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

I just saw a video about this from someone who liked it. Said it had good October vibes and was a dark idea played pretty straight and he'd recommend if you could get over CGI blood.

Italian Horror movies really are kinda bizarre. Feels like there's always a scene or two that exist just because the director thought it would be cool whether it fits in the movie or not.
Just finished The Church (3rd watch, first in 15 years), which was very good and was less of an offender but still had its share of why-is-this-here moments (I have long felt that Soavi was maybe the least offender on this, though it's not offensive). But now I'm in the middle of Tenebre and am just chuckling at the ten-minute sequence of a woman being chased by a Doberman Pincer, for no reason whatsoever other than at the end of this chase she has somehow, unfortunately, ended up where the black-gloved-killer is.
Of course, I don't mind, I'm used to it and it was a fairly well-done Doberman Pincer Chase Scene, but where the hell did that even come from?

Yeah, I didn't hate it. (OK kinda hated the denim-jacket-macho-teen stuff. Never been my vibe.) Would fit nicely in anyone's October queue. Jack-o-lanterns and Halloween masks galore. Some well-done gory bits. And a premise that I would normally be 100% behind, if I actually understood all of it. That was my only sticking point. Lots of things I didn't get that I just decided to roll with, but I felt like less rolling and more understanding would've enhanced my enjoyment.

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Yeah, I think this guy was more making the case for its vibes and the whole sacrificing-our-sons darkness.

Pontypool (2008) -

Reading through some of the negative reviews of this film, I noticed some people disliked the buildup in the first half but enjoyed the payoff of the zombie scenes in the second half. That thought just leaves me dumbfounded on all levels as I'd say the first half blows the second half completely out of the water. The first half doesn't contain zombie action, but it doesn't need to. The occupants of the radio station slowly descending into panic as they gradually come to terms with what seems all too impossible to be real says all that's needed and caused me the most anxiety I've felt in years. While the cast does a nice job all around, McHattie does a particularly fine job at matching our uncertainty. His change from energetic and cockiness to dread is truly something else. I also loved Ken Loney's scenes as the witness to our anxieties. That the film conveys this much anxiety with so few resources in only one location clinched this as being destined as one of the great zombie films. Alas, this atmosphere dissipated since the second half turned into standard zombie movie-fare which we've all seen before. It's not bad and I appreciate how they still showed some restraint by keeping the action to a minimum, but this section didn't come close to capturing the anxiety of the first half. I did appreciate how they went for a bit of originality with the ground rules of how the zombies work, though the explanation still felt weirdly Byzantine and I'm not sure it all made sense (Dr. Mendez popping up out of nowhere to deliver exposition didn't sit right with me). I'm still not knocking this down too much since the strengths of the first half are strong enough for me to mostly forgive the latter half, but this was still a missed opportunity. Real bummer.

(as an aside, I noticed a handful of people took issue with the Lawrence of Arabia singers, but I was more bugged by the post-credits scene).

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I still haven't seen this because of all the mixed reviews.

Pontypool is worth a watch at least for its unique ideas and good performances even if the whole thing doesn’t quite click for you. I liked it a little more than the average reviewer I think.

I would say it's worth watching due to the stellar first half. The second half - not so much.

Yeah, I'm thinking more and more about watching it. But it was one of those movies that had like strong initial positive buzz and then had strong later negative buzz before I had seen it and maybe I had recency bias.

I really liked Pontypool. Great performances, awesome small contained setting, fabulous escalation of fear and paranoia.

It also does something in the horror genre that I've literally never seen before and I think is so cool conceptually.

Not saying it's flawless, but definitely worth watching.

Yeah, I'd normally give this kind of film a 5 or 6, but the first half is truly something else. Even with the potential to be better, it still stands as one of the most unique approaches to a zombie film I've come across. Regardless of how you feel about the payoff, everyone should watch it.

Pontypool was a movie that completely flew under my radar, so I was unaware of what the critical response was. I basically came to it because I was in a horror movie club at work that basically lasted two movies before it became clear that people didn't have time or desire to watch other people's recommendations. I'm surprised there was negative backlash though (though maybe I shouldn't have been). Solid movie. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a unique take on the zombie genre, even if it might be, because I feel like I've seen similar ideas before, but the performances are really solid and the first half is really good. I found the second half to still be fine.

Had a David Lynch watch night at my place last night, coming in the only Lynch I'd seen was Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive.


We started off with his Dune, which I appreciated the ambition of but it definitely needed more time to tell it's story. Just felt kind of overloaded at the beginning with exposition and had to blaze through the story. I realize much of that isn't his fault as the studio and producer made many of those decisions. Still it had some cool weirdness you didn't get in the Villeneuve films, some solid performances and a couple cool set pieces. I'm mixed on it but definitely glad I saw it.


Next up was Eraserhead which I think I can best describe as mesmerizing weirdness with some of the most unsettling sound design I've ever heard. In other words I really enjoyed it, not really sure I know what, if anything, it was trying to say but the journey was worth it anyway.


Finished with The Elephant Man, the bio pic of Joseph Merrick does good job of showing how it's whats on the inside that really counts. Oddly to me the more lurid elements, like his drunk abusive handler and the hospital orderly who continue to use him a freak to be displayed, where the moments of the film that rang kind of hollow for me, doing some digging and discovering they were added elements and how his life really played out I wish they had just followed that as it was more than interesting enough on it's own. Well I guess biopics always have to add some over the top stuff and it didn't stop the film from being still being very good I guess it's just a trapping of these sort of films that always hold them back for me.

Pontypool is great. I just watched it and I gotta say, the second part perfectly follows the first, though I would have loved it too if it was just a bottle movie the whole time. A somewhat similar movie in structure that I thought failed at it was The Autopsy of Jane Doe. There, the movie starts as a perfectly interesting and original tale of two coroners uncovering the terrible things that surround the body of this one woman, but then devolves into a generic ghost in the morgue type situation.

Pontypool's core concept is much, much stronger and sustains the movie all the way until the end. A bit of clunk with the doctor stuff, but that's forgivable, given how high concept the whole thing is. You can't show-don't-tell that to the audience.

On an unrelated note: Cannibal Apocalypse was disappointing. The story revolves around flesh-eating Vietnam vets, but it goes absolutely nowhere, especially once you get into the sewers. The cannibals allegedly get it through a virus, that also makes them all friends, but for no real reason at all. Those cannibals then go on a rampage, but again for no real reason, because no one actually seems to be interested in eating anybody. They bite once and leave. Not one little shot of chewing, not one suggestion of drinking blood. Just a nibble satisfies. Shout out however to that one scene where they did the cartoon thing where a guy gets shot with a shotgun and there's just a hole you can completely see through.

Totally agree on both movies.

The Autopsy of Jane Doe starts of strong and falls off. Not Longlegs level of falling off, but it falls off. The latter half of Pontypool is fine.

At least going off of memory.

Autopsy of Jane Doe starts out SO GOOD. I think it's one of the worst first-half, second-half differences I can think of.

All they had to do was just keep doing what they were already doing!

I think Lynch's Dune has parts that are better than anything in the recent versions and parts that are worse than anything in the recent versions. It's still probably my favorite Dune movie for the strengths.


It is also probably David Lynch's worst movie.
I struggle to think of an argument one would make for any of his other ones, unless there's an issue of liking sci-fi and/or hating the subject matter of one of his other films.

I mostly remember to the movie in bits and flashes, but yes, pretty much this.


I feel like we, the thread, should talk about Take Shelter, but I don't know what else to say about it from memory other than, it also seems to be in this general category of horror movies in terms of dramatic tone and production values, but a greater proportion to the non-horror, drama angle of the story and most importantly, it doesn't fall off at the end.


Uh, for people who haven't seen it, it's a Jeff Nichols movie (The Bike Riders, Mud, Loving) with Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain in it.

There is a whole subgenre of movies where the main protagonist is convinced about a conspiracy or other incredible event and we the audience have to decide if we think it's real or just in the person's mind.

I think that Take Shelter is in the upper tier of that subgenre.