Welcome To Our Nightmare III: Terror, Wooley... and TAKOMA!

These are both 10/10 puns, that is all.

A novelty that films of this nature have been heading in this direction for decades?

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The extra gore in the series

Well, my initial response was a misunderstanding, because I thought you were saying my complaint was misogyny, which it wasn't. My complaint was that the misogyny seemed to come from a place that is very different than the vibe of the character from the rest of the film.

You know me pretty well. Will I, a noted hysterical woman, be able to handle this film?

Does it matter that much? Like, what is the difference? (I mean, there might be real life differences, like meaning he is less likely to abuse women in the workplace or whatever, but I'm talking about the film itself). And also . . . is it that provocative? Because to be honest, everything in All Hallows Eve was very familiar. Oh, is Satan raping a young woman? Is some deformed creep dragging women away into an underground lair? Is a woman being stalked by a killer? It's almost like he's just cribbing from a bunch of movies from the mid-to-late 2000s. The movie demonstrates the ability to generate suspense, but the payoff moments are always way too familiar. And it's fine to be clear. Decent effects. Decent acting. But provoked is not what I felt. Art the Clown is an original creation, but that is undercut when the eerie nature of the character is traded in for run-of-the-mill torture porn stuff.

I'd find this argument much more persuasive if it weren't for the way that this protective male instinct also seems to come with the requirement of seeing said woman nude/semi-nude and openly expressing anger if she isn't.

What a coincidence! This is word for word my OKCupid profile!

Ha! Ya know somehow I did not notice that (probably because it was the third poster I chose before finally committing and I just liked the visual look of it).
I think you might make it through.

Well, I'm not giving it a positive or negative connotation, I think it is just a fact. If you attack a man many men will consider whether intervention is necessary or appropriate or just stay out of it . But if you attack a woman many men will lay you out on the floor before asking a question. Something instinctual going back to the caves, I expect. I'm not putting any light on it I think it's just a thing. As for the nudity part, there are lots of contexts where that is not the case and I don't think anyone expects it to be the case.

But your profile is hilarious.

🤣



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For mine, I use the Gin Blossoms.


"You can trust me nor to drink. And not to sleep around. If you don't expect too much from me, you might not be let down."

I don't know, man. I just watched three horror films in a row (The Entity, Fatal Games, All Hallows Eve) that featured extensive combinations of violence against women and (unnecessary) nudity from those women. I'm not saying it's every horror movie, but it's considered a trope for a reason.

I do think it's interesting to consider what elements are being used to stimulate the viewer, and how those elements might in some ways be somewhat in conflict with one another.

This is a Horror Anthology told entirely from an African-American perspective. I was very excited to see this film after listening to a Horror podcast speak well of it and then another with an episode dedicated entirely to it. But let's be honest, Horror Anthologies are almost never 100% successful. Let's see how we do.

The wraparound is three "gangbanger" drug dealers arrive at a mortuary for a deal with the eccentric mortician who has found a stash of "the shit" and wishes to sell it to them. As he leads them to "the shit" they pause at several coffins while he tells them the story of each person's untimely death.
Let me just get this out of the way now. This is an inherently "political" movie, if racism, police violence against minorities, domestic violence in the AA community, the Ku Klux Klan, slavery, gang violence, and the notion that black men killing other black men just feeds into the system are political.
Yoda, I swear to god I will do my best to sidestep all this. I really didn't intend for this to turn into the sociopolitical commentary thread.

Ok, first, this movie hits hard. I am not joking. It has hard ideas and it brings the pain. To start the movie with a veritable lynching by cops of a well-off, black, “political dissident” - and they do not pull punches - was a little hard to watch. And it got bloody and gory too.


With that tone now set, the second story, very obviously about domestic abuse and child abuse, works less well. It's painfully on the nose while again being really violent with David Allen Greer being a surprisingly good very-bad guy. But just when it starts to convince you with its bluntness and brutality, its resolution is silly and clanging. Such is life.
The third story, which is about David Duke running for governor - and I mean it is literally about David Duke running for governor in Louisiana - is an evil-doll story.


And I just don't like evil-dolls. Going back to the black and white ones, ones in the 70s, Puppetmaster... they're just silly to me. I cannot take them seriously. However, this one gives the dolls a lore based in slavery and voodoo that does give the proceedings a little more gravitas.
Finally there is the most gripping story, an intense and powerful rumination on gang murders and black-on-black violence. Borrowing a bit from A Clockwork Orange, but with a supernatural element as well, this had to be the one it ended on because only the first one even gets in the ballpark of this violent and gripping Horror show. If you are sensitive to images of lynchings and the like, you might be as shocked as I was.
And then that story feeds back into the wraparound, which is exactly what you'd expect it to be...


...and then it's over ending satisfyingly enough for what the whole thing is.
So, is it a good Horror Anthology/ I would have to say that, taken out of the context of its sociopolitical power and its importance in the African American community (if my podcasts are correct)... it's about average, honestly. Only the final story really hits the mark, though the first one is good, and the rest is middling. I will say I didn't think any story was actually poor which is frequently the case in Horror Anthologies. But there's a lot of cliche and there's at least one performance that is so startlingly bad it took me out of the movie altogether until that actor went away.
I would watch this movie again just for the final segment, which I think will stick with me, and I wouldn't say no to rewatching it in general but taken solely as a Horror movie and a Horror anthology, it's not much better than, say, Tales From The Crypt. I think Creepshow 2 is below it for sure, Cat's Eye might be slightly better.


Post-script - I was gonna say, regardless of the fact that I lean generally positive on the movie overall, the L.A. Times was utterly full of shit with their "One of the best Horror films of the decade" appraisal (which you can see on the poster)... until I just pulled up a quick list of mainstream 90s Horror and then I thought, "Well..."

Oh, I thought you meant in media in general. Yes, I definitely agree that it was a trope in Horror and that some people are definitely bringing it back.

I enjoyed Tales from the Hood far more than I expected. Mostly because I thought it was going to be sort of tepid horror-comedy, but it was much more than that.

On another note: anyone have feelings either way about the series Channel Zero? Love it? Avoid? Favorite episode?

I wanted to like it so much more. I watched a few episodes but it's just not that good.

It failed a pretty crucial test that I'll use sometimes for something like that: I didn't know if I wanted to watch it or not and it was hard to know where to start, so I watched the highest-rated episode first (since it's an anthology)...and it was just okay. That's pretty damning, in my experience. On other occasions where I've done this and kept giving the show chances (not a ton, admittedly, since most shows aren't anthologies), it's always turned out to be a mistake.

I think it needs to be some kind of weird Adult Swim-style mini-episode affair to really work, which shouldn't be surprising; there's no reason to think creepypastas are going to translate into normal-lengthed television episodes. Nevermind full hours, yikes.

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Captain's Log
My Collection

You know I love this movie and, as much fog as it has, even I would watch it in October.

I am genuinely sad that my original, first-viewing write-up of this was lost to the shutdown of our previous forum. I'll never be able to recapture that reaction. And I think it was a pretty damn-good write-up too.
I do remember focusing heavily on the costumes, the set-designs, the lighting, and the overall vibe. Plus some guy in a garbage-bag?

It might be Bava's foggiest film which is a claim I don't make lightly.

Pretty sure the garbage bag zombies were featured in your screenshot quiz a couple of years ago.

I was surprised by it too. They took it seriously, and it works pretty well.