this is one of those movies that kinda shaped my entire taste in movies. i was a huge fan of this franchise since i was a kid, and i also remember this very movie being maybe the first one i successfully pirated (after falling victim to many, many viruses) since i'd seen and loved every one but the first one but couldnt find it anywhere. when i finally got hold of it, it reached all my expectations. it held up against the best ones of the franchise (2 and 3), and it would become one of my favorite movies as a preteen kid who was just starting to really love horror movies.
i revisited it last night. it was on tv while i was channel surfing (again). it is one of those movies i know front to back but never get tired of. what stands out to me is how small-scale it is compared to the following movies. even the deaths arent (mostly) big, shocking, unbelievable accidents. they're mostly almost believable. of course it's the first movie in the franchise, and with a smaller budget than all the next ones, but i almost prefer this realer approach with weird accidents that could plausibly happen to you. people die in the shower all the time. getting hit by a bus is even more common. sure, i love the tanning beds from 3 and the escalator from 4, but i also enjoy the rudimentar baby steps of final destination very much.
it seems like the only way to get me to watch a movie these days is by chance. halloween II was on tv while i was channel surfing, and that is that. ive always loved this one — it was my favorite halloween movie for a while — but i loved it even more tonight, watching it at the dead of night all alone. the vibe was just right and it was a perfect experience. you see, this is a nocturnal movie. myers goes after his sole survivor after she's taken to a hospital, but he doesn't wait long; he goes the very same night. so it's probably after midnight and the streets are deserted and even the hospital is nearly empty; most of the lights are out and there are only a handful of employees there. this is where i tell you i love horror movies about unsuspecting victims working the graveyard shift. think body bags, think after midnight. it is one of my favorite horror tropes, and here it is played to perfection. myers takes out hospital workers one by one slowly; the kills are cold and almost silent; we get dozens of shots of empty, dark hospital hallways (which i love), and then some of hallways that should be empty but are not (which i love even more). the entire thing is so low-key and restrained. it might sound like i'm describing a dull movie but this is a fucking thriller, but it has a very distinct late-night vibe, which i felt entirely immersed in when watching it at 4 in the morning. i feel like i never Got this one like i did tonight, even though i've seen it countless times. and of course, my 'seeing it countless times' also added to my experience. at this point i know this like the back of my hand. i had every bit memorized, knowing lines of dialogue before they were even said. i usually refrain from rewatching movies over and over as i usually get bored around the third time, when i feel a movie has nothing else to offer me, but with this one it's never like that. what it offers me is a pitch-perfect experience of late-night cozy dread-slash-comfort. i just can't get tired of it.
some notes i have: i remember reluctantly saying i could see some giallo influence in this, and now i'm absolutely sure this borrows a Lot from that. it's in the neon lighting; the vibrant red of the fake blood; the framing, everything. the shot of a dead nurse on a gurney with violent-red all over the ground is pure giallo and i love that so much. i also love laurie's big chase scene so so so much. you see, laurie spends most of the movie sedated (a big reason why the movie feels so sparse and lowkey), but when push comes to shove she gets the fuck up and runs away, and michael chases her through the emtpy hospital after hes taken out almost everyone. this bit is agonizing and it always, and i mean always, has me on the edge of my seat. she repeatedly almost gets killed but somehow makes it, and that red lighting shows up to scream danger at you, and when she finally makes it out she cant even get away so all she can do is hide. this is one of those rare horror movie moments where a protagonist does everything right, she thinks fast and runs faster and manages to survive by a thread and it only makes it more stressing because you realize things are so bad that even if you make the right choices you still end up in a terrible situation. it is one of my favorite moments in this franchise, and one of my favorite horror scenes ever.
watched this w my mom. things have been weird with us lately bc ive been wanting to spend more time alone lately and i can tell shes not happy about that. i dont want her to feel lonely so i decided we should watch a horror movie together bc we havent done that in a while and its always nice. she introduced me to horror movies when i was a kid - i remember watching stuff like mirrors and mama with her, movies we would rent and watch together even though i was wayyyy too young for that. i know she loves an action-horror with plenty of suspense so ive been meaning to show her this one since i caught word of it. we really liked it. its very efficient and nothing gets in the way of the plot (girl stuck at a rest stop in a blizzard finds a kidnapped girl in the car of one of the 4 people who are stuck there with her). intrusive score annoyed me a bit but it was nothing i couldnt handle. its not too long and makes good use of its runtime without faltering. took a few twists too many to me but idrc - it was decent. mom loved it.
found this on my watchlist. remember hearing about it a while ago but obviously forgot about it which is a crime because this is a movie i shouldve seen immediately. its a SOV vampire movie about a gay guy who also happens to be a vampire hunter and he falls in love with the vampire hes trying to kill. it is very campy very silly and not that scary. it is also this close to being an actual gay porno. which makes a perfect movie on my book. christopher ladd plays the hunter guy's friend and he is hilarious - most if not all of the campy quips i loved so much came from his character. the ending was as tacky as youd expect a sov softcore gay romcom about vampires to be (a Lot.) but i do not care one bit because i love gay vampires. reminded me of vampz (2005) - another SOV vampire flick, this one about black girl vampires who lure men into their massage shop where they fuck then kill them. would make a mean double feature.
i started watching this a loooooong time ago but ended up never finishing it. finally picked it up to watch the ending and it was quite good. very consistent with the rest of the movie - nothing like the explosion at the end of supposedly boring 'dont look in the basement'. its the kind of movie my mom would like: two girls go on a trip and one goes missing, other one has to find her. very restrained but not dull, the french countryside setting is used to great effect - its deserted and gorgeous but quickly gets unsettling when you realize theres no one to help her and even when she finds someone the language barrier wont let her communicate. it manages to create tension and not let it dissipate and thats all i needed from it. even has one or two scares as a bonus. absolutely loved the final shot. it is a bit slow overall but i dont mind - i wasnt in a hurry. good movie.
also caught this on tv but it was a free live tv channel on plex that i was scrolling through when checking the app. it was named horrorflix or something and on the description it said it showed grindhouse horror stuff and i was like oh i absolutely am going to check that out. and the first thing i saw was an insane-looking older woman crying and thats just irresistible. it only got crazier after that — it was the climax of the film and i only caught the last 20 minutes or so but god it was a blast. its set in an insane asylum so there were a bunch of crazy people running around losing their shit. the final girl was also losing her shit which is always fun (she survived). the aforementioned insane lady was apparently the boss of the place and also the villain and she got offed by her patients and it was awesome. later i saw a bunch of reviews talking about how the movie was boring as shit so im kinda happy i only saw the good part. but maybe theres a chance the whole thing was actually good and those people are wrong (its happened before). i should check out the rest of it someday but i havent been doing rewatches lately because i just cant be arsed.
caught this on tv. hadnt seen it for a while. still as good as i remembered. actually kinda better - i didnt recall this going so strong on the loss of innocence themes; nancy basically has her 'childhood' (this bitch looks 30) ripped from under her feet. its a really sad movie ! and to hammer that home you get scenes like tina's corpse getting dragged across the hall to remind you of just how violent these situations are. the deaths are mourned much more deeply than youd think - i can name very few movies where its so emphasized that all of the protagonists friends are getting muredered and are not coming back. that ending is not optimistic at all. either.
all timer effects - there are so many truly incredible moments in here, and i mean all-time greatest scenes, that wouldnt even be possible, let alone memorable, without an fx team as creative and talent as this had. freddy pushing on the wall, glen's death scene, nancy's mom getting taken into the bed-grave, there are so so so many. craven ftw as always.
it's become my favorite christmas tradition to watch this right after midnight instead of talking to my relatives. i truly belive it is the perfect christmas movie and i say this without a single ounce of irony. quite literally the perfect cinematic embodiment of christmastime to me like the way it portrays the crushing deep seated sadness of spending christmas alone while still being lowkey hilarious & without giving up either quality? unparalleled. i love every single one of these miserable perpetually drunk women. dont even let me get started on the sheer Cunt Severity of wanting to have an abortion on jesus' birthday. Yes God. just growing to love this more and more with each passing year. merry christmas to everyone especially claude
for the most part it hits the mark at everything needed from a 00s-indebted curse horror movie (a genre im personally very fond of) but third act syndrome hits this bitch full force my god. the good parts kinda require you to Just Go With It and dont think too hard in order to have a good time - the premise is the real protagonist, plot convenience is king, jumpscare is god. and it does give you some actually good shit that makes it worthwile (i especially like how it uses hallucinations to create these little gotcha! moments that are incredibly effective and really get you in the protagonists mindset). but then it completely falls apart when its time to wrap things up. ironically it was one of the gotcha moments that i loved at first that ruined the ending for me — they only work if you dont see them coming, which i never did, but then i DID see it coming at a key moment in the climax which in turn immediately made it fall flat. these things are tricky and you have to always stay three steps ahead of the audience bc one false step and all the tension evaporates. hits rock bottom when it goes for actual corporeal monster and ditches the surprise creepy smiles that work so much better and are its one original thing. thats when it just completely lost me. the ending was underwhelming and instantly forgettable. bummer bc i really liked the first 2 acts.
i love it more and more with each passing year. remember calling it something like 'a halloween movie in an ill-fitting scream costume' in a past review but i dont feel that way at all anymore. the scream costume actually suits it very well! top 2 halloween franchise for me. i already cant wait until next year for mike myers' annual decapitation. and speaking of decapitations — after halloween ends, the decapitation in here stands out to me even more as such an incredible fucking moment btw. sure, throwing him in the meat grinder is more Permanent, but its nowhere near as Satisfying, and a movie moment doesnt have to be Realistically efficient; it has to be Entertainingly efficient. and at the end of the day jamie lee curtis cutting michael's head with an axe packs more movie magic in 10 seconds than the entire 10 minutes ends takes to kill myers.
i also kinda think it missed an opportunity in not killing josh hartnett imho. offing him would add so much to this movie. for one, it wouldve made that frankenstein reference about losing everyone you love to the monster make sense; it'd also add to the body count which is kinda low in this (though i do love all the kills we do get); and it would just be some serious motivation for laurie's vengeance. plus josh hartnett is just kinda shitty. he shouldnt have survived methinks.
been meaning to revisit this for a while (the moment the credits rolled the first time i already wanted to rewatch it), but since it was so fucking good i decided to save it for halloween. god this is a fucking gem. it's like the dreamchild of carnival of souls and final destination and that is Everything to me. they put vibe arsenic in this shit like it is almost unbearable. it's the most oppressive atmosphere from the very first minute and it doesnt let up until the (fucking awesome) very last scene. feel like we (i) throw the word Atmosphere around a lot when it comes to somewhat slow-paced moody films but very few of them seem as deserving of it to me as this does. you cant exactly pinpoint whats so odd but the air is stale the vibe is all wrong and things just arent right. two thirds into the movie the protagonist herself seems to get enough of it and so she just snaps — "there's some real spooky shit going on", she goes. there sure is girl.
one thing i feel is worth pointing out: i love how we never meet the protagonist before her accident so that all we know of her is post-trauma; that we dont ever get to see her normal life just underlines that going back to normal is as far-fetched an option as can be. there is no normal for her to go back to. you can only move foward toward the cold unavoidable certainty of death. this fucking movie!!!
cant believe this one flew under my radar for so long i literally hadnt even heard of it until this week. it is so fucking good. an actual classic. it borrows that gorgeous giallo look but covers it with the bleakest coldest vibe that j-horror does best. when i tell you this bitch has got Atmosphere i mean it. but then it also goes for slasher kills & scares - like it actually made me jump out of my seat a few times. it could use better characters but honestly i just had such a great time with it i'm not holding that against it. already wanna revisit it bc im sure its a grower. oh and one more thing - malignant fucking wishes it could be this lol
many months late to this party but i somehow managed to avoid reading up on it enough to still be left fairly surprised. it really impressed me. you dont have to look hard to find some of peele's most recognizable traits in here, like his unmatched knack for the subtle kind of setup and payoff that has you gasping out loud and pointing at the screen and going 'oh so THAT'S what that was about', but mostly this introduces a new peele. its the farther hes strayed from horror in his directing career — this is actually almost close to that independence day/war of the worlds kind of scifi blockbuster we dont get anymore, if only on a smaller scale. but theres still enough of the old peele in here to keep things fun: the effortlessly hilarious dialogue; some scary shit thrown in once in a while just to keep you on your toes; daniel kaluuya killing it. it’s just really exciting to see a director at a point in his career where hes been around long enough to both have a personal style and be revered for it but where hes still “new” enough that we get to see him going in a completely new direction and have to wait and see what he'll come up with. it feels like we'll be getting more surprises from him for years to come. i certainly hope so. only wish i couldve caught it in theaters :(
this was such a letdown. from what i heard from friends & reviews i was so hyped up for something gross, hilarious, and drenched in gay subtext. it only is one of those things: theres plenty gross stuff here, though nothing to write home about. i dont think it was funny at all - as a matter of fact i think my main reason for dislikng this so much was that i just didnt think aylmer was funny or likable at alllll. he was quite annoying actually lol. i can see the reason why so many people see this and go oooo gay!! (i mean. phallic parasite makes a man leave his gf to go out and stare at a buff naked man in a shower. hello.) but even that wasnt that interesting to me because i just did not like the parasite which was supposed to be the main draw!! but the gay subtext falling flat didnt stop me from gay enjoying this because the protagonist is a cutie (and so was his brother) so not all is lost. sorry yall i just didnt feel this one as much as i wanted to. you have no idea how perfect a movie this sounds on paper to me - 80s trashy version of Venom (2018)?? sign me the FUCK up - but it just didnt do it for me. :///
ugh this is just such a good movie. great premise, great execution. and it holds up so much better than i expected on a rewatch. with it relying so heavily on its twists id expect it to lose a lot of power if you went in already knowing it all but it didnt. most of the tension is still here and i actually liked the third act more this time around; it has a few twists too many but they couldnt knock me off my feet because i already Knew so i could just appreciate amenabar's directing work instead. still insane to me that this was his first movie; the script feels clumsy towards the end but the directing feels anything but. hes just that good.
eduardo noriega is soooo great at playing hot insane men. maybe its time for me to rewatch plata quemada ♥
pretty fun when its just evil dead homage shlock but *awesome* when it finds its own kind of crazy. dont get me wrong it does a pretty decent job at covering old grounds (especially if the viewer is a raimi fan) but only when it gave me something new did it elicit the same bewilderment & awe that evil dead II gave me. hits its peak when it honors the insanity of its title by freeing shinji from Ash and letting him be The Bloody Muscle Body Builder In Hell. crazy crazy stuff. liked it!
just fuck all . i kept trying so hard to come up with a reason not to give this five stars immediately and i could not think a single one . help . its like . trying to point out a single flaw of this movie is a futile effort its like trying to measure the horizon with a ruler like. it doesnt WORK like that !!!! its literally in in its own sphere it strays so far away from cinematic conventions that you cannot evaluate it in comparison to anything else. its stupid to compare it to any movie because no other movie is The Gay Bed And Breakfast Of Terror. im obsessed. utterly fascinating. never seen anything like this and i hope i never do again
mmmmmm i got mixed feelings about this one but it still ended up on my good side. i kinda feel like i got thrown in the middle of the story and think itd work best if it started by the very first girl who goes missing? but at the same time i feel like not knowing is also so much fun. looks fucking gorgeous but i wish i hadnt seen the extended cut bc the added vhs footage definitely didnt survive the test of time and kept abruptly pulling me out of the otherwise immaculate vibe this has going on. so visually rich i swear i just discovered like 30 new shades of brown watching this. GREAT ending. did it for me!
a nice clean cut thriller. thought it was gonna fumble things in the third act like soylent green did because a conspiracy this big usually gets an underwhelming ending — either the protagonist just cant fight it or the win feels unearned and too easy, but this manages to make the ending work by staying on the small scale and focusing on the characters’ fate rather than the Big Picture. i liked it. pretty restrained but never dull. most of the plot hinges on some seriously improbable stuff but if you choose to roll with it itll be worth your while. check it out!
reminded me of what craven did in scream. a genre pioneer turns the blueprint he helped create on its head; mocking its done-to-death structure and its countless cliches while at the same time showing his disciples (copycats) how its really done. subverts the genre conventions while simultaneously delivering giallo excellence. the kind of movie that can only be made by a master with several classics under his belt. go ahead and try to guess the killer — even if you get it right, you’ll be wrong.
kinda feel like this lacks an actual protagonist? the main guy has little to no hand in any of the plots major events. hes just there. all the discoveries are made by someone else. even the climax is set in motion by someone else, he just witnesses it. but tbh its just one of those cases where The Vibes Were Right so i did not really mind at all. ill just accept that the gorrrrrgeous lighting work is the real protagonist here and move on. i changed my mind about liking this more than suspiria but i still think the lighting is superior. it does to blue what suspiria did to red. the sheer Purpleness of it all… splendid
giallo really is an acquired taste to me because i’d seen this twice and still felt like there wasn’t much else to be gained from it (other than to revel in its impeccable visuals) until this week when i checked out a bunch of its similar works and kinda worked my way up to it and now i just cant see a single fault in this. what i once saw as a thin and lacking script now stands out to me as a full awareness of its purpose, argento’s steady hand guiding this through and through with unwavering intent as it briefly skirts the edges of a plot and exposes only whats needed to give you a sense of mystery, while never veering off its true track: full violent sensory overload. an assault on the senses meant to be felt to the bone. divine. gave me a headache. five stars.
i gave this one a meagre 3 stars at a first watch a few years ago and i was hoping it would grow on me. it did! think its because ive seen enough giallo stuff now that its slower parts are more palatable to me. i also feel like ive learned an essential giallo lesson since then: the journey matters much more than the destination. meaning that the end reveal might be a little underwhelming but it doesnt matter because the twists and turns (and brilliant god tier scares) it takes along the way are what really stays with you when the credits roll. the story itself is just a means to an end, a way to get these ideas put to screen, an excuse to film a mechanical doll running at the camera and make you shit yourself in fear. once i accepted that i had so much more fun with this.
(the mechanical doll bit is seriously one of the most terrifying moments in cinema history. i do nothing but watch horror movies all the time and i am telling you it is one of the best scenes ive ever seen. i actuallyjumped.)
yet another giallo with a hot protagonist. these movies are so easy to watch for me. they always have sexy men speaking italian and thats just irresistible. also love that so many of these movies turn out to have female killers. i always love me some womens wrongs babey!!
i'm so surprised at finding out this was argentos debut? its actually unbelievable. i couldve sworn this was made decades into his career. its got such a fully formed style; so much of what i saw and loved in suspiria/opera/inferno shows up here and not in a primitive or tentative way - it’s like he already had it all mastered. this much talent right off the bat is absolutely insane.
spoiler alert !
no wonder every italian director saw this and went 'ok let's do that for the next 20 years'. this is immaculately styled. 10s across the board: lighting, camerawork, cinematography, set decoration, costume design, anything you can See this does flawlessly. the plot was just fine but i don't even care because this is so visually rich it won me over on looks alone. *this* is how you do a fashion house slasher — everything is beautiful everything is lush and lavish everything is grand everything is opulence. bava is my fucking hero.
nicole's death is like. top 10 scenes in the history of horror. maybe top 5 if i'm being honest. if this was a short film containing that scene alone i'd give it 5 stars. also im pretty sure it inspired sarah michelle gellar's chase/death scene in i know what you did last summer which has always been a favorite of mine but now has gained a new layer. yay!
so very unlike other cronenberg works ive seen. other than the freaky body hijinks this is just pretty regular 70s horror stuff (albeit very well made 70s horror stuff). i really liked it though. and samantha eggar is just amazing. i wanted to check this out since i saw her in Curtains and though shes not in this for as long as id like, she still delivers when she shows up. the climax is all hers and it bumped this from a 3.5 to a 4 to me.
i don't need to tell you the movie about a cursed theater playing a horror movie that turns the audience into demon zombies is fun.
what i do need to tell you is:
— this is the grossest movie i've seen since dead alive. which coincidentally is also a zombie movie that is full of pus and vomit. and like. ew! gross! but also, i love those. why did we ever stop making them?
— if we're comparing it to dead alive, demons wins easily, even if it doesn't reach the same levels of gore (it does come close): as expected from any italian horror classic, this is stylish as fuck. 80s italy was the world capital of neon lighting, elaborate sets and sexy sweaty men. dead alive just can't beat that.
— this is riddled with one my favorite demon movie clichés: the character (basically everyone in here) that turns their face as if hiding away from the camera, just to dramatically turn around and reveal they're already possessed. it happens like 80 times in here, and it works every time.
so yeah, this is the most fun i've had with a movie in a while. go check it out.
well EYE think he didn't suffer enough! waterboard his ass!
works best if you dont think too hard about it because if you do it just falls apart. a few plot holes and clunky details can go unnoticed if you're giving this the benefit of the doubt. it is a pretty gripping, somewhat well made horror flick, and it manages to be quite creepy at some points. also very nice that it is Really short (clocks out at 74 minutes ugh i love a movie that knows how to get to the point). the bottle setting (not really bottle — there's a bunch of flashbacks out of the booth) never gets boring; the main actor is good enough that you can dislike him without wanting him off the screen; the few glimpses of Paranormal Activity are creepy enough. it's only that it doesn't always deliver on the tension it works hard to create, which makes it not-so-satisfying. still; it's creepy, it's short; it's worth a watch. i do wish they tortured the protagonist a bit more! to quote contemporary philosopher Catherine Zeta-Jones — he had it coming!
call this movie the checkov's firing squad. it sets up checkov's gun after gun after gun and keeps you waiting for the shot and it's thrilling every time a gun goes off. i caught myself gasping out loud more times than i could count.
started watching this in the worst film-watching mood — when i feel fidgety and stressed and my attention span is 2.5 seconds long and i just can't get into a movie — and it still managed to reach to me and drag my sleep deprived ass into its own stylish, atmospheric world. i just love everything about it. it's so obvious and familiar and that’s precisely why it works — you know exactly what's coming. either because you've been warned or because you've seen it before in movie after movie, you already know where things are going, and fulci manages to surprise you in spite of that. i love it when a movie tells you exactly what's going to happen and then things unravel in a way that you STILL get surprised when things happen the way you were warned they would. the whole inevitable tragedy "she's been dead since the beginning" self-fulfilling prophecy (oh oh no oh no oh no no) stuff is VERY pleasing to me. love it love it love it
a story this confusing & mysterious and that leaves more questions than answers could easily end up frustrating & alienating but that doesnt happen here! the countdown to midnight keeps it focused & gives it a sense of urgency that doesn’t let it stall; also helps that it’s such a weird n pretty movie with the b&w & the 4:3 aspect ratio & a ghostwatch-like recreation of late-night live tv that i can’t help but love. sometimes you can sense that this is a little cheap n rough around the edges but most of the time the suspension of disbelief got the best of me n i just enjoyed the vibes.
did i get the ending? not really. did that make me like it any less? hell no! love how this is so weird and elusive; leading you to expect an answer then leaving you in the dark. kinda wanna rewatch it already just to see what i missed the first time because i’m sure there’s a lot to unpack here.
i WILL say this feels like the good, intriguing debut feature from a guy that will make something absolutely awful in the near future. think the eyes of my mother before the grudge. it just gives me that vibe. hope i’m wrong!
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