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I know it's fashionable to be unbothered by the Oscars these days - but hey, two horror movies are up for Best Picture, The Shape of Water and Get Out! Plus other nominations have come their way too! And unlike Silence of the Lambs, I don't want to hear any "Well, they're not really horror movies" rubbish from the media.

Is The Shape of Water really a horror film though? What are the elements that would qualify it for that description?
 
Is The Shape of Water really a horror film though? What are the elements that would qualify it for that description?
It has moments of eerie beauty like a Val Lewton picture, it has a monster and it has an amazing and sensitive aquatic life form.
 
Well, I know what you mean, of course. However, it's possible for a film to have a monster(s) and not be a horror film.

I haven't seen the film yet bur del Toro is renowned as a director of horror films, this film features a monster. Therefore, imho it would be reasonable to assume/suggest that this film could to some extent be described as a Horror Film.
 
I haven't seen the film yet bur del Toro is renowned as a director of horror films, this film features a monster. Therefore, imho it would be reasonable to assume/suggest that this film could to some extent be described as a Horror Film.

True enough. A couple of things however:

del Toro has also been involved with and directed a number of non-horror films (IMO). Would anyone describe Pacific Rim as a horror film? It's got monsters but it's a sci-fi blockbuster.

Without giving anything away, if you're referring to the creature played by Doug Jones as the monster, it's not how I'd describe the character, at least, not in a traditional horror sense.
 
True enough. A couple of things however:

del Toro has also been involved with and directed a number of non-horror films (IMO). Would anyone describe Pacific Rim as a horror film? It's got monsters but it's a sci-fi blockbuster.

Without giving anything away, if you're referring to the creature played by Doug Jones as the monster, it's not how I'd describe the character, at least, not in a traditional horror sense.

You do seem a tad argumentative today. To be admired on the PC Thread but, imho, rather pedantic here. I do think its valid to consider Shape to be a Horror Film.
 
You do seem a tad argumentative today. To be admired on the PC Thread but, imho, rather pedantic here. I do think its valid to consider Shape to be a Horror Film.

Not at all. As I said, we probably all have our own definitions. I just think I'd call it more of a fantasy film than a horror but I accept not everyone will agree with me. I suppose it could be classed as a 'creature feature' which could be argued to come under the general umbrella heading of horror.
:domo:
 
Isn't it more of an SF film than a horror film?
 
It's classed as "Horror" on IMDB, if that's any help.
 
Looks interesting!

The film Assassination Nation, written and directed by Sam Levinson (Another Happy Day), also uses a witch hunt metaphor. But rather than condemning the supposed excesses of feminism, it’s a furious, and often uncomfortable, anti-sexist revenge fantasy. In the words of cast member Colman Domingo during a Q&A session, “it’s a war on toxic masculinity, at all costs.” And in Assassination Nation, the hunt does end in death — many, many deaths.

Lily (High Life’s Odessa Young), Sarah (The Bad Batch’s Suki Waterhouse), Bex (Transparent’s Hari Nef), and Em (newcomer Abra) are high school girls living in the suburban town of Salem. Their lives revolve around partying, sex, and social media, until an anonymous hacker begins dumping Salemites’ phone and computer data on 4chan. At first, the hacker targets authority figures like the mayor, whose family values platform masks a hidden life of cross-dressing and Craigslist hookups. But then, half the town’s secrets are exposed, including a relationship between Lily and an older neighbor.

The revelations tear Salem, and Lily’s life, apart. Her callous boyfriend finds out about the affair and posts her information online, her unsupportive parents kick her out, and strangers violently harass her on the street. Things get even worse when a fellow student accuses Lily of being the hacker, and a violent mob comes after all four girls. Fortunately, they’re far from helpless and slowly turn the tables on their persecutors.


https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/24/...assassination-nation-film-review-sam-levinson
 
Not sure where to post this, here's an amusing enough love song lamenting make up genius Rob Bottin's retirement from F/X .. I like that the lyrics are all titles of films he worked on ..

 

Yup, I'd pretty much go along with that. Get Out is most definitely a horror movie in my book. I'm still a little unsure of The Shape of Water, and it's nothing to do with being ashamed of horror films. I just think it's more akin to ET than it is to Jaws. But, as I've already conceded, 'creature feature' is a fair enough description and am happy to admit I'm probably wrong.
:buck:
 
Yup, I'd pretty much go along with that. Get Out is most definitely a horror movie in my book. I'm still a little unsure of The Shape of Water, and it's nothing to do with being ashamed of horror films. I just think it's more akin to ET than it is to Jaws. But, as I've already conceded, 'creature feature' is a fair enough description and am happy to admit I'm probably wrong.
:buck:
I remember the UK TV film critic Barry Norman being very dismissive of horror films for a while, I don't know if he changed his mind in later years .. horror make up F/X artists also got it in the neck, the whole attitude of 'It's disgusting so it must be really easy to do, like throwing tomato ketchup around' was extremely common, I even had to attend a college meeting with my make up kit to try and stop a film being banned (we won at the last minute and it was cinema size projected to an audience) .. people turning their noses up at horror is nothing new, kids were having their horror comics thrown away in the 50's ..

The truth is, your average horror film fan is normally a very nice and well balanced person.
 
Sorry if this has been posted before, only just discovered it, a new horror film about the Winchester Mystery House, starring Helen Mirren as Sarah Winchester,


This Horror Movie Is Based on a True Story. Sort Of.
By ROBERT ITO
JAN. 26, 2018

The Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, Calif., is incredibly whimsical or intensely eerie, depending on how you view such things, with stairs leading to the ceiling and doors that open to nowhere. The grand estate was the home of Sarah Winchester, heiress to the Winchester Repeating Arms fortune, who, according to legend, had workers ceaselessly laboring on the house for decades, from 1884 until her death in 1922. She undertook the project at the behest of a New England seer to delay her own demise, one version of the story goes, or to calm the spirits of the thousands of souls killed throughout the ages by Winchester rifles, as another version has it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/26/movies/horror-movie-based-on-a-true-story.html
 
If you're looking for a fun bit of low budget horror nuttiness, I can recommend Tonight She Comes. The guy who made it is a big fan of 80s horror, and it's cheerily disgusting. You do need a strong sense of humour to get along with it, mind you.
 
Not at all. As I said, we probably all have our own definitions. I just think I'd call it more of a fantasy film than a horror but I accept not everyone will agree with me. I suppose it could be classed as a 'creature feature' which could be argued to come under the general umbrella heading of horror.
:domo:

Its Horror/SF/Spy Thriller/Love Story. But 10/10! Review to follow.
 
The Monster Project might be an interesting use of the found footage format:

 
The Shape of Water: A Horror Film but also SF Adventure, Spy Thriller, Love Story, directed, produced and co-written (with Vanessa Taylor) by Guillermo del Toro. Beautifully filmed by cinematographer Dan Laustin in so many shades of green, teal, aquamarine, tans, brown, gold and red which give it a 50s/early 60s feel. Wonderful production design by Paul D Austerby with a subterranean laboratory and over cinema apartments in which most of the action transpires.

Mute janitor Elisa (Sally Hawkins) and her friend Zelda (Octavia Spencer) work in a military run research facility when a strange Creature (Doug Jones) is brought to the laboratory. The Creature injures Colonel Strickland (Michael Shannon) who was torturing it. Strickland captured the Creature in the Amazon and hopes to exploit its amphibious nature to advance the US Space Programme. Falling in love with the creature, Elisa enlists the help of Zelda, her neighbour Giles (Richard Jenkins) and a kindly scientist, Dr Bob (Michael Stuhlbarg) to free him from the laboratory.

The Creature resembles the 1950s Creature From The Black Lagoon with aspect of Predator and ALF. Jones brings the creature to life and you can truly believe in the love which develops between them. Inter-species sex results which strangely doesn't strain credibility due ti the acting skills of Hawkins and Jones but will no doubt outrage some. Its not so long ago since director Tim Burton in Planet Of The Apes avoided a romance between Astronaut (Wahlberg) and Chimpanzee (Bonham Carter) as he feared that such a film would be shunned by cinema chains.

This is also a film about loneliness, that of Elisa, Giles who is gay, Bob a stranger in a strange land, Zelda who is estranged within her marriage and of course the Creature himself. The Civil Rights struggle takes place in the background as the film is set in 1962 Baltimore. Sometimes it comes to the fore as when the man Giles longs after refuses service to a Black couple in a café. Also, all of the janitors/attendants at the research facility are Black or Hispanic but the scientists/technicians and military police are White.

All of this is expertly juggled and mixed together by del Toro to make a masterpiece. 10/10.
 
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Rewatched Terrorvision over the weekend... I don't think I realized how big a comedy it was at the time, but it's still quite fun with a killer theme song. Only bad thing is the ending was a little bit "bleh" like they didn't quite know how to end it.
 
Anyone else seen The Hallow yet? Watched it on Film4 the other night and enjoyed it, thought the story was pretty solid, some themes felt quite similar to the 2010 remake of Don't Be Afraid of the Dark. Filming locations were good too, some nice Irish countryside scenery.
 
Rewatched Terrorvision over the weekend... I don't think I realized how big a comedy it was at the time, but it's still quite fun with a killer theme song. Only bad thing is the ending was a little bit "bleh" like they didn't quite know how to end it.

Ah, Diane Franklin! That might be her best film apart from Bill & Ted, it's a lot of fun and much better than the usual effort from Charles Band.
 
Rewatched Terrorvision over the weekend... I don't think I realized how big a comedy it was at the time, but it's still quite fun with a killer theme song. Only bad thing is the ending was a little bit "bleh" like they didn't quite know how to end it.
Has a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
 
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