Movie opinions thread (what have you seen, what did you think?)

[100proof]

I wouldn't cry any tears for them. The director/creator, Oren Peli, went on to be a producer on the Insidious franchise so I'm sure he's making bank. The actors got nothing but they didn't really deserve anything.

Edit: I don't mind found footage movies. Rec is pretty good, The VHS movies are uneven but I've definitely liked some of the bits in it, I like the original Cloverfield (although the found footage gimmick in that is way more flimsy). I don't even dislike Blair Witch. It has serious pacing issues and the acting isn't great but it's way better than the PA movies.

 

[terry.330]

Hellraiser 2022- Awful and Infuriating. First of all the movie is inexcusably dark, it is almost impossible to see a majority of what's happening on screen the entire time. This is not an exaggeration, there are huge chunks of the movie where you can't tell what is happening at all. The Cenobites and female Pinhead look great for the whopping 5 seconds you can actually see them. Just an unbelievable disservice to the creature designs. The human characters are terrible and their subplots are useless, they add absolutely nothing to the overall story. The first Hellraiser is so good partly because it's a very stripped down story but this adds all kinds of character bullshit that goes nowhere. I can't really comment on most of the effects because again it's so fucking dark you can't actually see any of them but it's nowhere near as gory as the first and the kills that do happen are uncreative.

The lore surrounding the Cenobites, puzzle box and the labyrinth dimension is great and they manage to fit quite a bit in and expand it to cover a lot of stuff from the sequels. However the movies internal logic is beyond flawed, the rules for the puzzle box while interesting are almost completely discarded as soon as they are established. It's a fucking mess. There's a lot more wrong with it but I don't want to get into spoilers. This is Hellraiser for the Blumhouse crowd.

 

[pixeljunkie]

Hellraiser 2022- Awful and Infuriating. First of all the movie is inexcusably dark, it is almost impossible to see a majority of what's happening on screen the entire time. This is not an exaggeration, there are huge chunks of the movie where you can't tell what is happening at all. The Cenobites and female Pinhead look great for the whopping 5 seconds you can actually see them. Just an unbelievable disservice to the creature designs. The human characters are terrible and their subplots are useless, they add absolutely nothing to the overall story. The first Hellraiser is so good partly because it's a very stripped down story but this adds all kinds of character bullshit that goes nowhere. I can't really comment on most of the effects because again it's so fucking dark you can't actually see any of them but it's nowhere near as gory as the first and the kills that do happen are uncreative.

The lore surrounding the Cenobites, puzzle box and the labyrinth dimension is great and they manage to fit quite a bit in and expand it to cover a lot of stuff from the sequels. However the movies internal logic is beyond flawed, the rules for the puzzle box while interesting are almost completely discarded as soon as they are established. It's a fucking mess. There's a lot more wrong with it but I don't want to get into spoilers. This is Hellraiser for the Blumhouse crowd.

Damn son. Tore it to shreds....I'm gonna skip after reading this. This resonates.

 

[terry.330]

Damn son. Tore it to shreds....I'm gonna skip after reading this. This resonates.

Honestly if you're a fan of the franchise it's worth watching but just prepare to be extremely frustrated the entire time. It's like the movie was written by two people and only one of them understood what Hellraiser is supposed to be and they still managed to bungle that. The biggest problem is just that you can't see anything.

 

[Syn]

13 Fanboy

A crazy fan is stalking and killing actors from the Friday the 13th films. Most of the actors are playing themselves but a few aren't. They put up graphics of who they are like the original Jason and Kane Hodder. You kind of get nostalgic and then someone dies. I enjoyed it, probably better than FT13th movies and since I am a fan, I give a cautious recommendation.

 

[jro]

Honestly if you're a fan of the franchise it's worth watching but just prepare to be extremely frustrated the entire time. It's like the movie was written by two people and only one of them understood what Hellraiser is supposed to be and they still managed to bungle that. The biggest problem is just that you can't see anything.

I'll echo this to an exact degree along with Wyo's previous post. Oddly.... it was still better, due entirely to the Cenobites and some surprisingly strict adherence to the original lore, than a lot of the shit horror movies that have come out in the past few years. Like, srsly, I straight up love the guy with the [redacted] through his fucking thorax. I also generally really like the Cenobite designs and the fact that they're all female, kinda an eff-you to current day shit.

Other than the overall nasty vibe and the one guy with the chest problem, which IMO did actually do the original some decent justice... bad. Dumb ending, way too much into the characters instead of the Cenobites and/or lore, etc as mentioned by Wyo. Oddly worth watching if you're a fan of the originals but also not at all what it could have been (again Wyo beat ma ass ta tha punch hear).

Also, how in the hell did they get "we have such sights to show you" in but they leave out "Jesus wept"? Fucking sixth or eighth one or whatever from a few years ago got that right.

edit: 13 Fanboy sounds interesting....? Streaming where, pray tell?

 

[fake]

The Town That Dreaded Sundown: more interesting in its approach to the fourth wall and storytelling than anything regarding the actual movie. Not terrible but certainly not recommended.

Goodnight Mommy: apparently the original Aussie pic is pretty great. This was not. Decent concept done very poorly, kinda surprised Naomi Watts wanted to make this.

Wow, I was actually reading about the true crime story that Sundown was based on yesterday. I do want to check it out just to see how they interpreted it.

Goodnight Mommy is Austrian, not Australian, and it's pretty great.

People who don't hate found footage should watch UFO Abduction (1989): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_Abduction_(film)

 

[SouthtownKid]

Seven Psychopaths

This is probably the most meta movie I have ever seen. It's about a screenwriter trying to write a movie called "Seven Psychopaths", but all he has is the title with no concept or characters in mind and no understanding of what a psychopath is. And in real life, the movie Seven Psychopaths is written by a guy with not much more than a title and zero understanding of what a psychopath is. There are one, possibly two psychopath characters in the movie maximum. There are other characters who have killed someone, but they all had motives like revenge for a murdered child or something. Killers, sure. Assholes, some of them maybe. But not psychopaths.

Don't watch it, by the way.

 

[rarehero]

The lore surrounding the Cenobites, puzzle box and the labyrinth dimension is great and they manage to fit quite a bit in and expand it to cover a lot of stuff from the sequels. However the movies internal logic is beyond flawed, the rules for the puzzle box while interesting are almost completely discarded as soon as they are established. It's a fucking mess. There's a lot more wrong with it but I don't want to get into spoilers. This is Hellraiser for the Blumhouse crowd.

I dug the inclusion of the lore. Other than that, it was okay, worth a watch. I know there was a lot of hoopla about the gender swap pinhead, but sorry, not on the same map as Doug Bradley.

 

[Syn]

edit: 13 Fanboy sounds interesting....? Streaming where, pray tell?

tubi so anyone can see it!

 

[NeoSneth]

I just finished Hellraiser 2022.
I haven't watch a Hellraiser movie in 10-15 years, and I only remembered the basic premise of the box and bad shit happens. personally, I thought it was a good reintroduction. It was much more clear than some of the original movies as to what the fuck was happening. I didn't think it was too dark, but I agree the Cenobites were in the shadows a lot. It was clearly intentional. I think it was partly due to the lower quality CGI, but also to keep it mysterious. I think if you had it on a big screen it would not hold up to hollywood special effects, but overall still very good. I also think the screen time for the horror aspects was about right. You would get to numb to horror if it is on the screen the whole time.

As a Hellraiser neophyte, B- for being predictable.

 

[Late]

Hellraiser and the sequel are worth watching, otherwise disregard. Cannibal Holocaust is the only good found footage movie.

 

[LoneSage]

I'll echo this to an exact degree along with Wyo's previous post. Oddly.... it was still better, due entirely to the Cenobites and some surprisingly strict adherence to the original lore, than a lot of the shit horror movies that have come out in the past few years. Like, srsly, I straight up love the guy with the [redacted] through his fucking thorax. I also generally really like the Cenobite designs and the fact that they're all female, kinda an eff-you to current day shit.

Other than the overall nasty vibe and the one guy with the chest problem, which IMO did actually do the original some decent justice... bad. Dumb ending, way too much into the characters instead of the Cenobites and/or lore, etc as mentioned by Wyo. Oddly worth watching if you're a fan of the originals but also not at all what it could have been (again Wyo beat ma ass ta tha punch hear).

Also, how in the hell did they get "we have such sights to show you" in but they leave out "Jesus wept"? Fucking sixth or eighth one or whatever from a few years ago got that right.

edit: 13 Fanboy sounds interesting....? Streaming where, pray tell?

TIL Jesus wept was an adlib by the actor: https://screenrant.com/hellraiser-movie-jesus-wept-line-ad-libbed-reason/

Apparently the actor simply didn't like cussing so said that instead. Wow.

 

[mjmjr25]

Train to Busan (finally).

Most compelling / sad zombies-on-a-train movie you'll ever see. Could have used a bit more graphically satisfying death scenes, but maybe it was intentional so as to not ruin the story / character arcs (IE, overshadow the actual story). 9/10. Loved it. I would like to see an American version with Vince Vaughn as the lead.

 

[SouthtownKid]

Zeroville. This was an odd, fucking fantastic movie starring James Franco (looking like Tom Hardy in Bronson) as someone clearly borderline schizophrenic, working his way up the ladder in 1970s Hollywood. Even if the rest weren't great, it would still be worth watching to see Seth Rogan as John Milius, screenwriter of Dirty Harry and Apocalypse Now, get George Lucas in a headlock and point a .45 at his head for talking all his robot bullshit at a party. But the rest of the movie is great. It's like a weird combination of The Player with Sid & Nancy.

I looked the movie up after it was over and was surprised to see it got poor reviews when it came out. I have a feeling this is due only to the fact that we were in the middle of cancelling Franco at the time for whatever we were cancelling him for. Because I think this is one of the better, more interesting movies I've watched in a while.

 

[terry.330]

Zeroville. This was an odd, fucking fantastic movie starring James Franco (looking like Tom Hardy in Bronson) as someone clearly borderline schizophrenic, working his way up the ladder in 1970s Hollywood. Even if the rest weren't great, it would still be worth watching to see Seth Rogan as John Milius, screenwriter of Dirty Harry and Apocalypse Now, get George Lucas in a headlock and point a .45 at his head for talking all his robot bullshit at a party. But the rest of the movie is great. It's like a weird combination of The Player with Sid & Nancy.

I looked the movie up after it was over and was surprised to see it got poor reviews when it came out. I have a feeling this is due only to the fact that we were in the middle of cancelling Franco at the time for whatever we were cancelling him for. Because I think this is one of the better, more interesting movies I've watched in a while.

I watched that a couple years ago and it didn't do anything for me. I was intrigued because of the setting and premise but couldn't get past it being yet another piece with Franco and his buddies goofing around more than an actual interesting story or a weird love letter to past Hollywood. I also felt the highly stylized visuals and dialogue came off as pretentious and a bit try hard. It's certainly original but for me it just didn't work.

 

[Ralfakick]

Watched a couple of 80s movies over the weekend

No Man’s Land - Charlie Sheen, DB Sweeney, Randy Quaid

“I only steal Porsches.” I love 80s action movies, I don’t know how come I never heard of this. Charlie Sheen plays a yuppie Porsche Shop owner, who steals Porsches on the side to chop. DB Sweeney is a young undercover cop sent by Randy Quaid to infiltrate the organization. DB Sweeney gets a little too close to Charlie Sheen and his sister, and he starts questioning his loyalties as does Charlie Sheen.

Knijite the Forbidden Subjects
By extension I’m a fan of Cannon Films generally I know they’re schlocky, never saw this one though. The dialogue is corny to a degree and it has the same 80s/90s Japanese are going to takeover the world like Black Rain or Rising Sun, but those movies this is not. Charles Bronson was definitely in the latter half of his career, but this scene for one was pretty hilarious.

Gucci - I watched this in two parts which was good because the pace wasn’t the best. Honestly Lady Gaga was really good in it, bossing Adam Driver and an unrecognizable Jaret Leto around. It was all about the family and not the clothes. My expectations were pretty low but I enjoyed it.

 

[terry.330]

Feast- A bunch of strangers and some locals all end up trapped in a roadside bar somewhere in the American southwest being attacked by a family of pissed off ravenous and horny monsters. While amateurish and a bit cringey in parts (those character introductions yeesh) it manages to somehow overcome what could have easily been a total piece of shit and be quite entertaining. It's got an eclectic cast, tons of gore, some humor and a breakneck pace that doesn't leave much room to think. You can tell the filmmakers were going for a sort of grindhouse Tremors and while it doesn't exactly succeed it still manages to be a lot of dumb nasty fun.

I remember seeing this on Project Greenlight on HBO back in the early 00's where they made it out to be some sort of production disaster. I assume a lot of that was just drama since it was essentially a reality show but I can also see an evident lack of experience on screen at times. Apparently this did well enough to get a couple sequels which I was not aware of until about 5 minutes ago.

 

[Syn]

Halloween Ends

What an odd film. There's a subplot that dominates the film but the ending is satisfying. Wouldn't recommend except for die hard fans. Like Halloween III is better than this.

 

[terry.330]

Halloween Ends

What an odd film. There's a subplot that dominates the film but the ending is satisfying. Wouldn't recommend except for die hard fans. Like Halloween III is better than this.

Yeah after Halloween Kills I was not expecting much and the consensus is that this one sucks ass as well. It's a shame too because the 2018 one while not great was at least entertaining and had some interesting ideas even if they didn't quite manage to pull them off or they were over the top.

 

[SouthtownKid]

I still haven't even watched Kills. I can't work up the interest after Halloween 2018.

 

[famicommander]

There's only one Halloween movie anyone ever needs to watch and it's the first one.

 

[Burning Fight!!]

and the second one

rip Donald Pleasence

 

[SouthtownKid]

and the second one

rip Donald Pleasence

Well. really only the first one. Even the second one is pretty garbage.

 

[famicommander]

For such an iconic group of characters there really aren't very many good movies featuring Michael Myers, Jason Voorhes, Freddy Krueger, or Leatherface.