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Horror Films

GNC said:
That happens in Psycho III, it's probably that one you saw being filmed. It starred Anthony Perkins.
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Thanks guys and yes, that must have been PSYCHO 3 .. and Anthony whatshisface ;) ... it was still nice to see old Norman Bates outside the famous location with my own eyes ..
 
Apologies if this film has been mentioned here before, but last night I watched the British small budget horror 'Borderlands' (2013) on the I-Player. I read the info about it being about 'a team of investigators from the Vatican', which set my expectations very low, then I saw it was a found footage film, which set then lower again.

I spent most of the film waiting for the cliches to start and it was only when the credits came up that I realised that there'd hardly been any. The 'investigators' turn out to be Forteans in dog collars, there's a nice sense of setting, and I really liked the story once it was revealed what it was they were up against, right up my street it was.

I was sure the end would disappoint, especially as the first half of the final 20 minutes involves a priestly ceremony, but then in the final ten minutes it goes its own way and finally comes up with something I really liked. Few silly bits but overall I was really impressed. Not as impressed as Mark Kermode though, who apparently considered leaving the cinema because he found it too unsettling. But then 'The Ring' scared him. I will say though I found the final minutes a little bit unpleasant due to a phobia I've got, I won't say what because that'd spoil it.

Approach this film with a open mind, don't expect a classic, but then don't expect a lame duck either.
 
oldrover said:
Apologies if this film has been mentioned here before, but last night I watched the British small budget horror 'Borderlands' (2013) on the I-Player. I read the info about it being about 'a team of investigators from the Vatican', which set my expectations very low, then I saw it was a found footage film, which set then lower again.

I spent most of the film waiting for the cliches to start and it was only when the credits came up that I realised that there'd hardly been any. The 'investigators' turn out to be Forteans in dog collars, there's a nice sense of setting, and I really liked the story once it was revealed what it was they were up against, right up my street it was.

I was sure the end would disappoint, especially as the first half of the final 20 minutes involves a priestly ceremony, but then in the final ten minutes it goes its own way and finally comes up with something I really liked. Few silly bits but overall I was really impressed. Not as impressed as Mark Kermode though, who apparently considered leaving the cinema because he found it too unsettling. But then 'The Ring' scared him. I will say though I found the final minutes a little bit unpleasant due to a phobia I've got, I won't say what because that'd spoil it.

Approach this film with a open mind, don't expect a classic, but then don't expect a lame duck either.
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Yeah, I saw it a few tears ago. The last few minutes gave me tunnel vision!
 
I can't see any mention on the message board of The Awakening (2011), even though it's (mostly) written by Stephen Volk (Ghostwatch, and the TV series Afterlife). It's set in 1921, and is about a professional sceptic (Rebecca Hall) who is asked by a boarding school teacher (Dominic West) to investigate a ghost at the school. It opens strongly (with the unmasking of a fake seance), and it's atmospheric, well-made, and well-acted, but as a whole it doesn't really gel. Somewhere (can't now find where) I saw Stephen Volk comment that the third act (IIRC) is the director's writing rather than Volk's, I'd be interested to know what Volk's original third act was. Imdb categorises it as "horror, thriller", but it's not particularly scary, or thrillerish. I liked the post-WW1 setting a lot and it's watchable, but it's nowhere near as good as Ghostwatch or Afterlife.

6.5/10
 
I watched the 90's low budget horror Rumpelstiltskin the other day.

At one point it turned into Duel with Rumplestiltskin driving a massive truck in pursuit of apparently the only suitable baby in Los Angeles.

He wanted to steal the baby's soul because he didn't have one of his own. (He looked to me to be getting on fine without one.)

It was OK for what it was.
 
oldrover said:
Apologies if this film has been mentioned here before, but last night I watched the British small budget horror 'Borderlands' (2013) on the I-Player. I read the info about it being about 'a team of investigators from the Vatican', which set my expectations very low, then I saw it was a found footage film, which set then lower again.

I spent most of the film waiting for the cliches to start and it was only when the credits came up that I realised that there'd hardly been any. The 'investigators' turn out to be Forteans in dog collars, there's a nice sense of setting, and I really liked the story once it was revealed what it was they were up against, right up my street it was.

I was sure the end would disappoint, especially as the first half of the final 20 minutes involves a priestly ceremony, but then in the final ten minutes it goes its own way and finally comes up with something I really liked. Few silly bits but overall I was really impressed. Not as impressed as Mark Kermode though, who apparently considered leaving the cinema because he found it too unsettling. But then 'The Ring' scared him. I will say though I found the final minutes a little bit unpleasant due to a phobia I've got, I won't say what because that'd spoil it.

Approach this film with a open mind, don't expect a classic, but then don't expect a lame duck either.
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The ending is superbly disgusting once you twig what's happening to them. Not bad little low budgeter, and Gordon Kennedy was always the most underrated of the Absolutely crew.
 
graylien said:
I watched the 90's low budget horror Rumpelstiltskin the other day.

At one point it turned into Duel with Rumplestiltskin driving a massive truck in pursuit of apparently the only suitable baby in Los Angeles.

He wanted to steal the baby's soul because he didn't have one of his own. (He looked to me to be getting on fine without one.)

It was OK for what it was.
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Before you know where you are you're watching Leprechaun Back 2 tha Hood.
 
A millionaire, his meth addiction and the horror movie 15 years in the making
The Evil Within – a strange, gory film pored over meticulously in his mansion by the oil dynasty scion Andrew Getty until his death – is finally getting a release
Tuesday 14 March 2017 13.47 GMT Last modified on Tuesday 14 March 2017 15.17 GMT

It arrived with little fanfare, practically in secret; a Z-list horror film with the unassuming title The Evil Within recently surfaced on Amazon’s video-streaming library, left to molder alongside such little-seen cannon fodder as Stake Land II and It Lives in the Attic. To the untrained eye, it would look like another helping of half-baked schlock, cranked out over a couple of weeks in pursuit of a quick paycheck. But upon further inspection, just beneath the outermost layer of synthetic goo and foam-rubber prosthetics, there lies a passion project built on a foundation of uncommon artistic commitment. Far from a fly-by-night cash-grab, The Evil Within represents 15 years’ worth of effort, standing today as a testament to its creator’s singular mad ambition.
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https://www.theguardian.com/film/20...ovie-andrew-getty-millionaire-meth?CMP=twt_gu
 
Can't find this on Amazon! Has it been taken down?
 
Ah, right, it's not on the UK version then? Darn.
 
Plank Face looks like an interesting variation on The Woman (probably NSFW):

 
I watched the recent Stephen King adaptation Cell yesterday, about a mysterious phone signal that turns people into violent zombies who hunt in flocks.

I enjoyed it more than the critics, though it did leave lots of questions unanswered. King cowrote the screenplay so it clearly plays out as he intended.

I probably laughed at bits I wasn't supposed to laugh at. It's hard to take zombies seriously when they turn into modems.
 
skinny said:
Yes, thanks CJ. That's the discussion. I had assumed that the finding of the figurine signified the release of the demon out into the world to find a host, but there's no exposition at all as to how Merrin knows this.

Interestingly, the large statue of Pazuzu is similar to Regan's sculpture at the beginning of her scenes. I think this was after her mother found the ouija board. So Regan had been possessed already by the time we meet her in the film, although her symptoms don't start until a little later.

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Get Out: Yet another deer is struck by a car, happening in so many films these days. On their way to stag parties? This film looks as if it has shades of The Stepford Wives but there is even a darker secret in play here. Daniel Kaluuya his girlfriend & his white GF Rose go to meet her parents.They are quirky liberals but they have rather odd black servants working for them. At a party the only normal person appears to be a blind art dealer.

Good Horror/Thriller with a fine line of dark humour running through it. 8/10.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5052448/
 
Personal Shopper: A Ghost Story, a thriller, shades of The Devil Wears Pravda. Also has some of the feel of Frantic and Diva. Yes its set in Paris, Kristen Stewart is working as an assistant to a fashion magazine celebrity who makes Meryl Streep in TDWP look empathic. Kristen's twin brother died in Paris recently and being psychic she is trying to contact his ghost. But she seems to contact another spirit.

Her travails continue as she is suspected of murder by the police and a strange stalker is sending her odd text messages.

An Indy film which draws on several genres but has a style of its own. 8.5/10

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4714782/
 
The Institute: A Gothic Horror film set in 19th Century Maryland. A young woman (Allie Gallerani) enters the Rosewood Institute, suffering from stress/depression following her parent's deaths. What appears at first to be a gentle regime soon turns strange and she is subject to an increasingly bizarre psychiatric regime by Dr Cairn (James Franco). There is also a sinister surgeon who carries out experimental neurosurgery.

Cults, Mind Control, a Marty Feldmanesque attendant, Ritual Sacrifice,The Institute brings both Get Out and A Cure For Wellness to mind. 7/10.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5788136/
 
Proper scared myself today. First I saw a picture of a man eaten by a python then I saw the trailer for the remake of Stephn King's IT. And then the trailer for The Void. That looks brutal. I would post links but I'm a bit of a lazy wussypants today.
 
Borderline: Two sisters climb a mountain to scatter their mother's ashes on the tenth anniversary of her death. One of the sisters has psychiatric problems and hears voices telling her to harm herself and others. Night falls and they get lost in the wooded mountain as they descend. Both of the sisters have flashbacks, regarding their mother. There may have been a more sinister side to her death and other dark family secrets are hinted at.

Mostly psychological horror but with scenes of extreme violence as well. Spanish, subtitled. 8/10.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3430694/
 
The Eyes of My Mother: The eyes have it here, several people have their eyes cut out in a rather brutal fashion. It starts with a wandering serial killer murdering a young girl's mother. Her father returns injures the killer and leaves him chained in a barn. THe girl, Francisca (named after St Francis), blinds and cuts the killer's larynx, putting paid to his moaning. The father and daughter then bury the mother in a wood and settle down to watch Bonanza.

No this is not a black comedy, just a strange family; made even stranger by the fact that mother was a former eye-surgeon from Portugal who marries a hillbilly farmer in the US. The mother taught Francisca basic surgery, practising on freshly severed cow's heads on the kitchen table. Francisca cares for and feeds the killer who is still a prisoner in the barn years later when the father dies. Francisca then proceeds to watch Bonanza with her dead father on the couch beside her.

This is a disturbing film, with scenes of graphic violence. The prisoner motif brings to mind the Argentinian film The Secret In Their Eyes. Not for the squeamish or fainthearted. In English and Portuguese, 77 minutes. 8/10.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5225338/
 
The Eyes of My Mother is very strange because, among other reasons, it's beautifully filmed in black and white but the images are often disgusting. You feel really sorry for the main character while being very glad she's entirely fictional (though she seems to have traits of notorious, real life, male serial killers). Not mainstream at all, but if you're feeling adventurous...
 
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