Topic: MOVIES

[Aridale]

Both VHS movies were good but I feel like the 2nd one was completely forgettable. The first and last scenes of the first one are the best!

[Pfil]

Yes they are!

[darkmanx_429]

Just finished V/H/S 2. It was pretty enjoyable, I think the first one still was the stronger film. The films in the 2nd ranged from interesting, to WTF. Alien Abduction Slumber Party made the whole movie for me though! That was well worth the price of admission! Also, just watched Mortal Kombat Legacy Season 2. Bigger budget, awesome fight scenes, I am pretty hyped for the new movie now!

[TheouAegis]

Watched "Where The Wild Things Are" last night. I enjoyed it. It wasn't a great movie, but Max Records did a great job I think. Except for the "rushed" ending, I felt it was a well-written script. The Wild Things' conversations seemed a little too disconnected from Max -- I mean, some of the things they were talking about made me like, "What the fuck is in this kid's head?!" The Wild Things were imaginary, part of his psyche, but that kid definitely had some issues. The whole movie reminded me of a "kiddied" Donnie Darko. I do wanna watch it again, paying closer attention to all the dialogues. Like I said, everything that takes place in the land of the Wild Things was supposed to all be in Max's head and they end up discussing some complicated issues when you think about it. Judith, the one with a horn on her nose, straight up had some of the most disturbing conversations in the whole movie, more so than Carol and K.W.'s conversations. Her little fight with Max when he tries to dominate her by laughing in her face was such an unsettling scene to watch unfold. Also K.W.'s character was so much deeper than she appeared on the surface; while Max was angry with his sister, K.W. was essentially his mind's attempt to reconcile his relationship with his sister and K.W.'s attitude throughout the movie illustrated Max's fraternal affection for her. K.W.'s friends, the owls, were basically representative of his sister's friends and not being able to understand the owls would have been a reference to not understanding his sister's friends.

And then there was Max's little vampire story at the beginning. What the hell was up with that? When I saw that scene, I knew right then and there the movie was going to go Donnie Darko on me. It didn't take me long to wonder if the vampire story was about him or his dad. WHERE WAS MAX'S FATHER? Did he die? Are Max's parents divorced? How old was Max when his father left him? What was his parents' relationship like? All these thoughts were running through my mind while I was trying to watch the movie. I have this nagging suspicion that some of the details surrounding his father's absence crop up in Max's story and some of the dialogue of the Wild Things.

[Mooning Freddy]

Watched Black Swan, loved it.
At first I had my doubts about watching the movie, wondering how a story about ballerinas may appeal to me in any way; On the other hand, as an Aronofsky fan, I knew I had to watch it.
And I wasn't disappointed. Aronofsky infused the movie with his well-known charm of darkness and insanity from "Requiem for a Dream" and "Pi". Natalie Portman totally deserved the Oscar for her performance of a shy ballerina whose will to become perfect and successful drives her to insanity. Her sexually-abusive teacher / director made it even more dramatic as he pushes her to give up her innocence and forces her to embrace eroticism. Terrifying from beginning to end.   

[Nail_Bombed]

"Requiem for a Dream"

One film I NEVER want to rewatch - brilliantly realised, but jaysus, was it ever relentlessly and horrifyingly depressing.

[Mooning Freddy]

One film I NEVER want to rewatch - brilliantly realised, but jaysus, was it ever relentlessly and horrifyingly depressing.

Depressing, horrible, and incredibly emotional. And most of all, REAL. It presents the entire stages of a drug addiction: Euphoria, persuit, crime, denial, horror and hallucination, desperate attempts to rehabilitate, relapse, and in many cases, horrible doom.
And of course you must mention the brilliant soundtrack.
Best anti-drug film IMO.

[Zannibal]

Alright, I just finished The Shining. Now I got kind of "what am I supposed to feel" moment

[Spoiler warning]
Basically, I had had totally wrong idea about the story all the time. I though it's just dad going insane and starting killing people with little to none unnatural stuff. Instead, it's one hell of unnatural stuff But that's not a bad thing to be honest. I just need to watch it again to get even some kind of idea what it's all about. It was really creepy at some parts for such old movie. That's a good thing too, I was afraid that old movies won't scare me at all. The only thing I was kind of missing, was some great distressing atmosphere*.

It also kind of reminds me of Twin Peaks.

[Major spoiler warning for Twin Peaks]
You can clearly tell Leland's character took a lot influence from Jack. And also, the scenery is quite the same. Also, * = Twin Peaks - Fire Walk With Me did this well. The atmosphere was quite disturbing at the scene when they were having a dinner after the night Laura's dad raped her. They just sit there on the same table, and Leland is just acting like nothing happened.

But in the end, really good movie. Just a bit different than I was expecting, but I wasn't disappointed. It could've had a bit more distressing atmosphere tho.

[Mooning Freddy]

The most unusual thing about the Shining to horror movie fans today is that the movie is SLOW AS HELL. Most viewers today are used to cheesy teen slashers and having a movie with long, slow dialogs and long suspension buildup may be seen as a bit boring.

But some of the scenes to me were both strange and entertaining. For instance, the scenes where he talks to the barman.
It is quite obvious to the viewer that the barman isn't there and that Jack is talking to himself, since you know the only people in the hotel are Jack, Wendy and Danny. Nevertheless Jack doesn't see anything unusual about that. It's a sign of his insanity.
But the best scene IMO is when Wendy reads the manuscripts that he has been typing for days and all it says is "all work and no play..." 

[Zannibal]

Yeah, I see what you mean. My little brother was watching the new Alien thing (Prometheus or whatever it is), and he literally skipped every scene that had more than 10 seconds of talking ;_;

But I didn't have a problem with it's speed. Nothing feels slow after original Dawn of the Dead I just wish it had a bit more disturbing atmosphere. Also, the final chase scene was a bit stupid; Jack's leg was hurt so he couldn't run, so there was no chance he would catch the kid. And also, it's age thing is only 16, which pretty much prevents the kid from dying Also, the last picture of Jack was a bit hilarious. Oh, and there was helicopter shadow in the intro... oh well, nothing's perfect

[Ratty]

Nothing feels slow after original Dawn of the Dead

Dawn of the Dead is actually a pretty well paced film. Most of its imitators were much slower, like the very well regarded Zombi 2 (AKA "Zombie") an unofficial prequel/sequel which famously featured a fight between a zombie and a real shark. Not to mention less well regarded imitations like the dreadfully slow Dawn of the Mummy which reeks of pointless padding. Day of the Dead could probably also be seen as a more slowly paced movie, depending on how you look at it.

[TheouAegis]

Well, I blame schools. When even English teachers just let kids watch Romeo & Juliet rather than reading it, you teach them impatience. Also schools never let you watch the uncut versions of Romeo & Juliet, so then I had to pick it up from the library and watch it in a darkened bedroom fapping into a Kleenex as soon as my parents left the house. Schools should force kids to read Lovecraft -- slow, drawn out suspense horror; pages upon pages of descriptions of Victorian style buildings and New England towns. Oh wait, he was a racist horror writer; we can't have kids reading his stuff in school.

Video games tie into it too. I admit, I don't play RPGs much anymore because I can't stand the pacing in them (text text text text text text OMG WHEN THE HELL DO THEY SHUT UP AND LET ME PLAY?!), but I loved them growing up. But in that case, I think it's not so much the stream of text but the placement of the text. DON'T MAKE ME READ A FUCKING STORY BEFORE I EVEN GET TO MOVE! And as much as I hate survival horrors and as much as I hated RE because it was survival horror, to this day I still admire it because, at least in the beginning, it was the antithesis to modern films, especially horror films. There was soooo much of NOTHING in RE. Think about it, you walk around an empty house then there's a zombie eating your buddy! Blam! Blam! ... Silence. You walk around the house more in silence. You go down a hallway. More silence. CRASH! HOLY SHIT OH MY GOD WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO YOU DOG?! WHERE THE FUCK DID YOU COME FROM, DOG?!?!??!!! ARRRRRGH! BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM DIE YOU FUCKING DEVIL DOG!!!! More silence......

[Zannibal]

And as much as I hate survival horrors and as much as I hated RE because it was survival horror, to this day I still admire it because, at least in the beginning, it was the antithesis to modern films, especially horror films. There was soooo much of NOTHING in RE. Think about it, you walk around an empty house then there's a zombie eating your buddy! Blam! Blam! ... Silence. You walk around the house more in silence. You go down a hallway. More silence. CRASH! HOLY SHIT OH MY GOD WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO YOU DOG?! WHERE THE FUCK DID YOU COME FROM, DOG?!?!??!!! ARRRRRGH! BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM DIE YOU FUCKING DEVIL DOG!!!! More silence......

Amnesia did that too. For the first 1 or 2 hours, there's no enemies. But dear hell was it scary. It had really good build up.

Here in Finland (best schools in da world, mon!), we don't watch movies instead of books. But that doesn't really teach patience. Everyone can suffer through a book, and that won't make anyone more patient. It's parents' fault. They should teach kids to have patience, and read the fucking stories to them. That's how human creates their imagination. No wonder youngest generations lack any kind of imagination, because they haven't heard stories when they were kids. And if you have no imagination, you'll miss a lot from horror. Like Amnesia, it just doesn't work for people with no imagination.

My brother is again good example. He was telling me proudly how he hasn't been afraid of any horror films he has watched. He thinks he's brave or something Well, I told him that it's his loss. "Would you watch comedy films that aren't funny?", he went pretty quiet after that He'll probably want to watch my Shining DVD soon, but I guess I'll just tell him that it's not brutal enough for him. He would just skip 2/3 of the film. Or quit watching after 10 minutes.

[Mooning Freddy]

Today's American horror film simply aren't scary. They simply can't be; Unless it's a mystery-horror kind of film, you know, like Jacob's Ladder. They're full of the stupid generic scares which never scared me in the first place.
You know why Japanese movies are so scary? Because they're WEIRD. You don't understand them, or rarely understand them. One of the creepiest films I ever saw was Eraserhead. It was creepy because it's weird as f*ck. It's the kind of film that could give you nightmares.
What horror movies need is originality.

Oh, and another thing: disgusting movies are not horror movies. Torture and dismemberment do not make a scary movie, they make a sick, disgusting movie. I do not go to a horror movie to throw up. I don't know why they even make those sick movies.

[Zannibal]

Yeah, it's harder to make scary stuff since we're so used to scary stuff. No one's afraid of monsters anymore.

And that's true about Japanese films. Humans are afraid of weird things always, so that's why it works. I have to disagree with Eraserhead tho. It was barely scary. It was weird as hell, but I didn't find it that scary. Only like 2 moments I was scared.

I agree with last part too. I've always said that Saw isn't horror movie that much. There's even name for that genre; Gore movies. It's like splatter, but it's not fun and it's disgusting. Splatters are fun at least, and not that disgusting really. But I guess it's for marketing. I mean it's socially totally OK to watch horror movie that has torturing and all, but it's totally not OK to watch the exactly same film if it was labeled as Gore instead of horror