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

Gotcha.
For reference Matt Smith actually made me question whether Tom Baker was actually The Best Doctor and Smith's seasons of the show are probably my favorite television of the last 15 years. I did like Eccleston some, I did not really care for David Tennant, and I thought Capaldi was fine and had moments.

I quite liked Eccleston as the Doctor (and was also just super jazzed that the show was back). I liked Tennant, but I also felt like his seasons leaned SO heavily into mythologizing the Doctor himself and having all of these repeat characters who are all connected and it's all a big conspiracy, and so on and so on.

I thought Smith was great in the role and I really enjoyed what I watched of him. But I just got so tired of all the long running plot arcs. I appreciate Alex Kingston as an actress, but the whole River Song plot arc broke me. So many episodes were absolutely consumed with it. I started having a very negative reaction when the season-long stuff would pop up in an episode, just thinking "Oh, my God, NO ONE CARES!!!". And weirdly, liking Matt Smith was a contributor to not watching more at a certain point. I didn't want to see him die, you know?

With the current season, the one I just watched, I do have high hopes. My sister hasn't seen the season but she told me that Ncuti Gatwa was a really fun actor (she'd seen him in Sex Education), and I agree that he's really great. In fact, both he and the actress who plays Ruby (the companion for the season) are so charismatic and sparkle so much when the show is just having fun (or, honestly, when it's going dark like in "73 Yards"). But you can also see the gears grinding when they keep boxing them into these long-range emotional trauma arcs. Like, maybe it doesn't always have to be super sad?

Plus, this season had some really great guest stars and very memorable one-time characters (such as a father on a distant planet trying to get back to his daughter, or a late-season appearance from a bounty hunter who will honestly probably pop back up in a future episode).

They've pulled me back in for now. It helps that the season was just 9 episodes, so the long-range plot didn't linger so long.

I once ran into Peter Capaldi but wasn't 100% sure it was him from a distance.

But later I read that he was in town for some sci-fi convention and then I just KNEW it had been him I saw that morning.

My only encounter ever with a real DW, definitely a good memory!

Hee hee. I loved the whole River Song thing. Loved it. And yes, I think Kingston is great so that helped too. I think part of what I liked so much about the Matt Smith years was the way it was all tied together more like one big story with the occasional one-off episode instead of the other way around. And, in general, I found that run to have the most emotionally impactful episodes.
Plus Amy Pond is my No.1 All-Time Companion.

I'm doing the Cinemonster list over on Letterboxd. This is what I've come up with so far:

See All the Films in a Franchise (Can decide whether to see the OGs or Hard Reboot if there's 4 or more films):
Child's Play 1-3 (1988-1991)
Bride of Chucky (seen before) (1998)
Seed of Chucky (seen before) (2004)
Curse of Chucky (2013)
Cult of Chucky (2017)

Horror Film with a Black Woman as Lead:
Ma (2019)

Robert Weine film:
Genuine (1920)

Michelle Soavi film:
The Church (1989) (Also fits in with Italian Horror)

Horror Movie from 1984:
Children of the Corn (1984)

Horror Movie from 2011:
Laddaland (2011)

Movie with 2 Available Cuts:
Soul Survivors: The Killer Cut (2001)

Tobe Hooper Movie:
Djinn (2013)

Wes Craven Movie:
My Soul to Take (2010)

Donald Sutherland Movie:
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

Indian Horror Movies:
Roohi (2021) (also fits in with Horror Comedy)
Kaal (2005)

Italian Horror Movies:
Dracula in the Provinces (1975) (Also a Horror Comedy)
Phenomena (1985)
Lady Frankenstein (1971) (Also fits in with New World Pictures movie)

New World Pictures:
God Told Me To (1976)
Vamp (1986)

Horror Movies Made in Texas
Night Fright (1967)
Horror High (1973)

Horror Caused By/Worsened By Weather:
No Exit (2022)

Freebies:
Smile (2022)
Immaculate (2024)
Night Swim (2024)
Abigail (2024)
Five Nights at Freddy's (2023)

It fits with both the 6 countries (US, Germany, Italy, India, Thailand, UAE) and 8 decades (1920s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, 2020s).

Thoughts/recommendations?

God Told Me To is so good. I love it more with each viewing.

What categories do you need recommendations for?

Cuckoo is better than Luz and embraces the lunacy of euro trash horror more earnestly than its contemporaries that have evoked Gialli or Italian horror in general.

The indie movie everyone should go see is Strange Darling though. Go in blind.

Noted!

Gehenna: Where Evil Lives (C)

Buncha folks get stuck in a Japanese bunker in Southeast Asia. I don't remember which country.

It's oooooookaaaaaaay. The whole script is quite convoluted and the characters all suck, which I get is the point of it, but it makes the movie a lot less enjoyable than it should be. The ending is easy enough to guess about halfway, and I'm the last one to guess the ending usually.

It was fine the film has a gimmick that they hid in the trailers that really didn't work for me. Really liked the pacing, character work and weirdness but wished they would have kept it unsettling and tense and not what they did with it.

Horror Movies of 1984 (May be settling for CotC)
Italian Horror Movies (Just realized that Bride/Seed of Chucky are horror comedies and DitP may be overkill)
Weather Related Horror (Definitely settled for No Exit...already seen The Mist and original Fog)
Freebies: Looking for some recent horror from last/this year that I can watch that's streaming (outside of Freddy's which I do wanna watch, not so sure about the others).

And as you can tell, categories can be combined.

This is not a recommendation necessarily, but I managed to see the ONE local screening of Stream, made by some of the Terrifier-adjacent folks. It's pretty cheesy but I'm curious to see what the reception will be from the horror nerds. Not as gory as Leone's movies but has some fun horror-legend appearances. Dee Wallace/J Combs/etc. I'm already envisioning sequels & prequels.

We enjoyed our evening but I wouldn't call it a great film.

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Captain's Log
My Collection

Oh, gotcha. I thought you meant you'd already watched the movies you listed.

So for 1984, I'd imagine you've seen most of these, but: Company of Wolves, Night of the Comet, The Initiation, Sole Survivor, Death Warmed Up.

Weather-related: If you want people trapped in snow, The Lodge. Crawl is flood-based.

Has anyone seen Milk & Serial? It's a movie that was made on a shoestring and it's free on YouTube.

Here's a thread if you want to know more (or even watch it)

https://www.movieforums.com/communit...ad.php?t=70899

Nah, outside of Bride and Seed of Chucky, these would be all first time watches.

Saw and liked Night of the Comet. Of the others, I'll look into The Initiation and Company of Wolves. The Final Destination films kinda depress me so I'll pass on Sole Survivor and I'm mixed on Death Warmed Up.

I'll keep my eye out for The Lodge and Crawl.

Beyond The Door III, 1989 (A)

Fantastic movie I never had heard of before. It tells the tale of a group of students on a trip to Yugoslavia to observe a once-in-a-century pagan ritual, but especially a lady with a strange birthmark who seems to be of interest to the folks they meet there.

Now this is a rather surrealist movie. It flows in a very breezy way without overemphasizing the stuff that happens. The kills thread a fine line between obscenely bloody and splattery, and tasteful and somewhat elegant, in an odd way. The witch lady is an absolute show by herself, though she doesn't show up for too long. Nice and whimsical. Rather different from the usual Italian horror.

I feel like Stream came to my theater for a day then disappeared. There’s an influx of smaller movies these last couple of weeks that have hit while I’m extremely busy and can’t make it out. But I made Strange Darling a priority and I’m glad I did.

Hoping to see Blink Twice and rewatch Alien: Romulus before it leaves Imax.

Heads up for you (and others): while I tried to avoid too many details, some of my friends saw this in the theater and there apparently might be a trigger warning at the beginning that gives away a major plot point?

I'll ask my friends for more details about when this is shown on screen.

Yeah. They spammed social media with the trigger warning too. BUT I’ve avoided all trailers and only know who made it, so knowing that doesn’t quite feel like a spoiler.

Unless it does. Won’t know till I’m in the theater.

Someone on a horror social site told me that Longlegs is better than the entire Scream franchise. Uhh....what? lol.

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