Movies you've just watched

[Skykid]

3 Days to Kill

40 minutes and I couldn't take any more, it had to go off. Utterly amazingly awful. Didn't know you could make something this bad.

Remind me never to attempt to watch anything with Luc Besson's involvement ever again.

[Ixmucane2]

War Games

An extermination thriller, set in a lonely forest.
Home team: three implausibly well-armed maniacs, including a former prison torturer, plus a creepy white chicken.
Visitor team: seven airsoft players arriving in a minivan, with varied personalities ranging from stupid to annoying.
Final score: one person with a foot on a landmine, all others dead. Revealing that the sole survivor is too stupid to live is a major downer ending.

Lots of awkward and awful involuntarily comical dialogue and action, badly managed clichés, and egregious stupidity, and therefore suitable for laughing at, not as a really thrilling story.

• Dividing the group and running around the woods randomly, after seeing that there are landmines.
• Severely wounded character insisting that he will meet his newly met girlfriend when it's all over.
• Failing to shoot enemies on sight. Letting them kill someone or counterattack makes hesitations more meaningful.
• Failing to kill enemies. Don't they deserve another opportunity?
• Abandoning weapons.
• Traditional casualty tactics, including "I'll make a run for it", "I'll go first, follow me if it's all right", "I'm out of ammo, I don't need cover any more", "Let's catch the white chicken" and others.
• The girl that screams desperately, even while being rescued.

Surprisingly bad photography, with inconsistent variation of viewpoints turning most action scenes (most notably airsoft fights) into a mess with no sense of the scenery and the position of the characters. Decent actors, but bad parts for them.

[Stevens]

With my obvious love for Grosse Pointe Blank I am almost embarrassed to admit I never watched Say Anything until last night.

My wife and I were shocked by how similar the two films are, we even commented that GPB could almost be considered a pseudo sequel.

Then I found this article:

http://blogs.indiewire.com/pressplay/al ... g_yourself

I didn't read the whole thing cause it is kind of long, but if you skim to where you see GPB being mentioned you'll get the gist of it.

[Acid King]

Cheap Thrills

I watched this for the second time in about a week and half and yeah, I dig it. A nice low-budget black comedy about a pair desperate losers who get roped in to a rich couple's warped game of dare and subsequently dive down a rabbit hole of awful. The dares start out easy enough (quickest person to do a shot of tequila gets $50 bucks, whoever can make a female bar patron slap them in the face gets $200) and gradually get darker as the two participants get more competitive. David Koechner is perfectly cast as the game's lunatic MC and the two leads do a pretty good job as well. Check it out if you get the chance, though I'd recommend not watching the trailer since it gives away some of the later dares.

[Raytrace]

Ok definitely in. Check out Dead Man's Shoes, it's a seriously arresting revenge tale, but it's bleak, be warned.

that is an amazing film, such a dread air of paranoia throughout - Paddy Considine is amazing throughout so realistically just on the knife edge of freaking out. Man - the weights scene, the mask, the tea!

[Ixmucane2]

Deliver Us From Evil

A curious mixture of horror and cop movie. As made painfully clear in the prologue, some marines bring Something home from Iraq. Bad things begin to happen in New York, a policeman investigates, and the case is closed with an exorcism.

Some aspects are deliberately weird (paint walls for Satan!) or "shockingly" unusual (the scruffy exorcist and his backstory), but for the most part the most obvious clichés get the flattest possible treatment: from the marriage of the protagonist (neglecting the wife and daughter for his cop job and unwilling to talk about the daily horrors of said job), to his recovery of Catholic faith, to the happy end. Some gross inconsistencies, like the immigrant lady who starts speaking decent English (instead of using her son as an interpreter) as soon as she is out of her recently haunted house.

Superficially scary, with a lot of sudden apparitions in the dark, but not disturbing (highly competent professionals can take care of possession cases very effectively, although someone might die before the end).

Might be recommended only for a few scenes, like the cops exploring a haunted basement in the middle of the night with a flashlight.

[drauch]

Never post what I watch anymore because I have no drive. Sex drive either. But, I finally watched The Raid 2. Can't really say much other than what has been noted. I like to pride myself on seeing hundreds and hundreds of action films from Hong Kong, Thailand, Italy, Phillipines, and UHHHHMERICA, so I know what counts: death.

POSITIVES:
-Full clip from an automatic pistol into a dudes face and he gets ran over by a car after being on a motorcycle. I love these sort of combos. Got so giddy I woke up the cat! Seriously one of my favorite deaths in a movie. I'm laughing just thinking about it!
-Actually, fuck it, not breaking down each thing that made me cum with excitement. Lots and lots of combos. Punch a dude a bunch, beat him with a weapon, smash him on some concrete, land on something else and break some bones. SCHOOL OF SEGAL C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER!
-No bullshit slo-mo or Nu Metal soundtrack. Even Handel makes an appearance!

NEGATIVES:
-Length. It suffers from the modern average film length of 2.5 hours. When the hell did this become the standard! I keep seeing it more and more. Not an issue when it's necessary, but...
-Story would be fine--if I hadn't seen it a thousand times before in every Hong Kong Triad movie or undercover cop film. Cut out 30 minutes and it would have been perfect in my violent eyes.
-Shaky-cam. Not all the time, but as mentioned pages back, it's unfortunately there. I wouldn't equate it to the level that modern Hollywood films use, as it's not always present, but there's a few good scenes where hordes of baddies are being dismantled and it's a wee bit hard to make out every little bone breaking and face smash.

SUMMARY: Shave 30 minutes off of this and it would have been golden. More screen time to the lead and less mobster bullshit in the middle and get someone without parkinson's to operate the camera. I still loved it, because despite the grievances and the exceeding runtime, it still delivered the goods to me, which is hordes of scum getting brutally murdered in combos. Highly recommended, but I'd say the first film knows its roots a bit better.

[amdiggywhut]

Not a movie, but I binge watched Bojack Horseman on Netflix yesterday and I can't recommend it enough if you dig animated shows. Really picks up after the first few episodes. Very entertaining and the perfect amount of dark.

Cast includes Will Arnett as the lead, Aaron Paul and Alison Brie. Give it a chance if you have Netflix.

[BIL]

Blue Ruin

Excellent movie, thanks for the compelling writeup. Can't add much, but seconding the dread. Conveys real terror at its nerviest points, with a protagonist thoroughly out of his depth and operating on frantic instinct. Good writing that understands even the fiercest motivation coexists with human vulnerability.

I know what counts: death.

Aww yee

-Full clip from an automatic pistol into a dudes face and he gets ran over by a car after being on a motorcycle. I love these sort of combos. Got so giddy I woke up the cat! Seriously one of my favorite deaths in a movie. I'm laughing just thinking about it!

Was pretty orgasmic. I've always wanted to see T2's "Ahnuld empties AR directly into T1000's face" bit reprised on mortal baddy flesh. ^__^

My most cathartic Raid 2 misfortune was the RAGE METER explosion that ended the cafe fight. Rama taking a cleaver to the back from a bent cop, then furiously breaking the guy's arm, choke-slamming him onto the grill and holding his face there for a good ten seconds of screams and audibly burning meat. Then hurling the backstabbing cunt to the floor, with a lingering shot of the guy silently convulsing in shock. Needed a fuckin cig and I don't even smoke. Even Rama looks appalled at the smoking ruin of the guy's head, similar to the pause after he faceplants that goon throat-first onto a hideously splintered door in the first film.

[drauch]

Yes! I was waiting for that scene to end really quick after a slight burn, but he kept going! Then I figured he knew how deep he was into this shit and was scaring himself, but he kept going! The zoom on the dude's fry-face was exquisite! Haven't seen anything like that since a nun got torched in Lucio Fulci's super violent euro-crime, Contraband!

Oh! Avoiding spoilers for those that haven't LIVED yet, that shotgun blast at the end was ACES. Just like Mom used to make!

[jonny5]

Lucio Fulci's super violent euro-crim, Contraband!

GREAT movie!

[system11]

Sorority Party Massacre.

Does not deliver, don't waste your time. The top billed stars barely even feature in it. I expected Ron Jeremy go lurch around killing people while Kevin Sorbo tried to stop him, or vice versa. Instead it's a hotchpotch plot, I think everyone was trying to kill everyone else near the end. What a mess.

[Ixmucane2]

The Brood

The protagonist has divorced from a mad wife, currently a guest of a strange mental health institution, and considerably creepy creatures start killing and kidnapping people around him. The two problems turn out to be closely linked and difficult to solve.

Set in Toronto, during winter: bourgeois houses, snow and trees, everything nice and great with the notable exception of people.
A solid standard plot (progressive tragedy ended by a deliberate confrontation), with commonplace but well described character types.
A great example of using horror to explore serious themes: mind and body, the modern family, a fair amount of alienation and social disgregation, violence, etc.
And also good acting, occasional touches of irony, and low-budget but reasonably convincing special effects. Highly recommended.

[emphatic]

The Brood

I've lost sleep over this one. Terrifying.

[Kaiser]

As of late i've been on a sort of a marathon, of watching some classy horrors that my brother was nagging about, a while ago, he was like "Why didn't you see those yet?". Mind you, when I was younger (currently 22), I didn't have a mind for horror movies, but now, I can watch them and enjoy them.

First shot fired, The Thing, the 1982 original, not the 2011 whatever it was that ultimately didn't matter.

I cleared my mind and went in with no expectations of this movie, except my brother saying that I should see it, that it's a must see if I am intending to jump into cinema. It was like falling into a hole you simply could'nt get out, this movie, left a huge impact on me.

The suspense, the cinematography, the atmosphere, the amazing effects that top anything made in horrors with CGI, it all worked together in a rather scary harmony. The moment they brought it, they opened a pandora's box. You didn't know who would be next, you didn't know how it would end, as a viewer, you know nothing, and at the end, you are left with nothing essentially, you can only guess certain things. They don't make horrors like these today for sure, it's either a stupid gore-fest or it fails at scaring.

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Second shot fired, The Shining, the one and only, Kubrick's (Screw King's TV adaptation even if it was more accurate)

Now this is actually a movie I was curious myself to check out, we all know the classic lines said by Jack Nicholson, but it's not those lines that attracted me to this movie, rather, why they were said, why did mr. Torrance go mad, why did he want to kill his family, what were the things that Danny was blabbering around?

All those things made me check out this movie out of curiosity, I WAS not dissapointed, it's a tense movie for sure, it's one of those movies, where everything doesn't come together until the end of first watch, or the second watch. But once it makes sense, you realise Kubrick's genius. The last 30-40 minutes were one giant climax that just kept becoming more intense, with barely any breaks in between. Shit hits the fan with the famous elevator/lift scene big time, you know everything's out to get Wendy and Danny. Shelley Duvall's perfomance could have been better in my opinion, she didn't really feel believable or entertaining until YOU KNOW, the madness begins.

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Third shot fired, Child's play, the 1988 original.

Now this is another movie that my brother was talking about a while ago, the idea itself was curious to me, a living doll that kills people, sounds ridicoulous on paper. But surprisingly, Tom Holland has made it very suspenful, even with some predictable stuff.

The suspense lied in the fact that you didn't know when Chucky would go nuts, how Chucky tried to FRAME Andy for the "murder" of two people, kill the poor kid, only for him to find out it was the dumbest idea ever because he has to do a *spoilered out* thing on Andy to survive.

Alex Vincent played a better role than the kid playing Danny in The Shining, not to say Danny's role was bad no, but this role here, was excellently performed, he was a believable kid. I will not watch the sequels/reboots, for my sanity sake and I hate crappy movies.

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What's up next for me? First Exorcist, possibly first Friday the 13th, MAYBE the first Nightmare on Elm Street. Those are gonna be pretty mental though, gonna watch those when i'm in the right mindset.

[Mischief Maker]

The next title on your seminal horror list MUST be "Alien."

Then I would suggest "Suspiria," but that film must be watched in the proper context: at a well-lit drunken party is a no-no; in a dark room alone or with folks who keep their mouths shut, yes. It's a truly one-of-a-kind horror movie that even the director's own sequel (Inferno) never managed to recreate.

Next, David Cronenberg's "The Fly."



Friday the 13th has always been the poor man's cheap imitation of "Halloween." Watch Halloween before bothering with Jason.

[Kaiser]

The next title on your seminal horror list MUST be "Alien."

Then I would suggest "Suspiria," but that film must be watched in the proper context: at a well-lit drunken party is a no-no; in a dark room alone or with folks who keep their mouths shut, yes. It's a truly one-of-a-kind horror movie that even the director's own sequel (Inferno) never managed to recreate.

Next, David Cronenberg's "The Fly."



Friday the 13th has always been the poor man's cheap imitation of "Halloween." Watch Halloween before bothering with Jason.

All those noted and replace Friday the 13th with Carpenter's first Halloween, alright those are on my list of horrors to watch, I ALWAYS watch them in the silent evenings when everybody else sleeps at home, makes it far easier for me to get into them. Next up, Alien for me.

[CMoon]

Glad to see we're back to discussing horror. Just wanted to chime in regarding The Thing as one of the best fucking movies of all time...based mostly on atmosphere and insane special effects.

Everything Mischief Maker said is gold and pretty much required viewing. Not much I can add except Cronenberg's Videodrome, which isn't exactly horror but belongs in that same camp of surreal late 70's/early 80's what-the-fuck-did-I-just-watch practical effect nightmares (and I'll admit to liking it quite a bit more than The Fly.) Scanners is also great (more science fiction, but hell, half the horror films we're talking about here are science fiction.) Videodrome is something else though. At 87 minutes it is stripped down to the minimum, most of the dialogue has become iconic (Brian O'Blivion), the imagery is on par with The Thing, its characters are utterly unlikable, and I'm not sure anything you see in the film really happens. If Videodrome isn't horror, it probably is what horror should try to emulate because it is a wonderfully disturbing film.

[Skykid]

Jesus Kaiser, I'm jealous you marathoned those three superb pieces of film for the first time. What an experience!

I would certainly go with your Exorcist idea: incredible movie, although I wouldn't approach it as a horror movie. It's an intelligent work with several interesting subtexts about faith, discipline, humanity etc. Father Carras is at the centre of much of it (amazing performance too).

Ultimately it's a film about the power of good to overcome, rather than evil, which is the most common misconception. Enjoy.

[emphatic]

Psycho II is my fave horror movie.

[iconoclast]

I watched a lot of movies last month (42 of them, to be precise). The highlights were, from best to worst (more or less):

Postman Blues (1997) - A series of ironic misunderstandings lead the police into believing that a postman is a dangerous criminal. This movie has a little bit of everything (action, comedy, crime, drama, romance), and the amazing thing is that they all blend together flawlessly. I've seen several other films from SABU, but this one is my favorite by a pretty large margin. The star of the film, Shinichi Tsutsumi, is also becoming one of my favorite contemporary actors. He's been great in everything I've seen him in, including:

Why Don't You Play in Hell? (2013) - This is an insanely over the top action/comedy/horror movie about a group of film enthusiasts who are desperate to create a masterpiece of their own. Their opportunity finally arrives in the midst of a war between two Yakuza families. I loved pretty much everything about this movie; I'd rank it just below Love Exposure as the best I've seen from Sion Sono.

Haru's Journey (2010) - An Ozu-esque road movie about a girl and her grandfather (Tatsuya Nakadai, of Kurosawa fame) who set out to see if any of his siblings will take him in. I loved it.

The Man Who Stole the Sun (1979) - A high school science teacher creates an atomic bomb and uses it to extort the police. The movie felt a little too long towards the end and some of the scenes were so ridiculous that they completely broke my immersion, but I thought this was excellent nonetheless.

House (1977) - I don't even know what to say about this. I'm usually not into wacky comedy/horror movies, but I enjoyed this one from start to finish. Highlights include the soundtrack, surreal visuals, a guy getting turned into a pile of bananas, and Kung Fu's ass.

The Bad Sleep Well (1960) - I only have two major problems with this movie, since everything else was excellent: For starters, this movie has the most unengaging intro I've seen in a Kurosawa film. I found it hard to pay attention during the wedding because I didn't care about any of the characters yet, yet all they did was talk about their backgrounds and their relationships to one another. Secondly, and most importantly, the climax to the main storyline happens off-screen! I suppose that was done to avoid redundancy in a later scene, but that left a bad taste in my mouth.

Django Unchained (2012) - Too long and the tone was a little uneven, especially in regard to the violence, and the climactic action scene was surprisingly uninspired. Would've been better with some editing, but I still thought it was great.

Guilty of Romance (2011) - The weakest entry in Sono's "Hate Trilogy" is also one of the most depraved movies I've ever seen. I'm not sure if I even liked this movie since all of the characters were despicable, but regardless, I thought it was very well made. Would recommend to misanthropes.

I only found a couple of movies disappointing, since I tend to avoid anything I'm sure I won't like: Godzilla (2014), which was only enjoyable while Cranston was on screen; and Lesson of the Evil (2012), which I went into thinking it would have a serious Confessions-esque story, but it wound up being a ridiculous slasher/horror/black comedy. I did enjoy the final 20-30 minutes, though, since it goes so far off the deep end that you can't help but laugh.

[GaijinPunch]

Next up, Alien for me.

Then you get to eternally debate with your self which is the better film. Alien or The Thing. Good luck with that.

[Skykid]

Next up, Alien for me.

Then you get to eternally debate with your self which is the better film. Alien or The Thing. Good luck with that.

By a very small margin, The Thing. Its near infinite rewatchablity factor confirms it.

[EmperorIng]

Ooh, that's tough. I lean towards Alien; it's one of my favorite movies.

Some bits stand out as goofy after repeated viewings though - the xenomorphs "boo gotcha" in the air ducts stands out as particularly silly, but it's such a darn good movie with darn good art direction.

The Thing is up there though for pure tension - though it also has the head spider silliness!

[BIL]

Good excuse to post The Thing: The Musical. Catchy and also explains why it is the ultimate horror movie.

Tied to this fucking couuuuuuch!

[Lord Satori]

Good excuse to post The Thing: The Musical. Catchy and also explains why it is the ultimate horror movie.

Tied to this fucking couuuuuuch!

lol, that was amazing. Also, after seeing that, I don't plan on seeing the actual movie.

[Mischief Maker]

Re: The Thing vs Alien

Spoiler

I'd say the Thing was definitely the tighter script. No "save the goddamn cat" scenes. However, I'd say the prospect of running into the Alien is scarier than running into the Thing, especially when you restore the cocoon scene.

I think part of why The Thing's pracitcal effects worked so much better than something CGI was you saw the Thing had to tear itself apart to transform. No slippery smooth T-1000 transformations for this monster.

[CMoon]

My vote for The Thing as well, but it is a little absurd because I don't think you have The Thing without Alien. Part of what makes The Thing work for me beyond all the unanswered questions (the characters propose a lot of ideas, but nothing is ever completely sorted out), is John Carpenter himself. Where Alien is dead serious (even when it tries not to be), The Thing can never completely escape his almost comic-book sense or horror where the 'head scene' actually makes sense and the only response is 'you gotta be fucking kidding me.' I don't think it is the sort of thing Ridley Scott could have pulled off, despite Alien being a masterpiece.

[GaijinPunch]

Next up, Alien for me.

Then you get to eternally debate with your self which is the better film. Alien or The Thing. Good luck with that.

By a very small margin, The Thing. Its near infinite rewatchablity factor confirms it.

I think I'm with you. Razor thing margin though.

[evil_ash_xero]

Just watched "Snowpiercer".

I quite liked it. I've seen all of Bong Joon Ho's films. (how unfortunate his name has "Bong" and "Ho" in it)

This is probably my second favorite, behind The Host. It's not as good as The Host though.

I have a problem with some of his movies. His frequent use of humor sometimes undermines the drama. His humor is really good, but sometimes it just makes things seem sort of flippant.
The Host was great, because it was like a dark comedy, mixed with a monster movie. Memories of a Murder had this problem with the humor. I liked it, but it seemed like they should have lightened up on it. I didn't like Mother at all, despite all it's praise. I struggled to get through it. I just found it dull. I don't know exactly what he could have changed for me to enjoy the film though. It just wasn't for me.

Snowpiercer is the least humorous of his movies, but it still has humor. The part with the shoe on the head(you'll see it) had me rolling.

One of the biggest surprises is seeing Chris Evans act well. I thought he was "OK" in Winter Soldier, but I didn't think he could really get much better than that. He's actually pretty good in this. Towards the end, he has a monologue, and I was really impressed that he could pull it off. I'm not saying he's DeNiro, but I didn't think he had any range at all.