A scary thing happened on the way to the Movie Forums - Horrorcrammers

Looking forward to everyone's opinion of Longlegs. Liked it, but as usual I'm not sure how I feel about Cage.

I'm hoping to see it at the theater soon!

I'm hoping to see it at home soonish! When I first heard of it, I dismissed it as yet another Cage tomfoolery, but after realizing it's directed by Oz Perkins, it became a must-see.

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Embrace your confusion. I haven't seen Longlegs, but I think being unsure of how to feel about Cage is why his acting style works in a really weird way. His performances tend to range from subdued, genuine emotion to wildly eccentric craziness, so you're never able to make heads or tails of him being a good or bad actor due to how he nails both styles really well.

I don't know. I think that sometimes he's phoning it in and the performances are hard to watch because it's gesturing without purpose.

However, he's been BRILLIANT in many things recently (Mandy, Pig, Unbearable Weight . . . ), so I will always give him the benefit of the doubt.

Ugh. I really want to watch Longlegs, but my job has decided after giving us a 4 day weekend over the 4th of July, that we should have have to work every Saturday for the rest of the month.
Which sucks. It cuts into my movie time.
I need my movies man.
Don’t take that away from me, boss man.

BEST NEWS OF THE DAY.

Right. I feel like Longlegs is Cage doing his "I'm in a separate movie" thing which I don't have much patience for. I liked the movie that the rest of the cast was in, though.

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What’s this ridiculous one about dreams, Dream Scenario? It was so bizarre, I loved it. Very John Malkovich. He was pretty great in it, too.

Coincidentally, I watched that other Nicolas Cage horror movie from this year recently, Arcadian. It's good, but not great.

Arcadian -

This is decent post-apocalyptic, A Quiet Place-like horror that finds Nicolas Cage's father trying to protect his teenage sons Thomas (Jenkins) and Joseph (Martell) from a world where hungry mutant beasts prey at night. Did Cage's long and prolific career prevent him from having to do much research to play such a world-weary, tempered and grizzled character? Whether it did or not, he is convincing as a man whose sole purpose in life is to prepare his kids for such an unsafe existence. With Joseph being an inventor and Thomas being much more driven by his emotions (and hormones), the small family achieves a strong Kirk/McCoy/Spock dynamic. Besides Thomas treating his brother like a punching bag, he spends his days at a neighboring farm getting to know Charlotte (Soverall) and not always returning home before the sun goes down. If you think this gets everyone into trouble, you'd be right, but possibly worse than you imagined. The design of the beasts is pretty freakish, so much so that they overcome their obvious CGI, and I credit the filmmakers for not revealing their full appearances too early. I also credit the production designers for locating such a rustic part of the Irish countryside. They likely did not have to do much to make it look post-apocalyptic, in other words

I had a pretty good time with this movie, but like so many offerings originally produced for streaming services, it resembles one of Joseph's creations in that it's like it's made up of spare parts. It's disappointing too, because of all of the ones I've watched, Shudder has one of the higher batting averages. If you're in the mood for something post-apocalyptic and it's a lazy weekend afternoon, you could do worse. Also, if Shudder made this to ride the coattails of the A Quiet Place franchise, they succeeded because it's bound to whet your appetite for its next entry.

I've yet to watch it, but have heard very good things!

Oh you must. It is, to reuse a phrase, delightfully demented. I’ve seen it 4 times and that wasn’t enough.

Not impressed.

Oh my god, Friday the 13th Part VI is the silliest, cheesiest thing I've ever seen.
I'm not mad about it.
I've seen this before and just wrote it off as crap but I think I have come around to this campy-ass film.
Oh my god, I totally misjudged this movie. Shame on me.

I’m not super passionate or nostalgic for the Friday the 13th franchise so 6 is probably my favorite. It brings some much needed levity to the series and is probably the best-looking one too.

F13 P6, Jason X, and Freddy v Jason all exist in my head as silly, silly movies. FvJ does benefit notably from having Katharine Isabelle in it.

In a Violent Nature -

I love walking through the woods, but thanks to this movie, I'll hesitate to do so from now on. That's a credit to how much this movie terrified me, which I would describe as Friday the 13th served raw. To elaborate, all the sound is ambient and the takes are long, with most of them following the friendly-looking guy on the poster, Johnny, as he cuts paths through the wilderness. Where it really cuts deep, though, is in the kills, which besides being pretty darn brutal will linger in your mind for how cold and remorseless they are. The forest in this movie is big and easy to get lost in, which means Johnny is on the go a lot, so there are a lot of scenes that feature him simply walking through the woods, which some may find boring. I, however, love the tension and atmosphere they build, especially since we're just as uninformed as to where his targets are as he is. Johnny also doesn't talk much - well, not at all - which is also not a liability because it makes the unspoken moments where we learn who he is leave a mark.

Unfortunately, the scenes where there is dialogue do not work as well as the ones without it. Despite being a bit too mean-spirited, the banter amongst the campers is fine, but I did not love most of the exposition. Part of the problem is that the backstory is a tad convoluted, which is a shame considering how elegant everything else comes across. Other than that, this is a horror movie that again will make you never look at a group of trees the same way again, which is a good thing, believe me. Oh, and you'll likely take the old forest ranger adage of "only take pictures and only leave footprints" more seriously.

I tried to re-watch FvJ, which I had scene in the theater and felt embarrassed for having dragged my wife to, maybe like 2 years ago and I didn't make it.
Even after having found some value in Parts 8 and 9 and some humor in X I thought FvJ was unwatchably bad. Not camp, just crap.

I guess ymmv. I think the kill of the guy getting bent backwards and then stabbed a ridiculous amount on top of that, set the tone for me in terms of what type of movie I was watching.