was the kind of movie that probably needed a sequel to be considered any good - I had forgotten about that until now, but now that I've seen its sequel I think I was right to call it like that. Of course, a film should always be measured on its own particular strengths rather than rely on a sequel's retroactively-applied substance and Prometheus, while spurring a more positive reaction this time around, still tends to be wanting in this regard. Admittedly, seeing Ridley Scott return to the Alien universe suggests a degree of personal passion that's not so easily seen in his somewhat indistinguishable period epics, especially considering how his own advancing age is reflected in how much of the film is driven by a search for answers to the meaning of human existence (especially when refracted through the concept of God or a God-like creator) that would only become more urgent as one came ever closer to the inevitable. This much is obviously depicted through geriatric tycoon Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce) who funds the Prometheus expedition in the hopes of finding such answers, though one can also pick up similar Scott surrogates in the form of archaeologist protagonist Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and android David (Michael Fassbender) who have their own motives for wanting to find these very same answers.

Though Prometheus suffers a bit during a second act where its attempt to switch gears from heady space exploration to Alien-esque horror-show can get more than a little clunky (look no further than the infamous "snake" scene), more often than not it manages to make good on its promise to deliver senses of both wonder and terror at what can happen when humankind tries to meet its maker (and also fail to recognise how it may project that obsession onto its own creations, which is obviously articulated through how various human characters treat the human-created David). Alien: Covenant refines this inherently conflicted approach and delivers something bolder in the process, but it couldn't have managed that without Prometheus laying the rough but necessary groundwork. As such, the horror side of things is reflected less in random aliens showing up and killing people than in how trying to make sense of the world our creators leave behind for us is what really causes trouble (especially when it comes to the mysterious black goo that constantly conjures all-new horrors to face, often in the form of all-pervading body horror). Such appropriately cosmic horror is realised relatively well, but only up to a point. While I'll adjust my assessment of Prometheus to grant further credit to how it's somewhat successful at expanding upon the likes of Alien or even Blade Runner, I can't say that it becomes an especially great film in the process. I recognise elements that I was originally willing to overlook in favour of smugly deriding the characters' poor choices and motivations (most of which don't actually seem to have deserved that much scorn in the first place), but I also recognise that their appeal is limited and how much it plays like a rough draft for Covenant. If Covenant was good enough to retroactively highlight what Prometheus was trying (and sort of managing) to do right, then I can only hope a third entry not only gets made but brings this prequel trilogy to a conclusion that both it and its director deserve.