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

Night of the Demons (1988) -

If there were a way to take an average of '80s horror movies, the results might look like this one. Where to begin? It has a Breakfast Club-like assortment of teenagers, a malevolent force, folklore explaining its motivations, a claustrophobic setting, superfluous nudity, Linnea Quigley, etc. That does not mean it's an average movie, though. Due to the familiar setup, I thought I could guess who the demons would possess, but my scorecard was very low, which is a good thing. The love triangle involving the lead, Cathy (Podewell), is just as unpredictable, as is the demons' antics. From an amazing dance routine to some most unusual makeup application, they are thankfully not just mindless killing machines. The movie also earns its horror comedy label, mostly because the teenagers sound like actual teenagers.

Even though the movie has many surprises, I would not say the entire product pushes the ‘80s horror envelope that much. Also, while I'm all for lots of buildup, it seems like the movie is halfway over until any of the really good stuff happens. If you don't believe that envelope needs to be pushed, you want to get into the Halloween spirit and/or want to liven a up a Halloween party, it's still a worthy choice. That also applies if you need a reminder of how awesome Linnea Quigley is.

Talk To Me was entirely whelming. It has a few fun standout scenes, but that's about it. The way the kids act, especially at the parties, is what I'm most perplexed about. Is that how teenagers act for real? Maybe in Australia they do? Is that just another iteration of unrealistic movie teenagers? Who can say. It might have been better as a short film, say 20-30 minutes long. The concept did not benefit from the injured kid subplot, or at least the movie did not weave it in as well as it could have. The focus on generic horror movie solution spitballing, find the person who knows type deal. All that dragged it down as it went on.

I more or less agree with you. Though I think I'm a little more favorable to it.
The first time I saw this movie as an adult (I think I saw it once when I was a teenager) I thought it was absolute crap. I was kinda angry at the person who recommended it to me (MASSIVEminiature). But when I re-watched it, I saw a spirit to it, an ambition aimed in the right direction and a joie de vivre that I really appreciated and found infectious.
It's a plucky film.
And I think it has some off-kilterness to its 80sness that makes me happy.

I also thought it was pretty good. I initially felt it was pretty trashy with the opening 10 minutes and was debating switching it off, but the more it went on and the more (some of) the characters developed in unexpected ways, the more won over I was. Its flaws are still pretty noticeable, but I think its merits ultimately saved the day.

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I was underwhelmed with Night of the Demons. I felt like it had some great moments, but those mainly served to highlight how blah I found most of the film.

Humane. Caitlin Cronenberg’s feature debut about a world where people volunteer to be euthanized to counteract the effects of global warming. Centered on a wealthy family having to decide who will make the ultimate sacrifice, this started out promising with some sociological and political satire. Heavy handed as it was I grew to miss it once the rest of the film revolved around characters wandering around a dark house. There’s some good actors doing what they can, especially Enrico Colantoni, who’s having the most fun with his role, but at the end of the day none of the film’s pieces work that well.

Longlegs. Immaculately shot with its use of negative space and wide frames, Longlegs mostly works as a procedural with horror elements on the fringe. I didn’t love this as much as I wanted to though as it’s cold and distant demeanor kept me at arm’s length from truly getting immersed.

The film bucked the (way back then) trend of disposable black side-characters in horror. It pushed an envelope in that sense.

I don't knock the film for not pushing the envelope into a different shape, or ripping a hole in it, or folding it into a paper hat, or whatever. If you order a cheeseburger, expect a cheeseburger. I can vouchsafe that it was good fun to watch in a theater as a kid. The only envelope it was concerned with was labelled "profits." It worked for the audience I watched it with (i.e., a target audience of bored teens in a wayback decade). It was not a transcendent or transformative experience, but disposable fare rarely is. We got what we paid for (and with horror of that era we often got short-changed).

I don't blame you for being tempted to switch it off after 10 minutes, what with the extended upskirt scene in the convenience store or pretty much anything Stooge says or does. I mean, who invited that guy? I'm sure Wooley felt he had been pranked at that point as well!

But yeah, I also ultimately had a pretty good time and it got me into the Halloween spirit, so it checked those boxes. Oh, and to its credit,

MASSIVEminiature! I remember enjoying his posts on RT. Hope he's doing well. I wonder if we could convince him to drop by if he is.

MM was good people. I do remember he had a couple of health scares years ago, so I hope he's okay now.

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Apartment 7a. In this prequel an injured dancer gets Rosemary’s Babied. It was fun seeing Julia Garner play sweet and earnest since I mainly know her as the prickly shitkicker from Ozark, and there’s a couple fun dance numbers to add production value. But the movie sets up some compelling ideas that it has no intention of exploring like a potential pill addiction or the parallels to show biz toxicity. Instead it’s more interested in making references to Mia Farrow’s haircut from the original movie. I’m not really sure what the point of all this was or what to get out of it.

What I got out of it was that Ruth Gordon is the GOAT. She and Sydney Blackmer were so wonderfully creepy. The casting of Rosemary’s Baby is just so good. Dianne Wiest just couldn’t make us reprise Ruth’s idiosyncratic performance or make us see past it.

The Exorcism of Emily Rose certainly picked a direction. Pulling from that real story and retelling it in a way that sides with the priest is absolutely insane. I liked the Emily actress though. Every scene with her in it was the highlight. The court stuff is what's hard to let slide. Also I hope watching real trials hasn't ruined every movie trial for me forever. The lawyers were so bad!

Halloween III: Season of the Witch (Tommy Lee Wallace, 1982)

The ideas behind this film—both as a series concept and within the film itself—are not bad. Two Michael Myers films had run the well dry (or so one would have thought) and a fresh start with new characters and a new type of horror story makes sense.

The problem with Season of the Witch is that the ideas are badly undercooked. It’s about body snatching …kind of. It’s folk horror … kind of. It’s anti-consumerist … kind of. But nothing is ever really fleshed out or lands with any coherence. For example, the hero (Dr. Challis, played by Tom Atkins) and his murder-victim-daughter-cum-amateur-detective companion (pointlessly ginned up into a romantic interest) have arrived in a mysterious company town populated apparently by Stepford types and automatic cameras. This is a setup with some possibilities, but other than the motel owner and one encounter with the town drunk, there’s no real interaction with the locals. For the folk horror element, there is a very strained explanation for how this is actually a movie about witches involving Stonehenge and Samhain. On the other hand, as consumers the audience is fairly punished by having to hear, multiple times, the most (deliberately) annoying jingle ever devised.

There is some good stuff, especially Dan O’Herlihy’s scene-chewing corporatist villain. But what’s good and fun is undermined by a mess of a plot and ideas that don’t deliver on their promise.

I'm kind of underwhelmed by the horror I've seen so far for October:

The Screaming Skull: The cover looked cool, but this southern fried melodrama about a woman being driven crazy by skulls and the odd behavior of the groundskeeper suffers from slow pacing and a lack of exciting moments until the last 20 minutes or so. Hey, at least I know now that peacocks shriek at night!

Shaitaan: Hindu for Devil. It's a slick modern Bollywood horror where a teen girl devours a sweet from a stranger and suddenly goes under his control. R. Madhavan has a lot of fun as the bad guy and the film keeps a good pace. The climax is a bit rough and the last scene didn't work for me. Still if you're hesitant on watching a Bollywood film, there's no big song and dance production numbers.

Roohi: Outside of the slick beginning/ending song and dance numbers, a complete waste of time. It fails as a horror (not scary) and as a comedy (not funny). Although it does argue for a more modern treatment of women (no argument here), the execution in all facets is lacking. Slow pacing and the lead actress failing as both a confused wedding kidnapee and the witch who is controlling her.

The peacocks are literally the only thing I remember about that film.

It’s What’s Inside. A group of party animal friends overflowing with drama and gossip reunite the evening before a wedding. Not technically a horror, more Black Mirror vibes, but it definitely fits the season. It’s a fun, wild, colorful ride full of unique performances and clever ideas. #reuphia

Maxxxine. This isn’t really horror either, it’s like a neo-noir. Ti West is damn fine at representing different decades but when I heard this took place in the ‘80s I was worried how it was going to stand out amongst the slew of nostalgia projects set in the same time period from the last decade or so. But the filmmakers smartly found the angle of sleazy punk LA. Mia Goth showing some real range having played innocent and naive previously and now a past-her-prime pornstar. Giancarlo Esposito doesn’t have to be a villain for once while Kevin Bacon chews the **** out of the scenery. Much of the metaphors and messaging is on the nose and obvious but I otherwise enjoyed this.

Film scared the crap out of me when I was kid, but it taught me a new word ("misfire"). The body horror of the bug mask was kind of like the ALIEN chest-burster all-over again. Revisiting it as an adult, it is a laughable cheese-fest.

Stacey Nelkin was slotted to be a Replicant in Blade Runner but chance (a writer's strike) cut her part from the film. It's a coincidence that she was cast as an android in this film. I like to think that her Replicant character (Mary) escaped to 1982 from 2019 and that she's taking her revenge on humanity with Conal Cochran! As artificial persons go, however, she is much more like Ash from ALIEN (e.g., secret betrayer, off-color "blood," the obviously fake gag with the detached head).

Ive been binging the Omen movies so far and honestly the best one is still the original. The 3rd one with Sam Neill is the worst.

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Might I recommend Holocaust 2000 with Kirk Douglas to go with it? It's not part of the original series, but it is supposed to be a rip off of the first movie, which it sort of it. It's good too.