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

[terry.330]

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

That's unfortunately true for all horror franchises. The studios just see them as a cheap way to make consistent profits. Every now and then you get a good script or a clever director that manages to make the most with what they've got but that those are few and far between.

 

[Tung Fu ru]

For such an iconic group of characters there really aren't very many good movies featuring Freddy Krueger

I like many of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies. Not really because they're scary, but fun and hilarious.

 

[famicommander]

That's unfortunately true for all horror franchises. The studios just see them as a cheap way to make consistent profits. Every now and then you get a good script or a clever director that manages to make the most with what they've got but that those are few and far between.

Scream is 4/5 for me.

Scream 1 - great
Scream 2 - good
Scream 3 - trash
Scream 4 - good
Scream 5 - good

But they cheaped out and didn't pay Neve Campbell for 6, so we'll see how that goes. Really makes the decision to kill off Dewey in 5 hurt more. Now it's on Courteney Cox and her weird face to carry the banner.

 

[terry.330]

I love Scream 3. It's hilarious.

Scream is a bit different though it's always been a more mainstream franchise, just look at the cast. Shit there isn't even any nudity and almost no gore until part 4. It doesn't have the stigma of being typical slasher junk that most of the other well known series do. Also Wes Craven had been involved in the entire series unlike the others where the studio seems to just use whoever is cheap, willing and available and they love repurposing different scripts to fit whatever fits their need.

 

[Syn]

Victor Crowley should be mentioned as a mass murderer but the producers are in on the joke with the ridiculous kills.

 

[famicommander]

I love Scream 3. It's hilarious.

Scream is a bit different though it's always been a more mainstream franchise, just look at the cast. Shit there isn't even any nudity and almost no gore until part 4. It doesn't have the stigma of being typical slasher junk that most of the other well known series do. Also Wes Craven had been involved in the entire series unlike the others where the studio seems to just use whoever is cheap, willing and available and they love repurposing different scripts to fit whatever fits their need.

Even Wes wasn't immune to the studio fucking with him, though. They hacked up Scream 3 badly. Angelina was supposed to be Roman's accomplice, which would serve to explain several plot holes (like who turns on the gas in the house that explodes [Angelina was at the party, Roman wasn't], how Ghostface got Syndey's phone number [again, from Dewey's phone at the party], and how Ghostface seemingly teleports around the movie set when he's chasing Sydney).

 

[wyo]

This is the most in-depth analysis of Scream 3 I've ever seen.

 

[terry.330]

Aspergers is a hell of drug.

 

[Late]

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.

Yeah, House of Gucci wasn't half bad, I need to check out No Man's Land based on your review.

 

[famicommander]

This is the most in-depth analysis of Scream 3 I've ever seen.

I mean, if you watched the movie you had to pick up on that shit. Ghostface literally spends like 45 minutes of the movie looking for Sydney's phone number and failing to get it, then he just randomly calls her up on the phone. It was his whole motivation for half the movie, all we see is him failing at it, and then suddenly he apparently figured it out off screen with no explanation.

It would be like if Sauron just randomly popped up midway through Two Towers wearing the One Ring.

 

[terry.330]

Ringu- First time watching the original. I wasn't really sure if it would hold up, being basically an urban legend for Japanese teenage girls from 1998 based around a haunted VHS tape. But I can see why it was so popular and I'm actually surprised the remake is as well made as it is, it very easily could have been a cheap disposable jumpscare fest for teens. I do think that a bunch of stuff that was added to the remake doesn't really add anything of value and obviously some stuff was left out due to cultural differences. The original is a very efficient film which I think lends itself to the simple concept and the nature of urban legends in general, something the remake is completely missing. All in all it's an effective modern Japanese ghost story and solid movie overall. Though I'm not sure that it would work for todays audience that are used to stuff like The Conjuring etc.

 

[jro]

3 From Hell: I had forgotten that this even existed until yesterday when I randomly noticed it on my shelf and went WTF is that. I remember, and like, both House of 1000 Corpses (I mean who doesn't want to mutilate Chris Hardwick) and The Devil's Rejects quite a bit, kinda surprised myself that 3FH had completely slipped my mind being in the main series such as it is. So I re-watched it.

And it's not good. It's basically all of Zombie's worst vices as a filmmaker, mainly his utterly inane dialogue and characters permanently set on Goes to 11, but the few things he's good at are really good here, i.e. the home invasion scene and the finale. Having re-watched his bad yet interesting Halloween movies and 31 both fairly recently, there's a pretty clear throughline on RZ's stuff, IMO. His bad habits are completely annoying and make his movies mostly unwatchable to the average audience, but he gets a few smaller things right on a level that few other horror movie makers do, which somehow makes his shit juuuuuust barely worth watching if that's what you're looking for. For real though, why in the hell Richard Brake was down to slum it for him for multiple pics, no idea.

 

[terry.330]

Scream (1996)- Decided to go back through the series before watching the new one. I've seen this one quite a few times over the years and my opinion of it hasn't changed much. It's a clever (often to the point of smugness) well made slasher with a decent budget and solid cast. It's not amazing, sure it subverts the genre and meta blah blah blah... at the time was exactly what the genre needed but it's far from perfect. I understand why it's held in high regard but I'm not sure it totally deserves it.

Honestly I think that because Ghostface is literally just anybody who wears the costume it never feels quite right. Sure that's a subversion of the genre but it also prevents me from getting invested enough to try and figure out who it is in each one. Especially since the killer's motivation is always paper thin or just flat out stupid.

One thing I really noticed this time is that even though the locations are nice though a bit plain the camera work in this is really good. I think that plainness lets the camera feel more natural since it's focusing on the characters at almost all times instead of showcasing backgrounds or sets. There's a lot of the camera gliding and shifting angles while people are talking and it's very effective at drawing you into what is otherwise often extremely trite dialogue. If it had all been shot and lit more traditionally it wouldn't be nearly as engrossing.

It's a good movie that still holds up and I have a bit of nostalgia for it but it's nowhere near as smart as it thinks it is.

 

[terry.330]

His bad habits are completely annoying and make his movies mostly unwatchable to the average audience, but he gets a few smaller things right on a level that few other horror movie makers do, which somehow makes his shit juuuuuust barely worth watching

Definitely. I can barely tolerate his movies but the stuff he does right he does extremely well. It's just a shame that he insists on doing all the shit he has to be aware of that everyone hates. His wife is one thing but the white trash stuff, constant yelling and his penchant for repetitive juvenile dialogue as a joke are infuriating.

 

[100proof]

Scream (1996)- Decided to go back through the series before watching the new one. I've seen this one quite a few times over the years and my opinion of it hasn't changed much. It's a clever (often to the point of smugness) well made slasher with a decent budget and solid cast. It's not amazing, sure it subverts the genre and meta blah blah blah... at the time was exactly what the genre needed but it's far from perfect. I understand why it's held in high regard but I'm not sure it totally deserves it.

Honestly I think that because Ghostface is literally just anybody who wears the costume it never feels quite right. Sure that's a subversion of the genre but it also prevents me from getting invested enough to try and figure out who it is in each one. Especially since the killer's motivation is always paper thin or just flat out stupid.

One thing I really noticed this time is that even though the locations are nice though a bit plain the camera work in this is really good. I think that plainness lets the camera feel more natural since it's focusing on the characters at almost all times instead of showcasing backgrounds or sets. There's a lot of the camera gliding and shifting angles while people are talking and it's very effective at drawing you into what is otherwise often extremely trite dialogue. If it had all been shot and lit more traditionally it wouldn't be nearly as engrossing.

It's a good movie that still holds up and I have a bit of nostalgia for it but it's nowhere near as smart as it thinks it is.

That's the problem with Scream: regardless of its pretentions as an elevated commentary on the tropes and pitfalls of slasher movies, at the end of the day, it's still just a slasher movie. And while the first one is smartly written and has the benefit of Wes Craven's brilliant eye, the rest of them are just the snake trying to find increasing convoluted ways to eat its own tail. Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street et al survived by coming up with increasingly creative ways to murder teenagers, even if the stories became irrelevant at best and completely nonsensical at worst. Scream just became an increasingly ridiculous whodunnit. The fact that the death of David Arquette's character is seen as a turning point that the franchise may not be able to recover from is fucking embarrassing and should tell you all you need to know.

And it's not good. It's basically all of Zombie's worst vices as a filmmaker, mainly his utterly inane dialogue and characters permanently set on Goes to 11, but the few things he's good at are really good here, i.e. the home invasion scene and the finale. Having re-watched his bad yet interesting Halloween movies and 31 both fairly recently, there's a pretty clear throughline on RZ's stuff, IMO. His bad habits are completely annoying and make his movies mostly unwatchable to the average audience, but he gets a few smaller things right on a level that few other horror movie makers do, which somehow makes his shit juuuuuust barely worth watching if that's what you're looking for. For real though, why in the hell Richard Brake was down to slum it for him for multiple pics, no idea.

Yeah, Rob Zombie has a very distinct visual style but that's about it... he's a terrible director. He has no idea how to get a good performance from an actor and he doesn't understand some of the most basic aspects of filmmaking. It's part of why his Munsters movie is such a shit show... it was the first time in 20 years he had to move outside of his comfort zone of dirty murder hobos yelling at each other and it became clear he has no idea what he's doing.

I like the guy... he clearly has a passion for horror and he turned that love in to a career in music and film. Which, you know, good for him... he just refuses to put in the work to get better at his supposed profession. And why would he? People keep giving him money to make bad movies.

 

[terry.330]

Scream 2- I'd rate the first movie a 7.5/10, this one 6/10. I like the beginning in the movie theater a lot, was an unexpected plus it has a whole new layer given the recent shit with Jada lol. The ending is awful, Roseanne's sister being Billy Loomis mom is just terrible and Timothy Olyphant's motivation is about as lazy as writing gets. But I think the soundtrack might be the most egregious part. Honestly I think half the fun of these is seeing all of the people who would go on to be big stars at or near the beginning of their careers and this one is packed with them.

Troll Hunter- We were talking about found footage movies a couple pages back and I totally forgot about this one. It's great, a nice little piece that is refreshingly original. Some fairly jank CG aside which is easily overlooked because everything else is so well done. Thankfully this one is shot pretty well and manages to mostly forego the usual headache inducing shaky cam and unrealistic camera angles while still feeling like a camera crew is filming it. Recommended.

 

[100proof]

Went to Barbarian this evening before it left theaters. It takes a couple of wild left turns that are better left unspoiled but the movie has... tone issues. It can't decide what it wants to be and it doesn't really straddle the lines it attempts to straddle very well, IMO.

When it's a straight-ahead horror movie with some social commentary (woman rents an AirBnB in a rough part of Detroit, finds the house is double-booked and Pennywise the Clown/Bill Skaarsgard is already there and there's the tension of whether or not he's a creeper/rapist/whatever), it's really good. Builds tension well, characters act believably for the most part and the social commentary aspect is handled deftly.

Everything from the point where she returns to the house the second day on is a fucking mess. There's a lot of little things here and there that I like (mostly involving "the monster") but it just ping-pongs constantly between being goofy, disturbing and strangely boring.

Edit: Having some more time to think about it, I think I should make it clear that the movie's absolutely worth watching and that despite my misgivings below, there's definitely more positive than negative. I just really was turned off by the thing in the spoiler below that it kind of soured what was otherwise a pretty positive experience.

Spoiler:

It all comes down to Justin Long. Completely remove his character and the movie is 200% better. He and his character are in a completely different movie that's way more silly and way less subtle. When it cuts to him driving down the PCH, it's just tonal whiplash in a completely unsatisfying way. Like I get it, him being the modern owner of the house of an insane serial rapist is clever but nothing about him, his story or his character's payoff fits within the context of the rest of the movie. He's a clown in a movie that didn't need a clown. In particular, the movie has a lot to say about how women's trauma is handled (the police in the movie, the monster's origin story, even nice guy Keith's casual dismissal of the main character's "I'M GETTING THE FUCK OUT OF HERE" moment) and Justin Long's stupid #MeToo subplot and how he "deals with" the main character just shits all over that by making the subtext text. He's like the comic relief Madea character from Get Out x 10 because he's in most of the second half of the movie instead of just being a weird deus ex machina.

 

[terry.330]

Scream 3- I'd say this one is a 5/10. If it had been just slightly more self aware it would have been a great comedy but as it is it's just unintentionally funny. I like the cast playing the cast (Parker Posey is great), the set of the Sidney's house from the first movie and Lance Henriksen's trashy fuck mansion. This one doesn't have quite the same level of casting as the previous two but it's got some great cameos: Roger Corman, Carrie Fisher and even a Jay and Silent Bob in an unexpected crossover from Strike Back. But it's a stupid, stupid movie and a pretty weak way to end the original trilogy. Still I find it vastly more entertaining than the second one.

 

[100proof]

Made it to Smile this evening before it disappeared from theaters. The trauma as monster allegory is really strong and the movie has great sound design. Basically, therapist lady (Kevin Bacon's daughter) has a patient die in front of her in a grizzly way and slowly realizes that the monster her patient thought was chasing her is now following her. Everyone understandably thinks she's slowly going nuts. Much like The Ring, people don't make it past 7 days and she sees increasingly fucked up shit, tries to figure out what the monster is and where it comes from and confronts the monster in the end.

A little too jump scare heavy for my taste but it does build great tension and there's a couple of gruesome scenes. Not great but totally solid and would recommend for a psychological thriller/spoopy movie month watch.

 

[terry.330]

Motel Hell- Farmer Vincent played by Rory Calhoun and his sister run a roadside motel and smoked meat store. Vincent goes out at night and sets up various traps on the back roads to catch undesirables who pass through town. Then he drugs them, plants them in the ground like crops and cultivates them until they are ripe (or something). Then he butchers, smokes and processes their meat into his famous pork products. Yup.

This one is weird as fuck. It's never an outright comedy and sometimes it's oddly sincere. There are some genuinely creepy scenes and some that feel straight out of a feel good TV movie of the week from the late 70s but it's all pretty damn entertaining. I was expecting a pretty straight forward evil rednecks run a motel and kill people for fun type of plot but this is something else entirely. It culminates with an epic chainsaw duel involving Rory Calhoun wearing a severed pigs head. Good stuff all around.

It also stars Wolfman Jack as a porno stealing schiester TV evangelist.

 

[Syn]

I had a crush on Elaine Joyce so seeing her cracking a whip in a tight outfit was hot.

 

[terry.330]

I had a crush on Elaine Joyce so seeing her cracking a whip in a tight outfit was hot.

That scene was surreal as hell.

 

[terry.330]

The Northman- If you want non-stop viking action this is not the movie for that. If you want a straight forward revenge story chock full for Norse mysticism that still manages to feel epic that's fantastic looking with a great cast and well paced then this is it. Excellent.

Evil Dead Trap- Weirdo low budget Japanese horror from 1988. The host of a late night talk show is sent a tape of a woman being tortured and decides to investigate if it's real or not. Her and her little production crew find the location where it was filmed and it of course turns out to be a trap where they are killed off one by one in various complicated ways. The whole movie feels and looks pretty gross and gritty and is quite extreme with the sex and violence especially given when it was made. Clearly inspired by Basket Case and definitely the inspiration for the X-Files episode Humbug. I was expecting a split personality killer, I was not expecting a parasitic twin fetus monster lol, needless to say the ending gets pretty nuts.

The movie feels very not Japanese and more like an Italian grindhouse piece complete with Goblinesque soundtrack. I was surprised at some of the sex stuff and couldn't believe they found real actresses to do some of the scenes, turns out they're all porn stars. Also turns out that they somehow made this into a trilogy. I really enjoyed this one but I'm not sure I'm up for a whole trilogy.

 

[fake]

Criterion just laid off 20% of its team

 

[racecar]

Black Adam .. watch it for free, weak story and lame cast feel like a made for TV movies quality.