The Horror Thread 2U • Page 294

Elevated horror is a very dumb term

 

Halloween II rules

just watched Kills again tonight... even worse than the first time I saw it lol. one of the most baffling films I know of. how the exact same creative team got so much right with 18 and almost everything wrong with Kills, it's just insane

 

love that Judy Greer's character, an intelligent and empathetic individual, first hand has her stance against the lynch mob proven correct in the most gruesome way, and her reaction is... to grab a literal pitchfork and join said mob

they did her so dirty in these movies lol what a waste

 

evil dies tonight

 

Evil naps tonight, at best.

 

The kills were good, at least they got that part right

 

Still absolutely floored over the Loomis re-enactment. Regardless of how you felt about the movie, that was simply incredible

 

Saw Barbarian in theaters. Ton of fun.

The new Hellraiser was cool. I liked the redesigns and some of the horror elements, but I didn't love the movie as much as I was hoping.

I've been enjoying Midnight Club, though I have a few eps left. Still, probably my least favorite of Flanagan's shows unless these last couple eps really change my mind.

Deadstream is next on my list.

 

My friends and I do a weekend cabin trip every October and we watch a bunch of scary movies and whatnot, and I'm usually in charge of the movies we watch. Typically, I pick movies based on what I think would be fun for the group, but I think it'd be more fun to pick one that none of us (including me) have seen.

Generally, I have 3 brackets:
1. Daytime/Family friendly stuff (Hocus Pocus, Casper) to have on in the background while we hang out.
2. Night time movies (usually classics or just good horror movies, like It Follows, Evil Dead, The Shining, etc)
3. Midnight movies (grosser stuff that we put on after the weaklings go to bed, like Society, Braindead, etc)

I haven't seen Deadstream yet, but it's been on my list. Is it a good group horror movie? or is it more of a "midnight" type movie?

 

I think it straddles the line between the two pretty well

 

awesome! i'll probably save it for one of the "night time" movies. we'll be there for 3 nights, so if you (or anyone else in here) have some great suggestions for fun group horror movies (mainly "night time" and "midnight" movies) let me know!

I added Xtro to my midnight list. never seen that one, but it sounds fantastic haha.

 

For sure 1978 has the best shots and most iconic ones of Michael overall, but many that really stuck with me in my childhood to adulthood are scenes from II.

-Michael in the kitchen of the old couple where he stole the knife.

-Every shot of him walking the hallways.

-The nurse finally finding Laurie in the hospital only to have Michael appear right behind her, and lift her off her feet with a scalpel to the back. Kicks off the final act, it’s the first time Jamie has seen him in the movie, and then he follows her for what feels like an eternity. That whole sequence is perfect. My favorite of the entire movie.

-Michael walking straight through the glass door completely undeterred. This scene now highly reminds me of It Follows, which has a lot of nods for Carpenter films.

-Michael standing back up immediately after being shot multiple times, and then killing the sheriff on the floor.

(Which in retrospect, is the second time that night he took several bullets like it was nothing and is a significant moment in the film. Instead of retreating this time, he continues to chase because he realizes either he basically doesn’t feel pain (a real-life condition Michael could have) or that he cannot die. Which remains the true scary factor of Michael and the Halloween series up until the 6th. Everything is grounded in reality except for this horrifying realization by his doctor that he is not normal, he cannot be traditionally studied due to a lack of emotion and stimulation other than violence, and there is no explanation for this anomaly of a purely evil and now un-killable person which no one believes or takes seriously.)

-Of course, Michael bleeding from the eyes.

 

I think my absolute least favorites are Resurrection, where Mike is for SURE wearing eyeliner and got his brows waxed perfectly, and then 4 where the mask just looked horrendously thin, cheap, and the actor’s head shrunk.

 

I don't mind "elevated horror" sometimes because it's gotten some ppl I know to get into the horror genre and give it a chance. If it's a gateway drug for ppl to enjoy horror and be a lil less pretentious about it I'm all for it. My dad HATES "elevated horror" tho. He just wants an exciting movie with stabby stabs or whatever and I respect it lol

 

Elevated horror = prestige horror? Is that a term people actually use?

 

Elevated horror is usually good, Carpenter is just very funny

 

TerrorVision is insane haha. The whole time, I was like “this OD dude looks so familiar” and it turns out he’s the actor that played Uncle Rico on Napoleon Dynamite haha. Anyway, gross fun dumb movie.

 

When I started The Midnight Club I planned on taking my time to make it last, but I ended up watching 3-4 episodes a day haha. I enjoyed it a lot, but was a little underwhelmed by the ending. Weakest Flanagan show but still very good.

This month so far...
Movies:
1. You’re Next
2. Smile
3. The Ring
4. Ouija
5. The Ring Two
6. Werewolf by Night
7. Under the Skin
8. Hellraiser (2022)
9. Evil Dead (2013)
10. V/H/S
11. Ex Machina
Shows:
1. The Midnight Club

 

Rewatched Kills again last night and mostly still strongly dislike it. There's just a weird level of corny that hovers over a lot of the movie for me and it is not good or fun. I tried to like Tommy Doyle's character again this time, I really did, but I just cannot stand him and his overbearing gruff macho vibes. It was stated earlier but I do not understand Karen's decisions in this movie, like why does she attempt to save the other man who escaped by locking him in that corridor, completely visible? I can only assume her plan was to reason with the mob but she doesn't even really try. Maybe a lot of this is intentional as I realize a lot of what 18 and this did was make direct callbacks to previous films in the franchise, but most of this one is just overshadowed by a plot that I cannot get behind.

I do however love most of the flashback sequence in the beginning, as well as pretty much all of Michael's time on screen. The kills are awesome and I do love how brutal and unflinching that aspect of these movies are. The end is still weird to me with the beatdown and then Michael overtaking everyone in slow motion and that weird all black background - makes it seem straight out of a music video or something - but that seemed more tolerable to me upon another viewing.

In any and all cases, I am very excited to see how DGG wraps this thing up.

 

the "Michael fights back" bit at the end is so bad it makes me laugh. idk why they filmed/edited it like that but yeah it looks like a 90s grunge music video lmfao

genuinely despise most of that movie, but Big/Little John are great and so is Laurie/Frank's hospital chat about the night at the bar (the one time the creative team remembered they have Jamie fucking Lee Curtis and should use her)

 

the red letter media review of kills is spot on imo

 

The Doctor Wolfula review of Kills tries to make sense of it, and has probably the most positive spin I've seen on the movie yet, but I dunno...
I guess we'll see if it's redeemed by Ends.

 

Barbarian was very fun

 

Truly doesn’t even feel like the same people worked on both movies. I’ve watched 3 times and don’t see myself coming back to it. The “evil dies tonight” line being dropped 10+ times, the character decisions like you pointed out, even the death sequences. My most irritating experience is during the SUV sequence. Everybody is functioning with an IQ of ten, including Michael. When he kicks the door perfectly timed to hit the gun back into the nurse’s face who misses like 6 shots, having her kill herself, I just laugh.

If I could I would just cut and paste the flashback sequences into Halloween (2018) and then discard the rest.