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Ramonmercado.

That 'Discarnate' seems to have a bit of the 'Flatliners' about it.

I thought Flatliners pretty good, but didn't follow all the nuances of it. Have to watch it again sometime.
 
Ramonmercado.

That 'Discarnate' seems to have a bit of the 'Flatliners' about it.

I thought Flatliners pretty good, but didn't follow all the nuances of it. Have to watch it again sometime.

Yeah, it has some of the Flatliners vibe but sufficiently different.
 
if you go expecting the pep vim zing or brio of drag me, you may emerge disappointed
I don't think so. I like well done black humour with horror. I like quick action, word play as well as subtle horror such as "The Visit". I just felt that Final Destination was repetitive.
 
Countdown: The latest Social Media Horror Film, this time regarding an app which tells you how long you have to live. If you try to change plans to avoid your destiny the you "Breach User Terms" and die anyway. Some are told they have decades pf life ahead of them, other just days or mere hours. A Communion Host chewing Demonologist uncovers a curse in source code but that's only the beginning of the struggle to defeat death. Some good hauntings and assaults by dead relatives/friends and quiet a bit of a violence. A thread of dark humour runs through the film though and dilutes the nastiness. An enjoyable if unoriginal horror romp written and directed by Justin Dec. 6.5/10.
 
Doctor Sleep: As a sequel this film will of course be compared to The Shining and while it might not reach those Olympian Heights it is a great film in it's own right. Danny Torrance (Ewan McGregor) is 36 in 2011, an alcoholic, a bar room brawler, destroyed by his past, his Shining and the ghosts which haunt him. He flees to a small town where he builds a new life, working in a hospice he uses his Shining to help patients over the line. He has a cat assistant, Azzie, who knows when the patients are about to die. By 2019 his abilities also allow him to contact a young girl, Abra (Kyliegh Curran), whose even more powerful Shining has awakened. Bur Rose the Hat (Rebecca Ferguson), leader of the band of Psychic Vampires, The True Knot, also notices Abra and wants to consume her Shining (steam).

Rose is a quite terrifying creature, her smile lulls her victims before she strikes, her sidekick Snakebite Andi (Emily Alyn Lind) can control peoples mind, looking like an innocent teenager. Some savage and disturbing scenes of the Vampires swooping on psychic children and literally sucking their Shining out. This Steam is also stored in flasks. Telepathic battles between Rose and Abra (and later Danny)showing their minds as filing drawers or memory palaces as they try to plunder each others memories. We also have battles where both sides use guns as well as psychic powers.Danny confronts his father's ghost in the guise of Lloyd the bartender at the Overlook Hotel. Some good effects especially the way Psychic Vampires die, the Steam rushing out of them as they vanish leaving empty clothes behind.

Great performances by Ferguson and Lind but even more so by Curran who convinces when she is channeling Danny and in her battles with Rose. Written and directed by Mike Flanagan (from the novel by Stephen King) this is a thrilling work of Horror which you will remember long after the final credits roll. 8.5/10.
 
Trailer for The Invisible Man is now online:

What would Elisabeth Moss know about sinister control freaks who watch her every move? Anyway, Scientology aside this does look more Hollow Man than H.G. Wells. Leigh Whannell, though.
 
Rattlesnake: Katrina is driving across Texas with her young daughter Clara, she stops to change a tire. Clara wanders into the grass and gets bitten by a rattlesnake, a frantic Katrina spots a trailer she hadn't noticed before. A woman in the trailer says she will help Clara but there will be a price. Shortly afterwards the woman has disappeared. At a hospital a doctor notices there are no bite marks on the girl's leg. A man appears and tells Katrina that the price for saving Clara's life is the death of another person before sunset. Katrina has made a pact with the Devil. Some good effects and a few shocks as Katrina is plagued by dead people, Katrina realises that she is in a cursed Town as victim after victim appears to her. This would have worked better as a forty odd minutes TV series episode, it's too drawn out here even though Katrina encounters interesting/creepy characters along the road to sunset. Writer/director Zak Hilditch (1922) delivers a just about watchable horror film. 5/10. On Netflix.
 
Creepshow - Watchable horror shorts which however are predictable and neither scary nor especially horrifying. The tone is humorous at times, for example much of the second story where Stephen King plays a simple-minded, unlucky redneck type, which I found myself laughing at ratehr than "with". The stories are very loosely interlinked by the conceit of being stories in a comic and occasionally lapse into a comic layout with panels etc which is nice idea but poorly rendered. Notable (for me) for being the first time I've seen Leslie Nielsen in a serious.
 
Creepshow - Watchable horror shorts which however are predictable and neither scary nor especially horrifying. The tone is humorous at times, for example much of the second story where Stephen King plays a simple-minded, unlucky redneck type, which I found myself laughing at ratehr than "with". The stories are very loosely interlinked by the conceit of being stories in a comic and occasionally lapse into a comic layout with panels etc which is nice idea but poorly rendered. Notable (for me) for being the first time I've seen Leslie Nielsen in a serious.

Never seen The Poseidon Adventure? Or Forbidden Planet?
 
The Belko Experiment 2017
A very competent genre gorefest let down somewhat by a decidedly plastic ending. Could have been great. 3/5
 
Never seen The Poseidon Adventure? Or Forbidden Planet?

Nope, those two films were quoted at me when I made the same comment the other day. I have some interest in the former, not so much in the latter.
 
Fantasy Island has been Blumhoused...

I always did think that the tv series had a creepy undercurrent to it. The "guests" never did get what they wanted. Mr. Rourke managed to influence every outcome according to what he felt people really needed. It was never a place that I wanted to go to.
 
Ghost Storm (2011): The ghosts of a religious cult who had committed mass suicide on an island in 1912 are freed from their tomb by an electrical storm. The ghosts send out strands of mist to suck the life force from their victims leaving them desiccated. As the ghosts gain strength they blast their prey to pieces and form a cloud which floats over the island. Similarities to The Fog abound, the island is in the US Pacific North-West, there is a conspiracy regarding the mass suicide, descendants of the cult's enemies are targeted by the ghosts, the killer mist/fog. The CGI is a bit ropey but writer/director Paul Ziller (well known for his TV horror films) makes the best of a low budget to deliver a watchable horror thriller. 5.5/10.

I caught the last 20 minutes or so of this on The Horror Channel. I particularly liked the part where a quick thinking character managed to repel the ghost storm after it had gotten past the duct tape.

With what? A fire extinguisher, of course. That's just science, folks.
 
I always did think that the tv series had a creepy undercurrent to it. The "guests" never did get what they wanted. Mr. Rourke managed to influence every outcome according to what he felt people really needed. It was never a place that I wanted to go to.

Michael Pena has a creepy undercurrent in real life!
 

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I grew up absolutely devouring Tom Savini's F/X make up books .. he didn't have a school back then, the internet didn't exist so all we had was the two books and I had to try to teach myself from them .. I hugely envy these students ..
 
Coming soon to Russia: AVANPOST (THE OUTPOST). A science fiction/horror endtimes thriller in which a large proportion of the world's population has been wiped out due to causes unknown...while isolated unnafected areas struggle to survive and acertain what happened.

The fact that this film has ben already given a Western name (BLACKOUT) and has an internation al trailer (ie with subtitles) implies that it might be available to English speakers at some piont in the forseeable future:


Anyway, you'll be the first to get a review.


So... AVANPOST (`Outpost`/`Blackout`) is more of a science fiction action thriller than horror, but anyway - it's one of those knock `em dead lavish epics with which Russia periodically surprises the world with. But I SO so wanted to like it more than I did!

We are in a near future Moscow ( hence see-through mobile phones, drone like objects filling the skies and 3D lazer sdisplays everywhere). Suddenly there is a global blackout with large numbers of the human race falling inexplicably dead. Some areas are unaffected, however - and this includes Moscow - which seems to just carry on as before.

A special military unit is set up to defend the area and then conscripts all men and women of a certain age. the film consists of their exploits - and how they fight a battle against an enemy which they can't see and know nothing about.

Much of the action consists of heavily kitted up men and women moving en masse through deserted urban landscapes and stuff blowing up. I was renminded of Starship Troopers in its focus on the military - but at least that film was a parody. This is not.

Then we get to meet the alien invaders (for it is they) and it starts to get silly. They literally look like Lord Voldermort! They can control our minds and set masses of people against the miltary - who then have to mow them down as though they were zombies.

It ends up being a sort of cross between Skyline and World War Z. The denoument, when we get to se the alien ship, is kind of interesting but comes way too late.

The film stars some well known (in Russia) screen idol types, but they all seem to lack charisma. It's a glossy film - and everything is sacrificed to a having a lavish appearance, which it sure does.

I understand that AVANPOST is being sold to Germany - and that's how it may make it's way to the UK ansd the States with subtitles. I also undertans that it's part of a projescted TV series. If so, the TV version could work a lot better - perhaps in the style of `V` - having more time to develop on its ideas, such as they are.

I couldn't warm to this film: it's way too militaristic and it seems to humourlessly wallow in its own grimness. Also it contains some cynical gratuitous violence. How different it is from Attraction (Prityazhenye) - also from Russia -three years back. That covered sort of the same territory, but with such heart and soul!

(A more detailed review pending in my blog)
 
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Still (Tai hong): Thai omnibus film, four tales of vengeful/sorrowful ghosts inspired by Thai newspaper headlines. Best is Flame, directed by Chatchai Katenut, a man survives a nightclub fire in which his fiance died. He is haunted by her ghost and visions of the fire. Some great scenes including a burning cross decapitating a nightclub patron. Also has an interesting plot twist. 8/10 for this segment. Dragged down by Imprison, prisoner who committed suicide haunts jail, 610, Revenge, murder victim in water tank, 6/10, Haunting Motel, more of a farce really, 4/10. Overall score: 6/10. On Netflix
 
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I just saw Us last night. While I never appreciated the Key and Peele humour, I'm glad that Jordan Peele likes horror. I've seen both his horror movies and he certainly has a different take on the horror tropes (or tries to use ones that are not currently overused), so I am looking forward to seeing what this one is all about.
 
Us was terrific, I even preferred it to Get Out. Takes the unreliable narrator idea to new heights of insanity. Stuff I'd never seen in a horror movie before, ever.
 
Us was terrific, I even preferred it to Get Out. Takes the unreliable narrator idea to new heights of insanity. Stuff I'd never seen in a horror movie before, ever.
Not entirely horror, but the movie " Memento" I would suggest if you haven't seen it.
 
Us was terrific, I even preferred it to Get Out. Takes the unreliable narrator idea to new heights of insanity. Stuff I'd never seen in a horror movie before, ever.

I preferred it to Get Out as well, most people seemed to be the other way around. I thought Us lost it in the final act and the conceit is a little too nonsensical but there's still enough there for me to really enjoy it.
 
I just saw Us last night. While I never appreciated the Key and Peele humour, I'm glad that Jordan Peele likes horror. I've seen both his horror movies and he certainly has a different take on the horror tropes (or tries to use ones that are not currently overused), so I am looking forward to seeing what this one is all about.

Looks really scary and confusing, like it a lot
I just hope he moves away from black/white race issues... it is becoming too much and repetitive....
 
Looks really scary and confusing, like it a lot
I just hope he moves away from black/white race issues... it is becoming too much and repetitive....
Imo I didn't see it as race. Get Out, maybe. Us was doppelgängers and the main characters happened to be black. I was impressed by the number of actors that he had play dual roles. The acting was good. Even the younger actors had dual roles and they had scenes where one actor appeared as both. That's a difficult feat.

I don't disagree that he uses his movies to make social comment, but in the case of Us, I thought it had more to do with the haves and have-nots. As well as about the masks all people wear.
 
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