Fright Fest 2014 was a success. We got a Chick fil A nugget tray, pizza and donuts from Beiler's in the Reading Terminal. Delicious. We watched: The Burning (slasher with some great savini work) Friday the 13th, Part VI, Jason Lives (might be the best of the series) Humanoids from the Deep (underrated sleaze with great monsters) Night of the Demons (198 Such a fun, light-hearted line up this year. Then I came home and watched VHS Viral on my own. The worst of the series but still had some fun segments. The story that "tied" it all together was incomprehensible drivel. But recommended if you enjoyed the others in the the trilogy.
^^ sounds like a fun time It's already been mentioned here (to mixed reviews), but finally got around to watching VHS 2 recently. Probably would have sooner, but only liked 1 of 5 films in the 1st incarnation. Thought the 1st short (the vampire girl) was incredibly creepy and well done, then was let down by the ones that followed... felt the movie set the bar too high and should've placed it last. VHS 2 was a nice surprise. Despite thinking the main story arc was better in the original, I thoroughly enjoyed all 4 of the entries. Wish there had been 5 like the original, but can probably blame the critics for that as the running length of the first VHS was apparently too much for people (God forbid a film runs longer than 90 min ). Question about VHS Viral: Is there 3 or 4 short films (besides the main arc) in the VOD version out now? Wiki is saying 4 were done, but 1 was cut prior to release for "unknown reasons"... who wants to bet running length?
^ Yeah the new VHS was really bad. Barely made it through the whole thing. Can't think of anything worse I've seen this year. How a franchise can go from great to amazing to worthless I will never understand. Well... I guess the halloween movies did that too but that's no excuse.
Its true Sam, there were only 3. A 4th would have been nice. It felt very slight. How could attention span enter into it? When its a bunch of shorts cobbled together to me that is much easier to digest and would hold my attention longer. Like in writing, chapters and paragraph breaks. Makes it less daunting.
Completely agreed. V/H/S - 116 min V/H/S/2 - 92 min V/H/S: Viral - 81 min (thanks to the 17 min shaved off with the cut out film) Will the next sequel consist of 2 short films??? Some say less is more, but this is getting ridiculous... Bummed to hear it's not so good. Will probably watch if/when it hits Netflix, but no rush to sooner. On a side note, I always feel kinda swindled seeing a movie in the theater that's shorter than 90 min... especially when a 3 hr-pushing epic (with an identical ticket price) is playing at the same time.
Saw Mercy on netflix and it was actually pretty good. A bit cheesy but creepy enough to be fun and really well acted. That kid from "Coral" the walking dead is the star of the movie and he did an excellent job.
DirectTV is allowing you to rent The Babadook. I really liked it a lot. I would highly recommend renting it or for sure going to see it when it hits theaters. I wish I could buy the Children's book.
Babadook. The acting, both mother and child, was fantastic. The slow descent into madness. Could either have been any more annoying? The childrens book was great. The special affects looked like a high school project. The ending was stupid on so many levels. There were two endings they could have and should have chosen between and not the crap ending they did. Movie was in my dreams afterwards. Evil Dead tv series coming to Starz!
Wish I could agree about Mercy, cuz I love me some Stephen King, but I barely made it through. Was bummed out by The Taking of Deborah Logan even more, and fast forwarded the last ten minutes. Sounded intriguing but was totally flat all the way through.
As Above So Below was a blast. Almost like a horror version of National Treasure mixed in with some of The Goonies. Not gonna go into detail but the main girl is now officially in my top 5 all time list of people to hang out with when things go really bad.
Has anyone else seen "The Babadook" yet? Classic spookiness to the max. Just a really great film. Freakin' scary!
I saw it this weekend. It does have some really creepy moments, but I don't think it is as scary as it is made out to be and certainly not in a traditional sense. The scenes with the book are really fantastic and creepy, but I don't think it's really a horror film at heart. Spoiler I think it's more a dramatic commentary about dealing with grief and it's manifestation in our lives if we don't address it, rather than being a traditional horror movie.
I personally loved it. It seems like every "horror" film out there now just tries to out do others with gore and jump scares, which I hate. This was just an intense story and damn good, IMO.
Agreed. Psychological horror has been an element of "horror" for as long as horror has existed. I don't believe that actual presence of the supernatural or monsters are defining factors (not that they're necessarily factored out in this case.) But despite whatever differences of opinion on that score, it really is a damn good film, especially considering its low budget and the fact that it's the director's first full-length effort. Great acting by the two leads as well.
What We Do In The Shadows One of my top movies of the year. Perhaps the best vampire movie yet made. Laugh out loud funny.
Sanatorium - was actually a lot of fun especially for an After Dark Films movie. Basically like grave encounters more or less but still worth watching for sure. Very decent acting and a nice slow build story that works out well in the end. Not much of a budget I would assume but perfect for a late night movie to watch with some popcorn.
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night this looks very promising, almost wet myself reading the description!
Looks interesting. I felt like I was watching a Tarantino trailer, though. Especially the Western aspect.
Well that makes sense since that was an influence of the film as well as David Lynch and Sergio Leone but it holds its own. The Comic Book came out last summer from Radco- its great! Stoked this is actually playing in Pittsburgh this week, we usually get the shaft on cool art films for 3-6 moths after they are shown.
Just watched Late Phases. It’s a new horror comedy(?) about werewolves terrorizing a retirement community. It’s getting comparisons to Bubbahotep for that reason but I think it lacks the style and tongue-in-cheek nature of that film. There is a question mark after comedy in my subgenre summation above because one of the problems with this film is it doesn't know what it wants to be. There are some really promising ideas like the family drama angle and aging theme but nothing is developed enough to resonate with the viewer. Another glaring issue with the film was the werewolves. I loved the design, they are very "Howling" with a twist but the execution was terrible. They felt very man in a suit. And not a nice suit, more like your Dad's suit. You know, right off the rack, baggy and boxy. There was just too much that didn't come together for me. If you are a werewolf junky like me it might be worth a watch if you can't find anything else. I wish there were more quality werewolf films!
I liked it quite a bit more then you did it seems. I agree with most of what you said and the family stuff should have been explored much more but I loved the effects. It had the old school american werewolf in london feel to it. The rubbery textures and gore and wild fur felt like a throwback and the lack of computer effects was wonderful. A little more talking and story development would have been great but compared to what we get these days in the werewolf genre it was pretty damn fun.
