Last night's horror film, The Lords of Salem:

10/16: For tonight's film I watched Rob Zombie's The Lords of Salem. Allow me to preface this by saying I am not a fan of Rob Zombie's films. It was years ago that I saw House of 1000 Corpses so maybe it's worth a revisit, but at the time I thoroughly hated the movie. A torture porn to the highest degree and a not very well made one at that, it was a pretty bad start to Zombie's filmmaking career. I didn't see Devil's Rejects mostly based on my hatred for House, but I did see his Halloween remake and thought it was pretty middling. So with all those opinions I tried to go into Lords with an open mind and was actually excited for it as I've heard good things from a lot of people.

And once again, I had my Zombie opinions further cemented. While Lords has some strong imagery (the cinematography is by and large well done) and some good atmosphere for a lot of the movie what I was left with was a bunch of disconnected horror images that had nothing tying them together. I think what Zombie attempted to do with this movie was make a slow burner with a trippy edge much like, say, The Shining. There are many creepy, bizarre scenes that look (mostly) good but have nothing concrete to ground them. What makes The Shining so successful is that with all the creepy images of elevators full of blood, dead old bathtub women, and creepy twins there are grounding images that aren't bizarre and clearly tell a story. Lords has far too few of these to connect all the disparate scenes to leave the viewer with anything to hold on to; instead I descended into boredom wondering when all the random would make any sort of sense--and by the end, even with a flimsy story acting as glue, it still felt like a waste. There's something about witches, an evil record, a demon baby, a cliche story of the main character being a descendent of a cursed bloodline, etc. It becomes simply frustrating and loses it's interest quickly.

I applaud Zombie for going a different way with this movie than his past offerings but I think Lords simply shows further that he's not a great filmmaker. He has image but no ability to tell story or, for that matter, to pick good actors. Holy God, I know Sherri Moon is your wife but she is bad. Like, bad fucking bad.

4/10

http://horrorbingechron.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-lords-of-salem.html

Okie doke, so for tonight's "horror" film I watched What About Bob? Not a horror film you say? I know. Wanna read why I did it for a horror month? Well read on... in my blog if you want, cuz it's a SUPER long review and I'd feel like a dick if I posted it here in it's entirety

http://horrorbingechron.blogspot.com/2013/10/what-about-bob.html

Fast & Furious 6, this series is getting more and more ridiculous sequel after sequel. Here we have world's longest runway, approx 28 miles and some other stupid shit. Avoid

Killing Season. Goddamit Robert De Niro, why? Only thing remotely funny here is Travolta's bad Schwarzenegger imitation, otherwise it's just boring cat&mouse play with ending that just doesn't quite satisfy. Avoid this too.

Fuck.

[EphelDuath666]

Day 17: Don't be afraid of the dark

Since I enjoyed the movies that Guillermo del Toro has produced so far I decided to watch 'Don't be afraid fo the Dark'. I'll tell you what I'm not afraid of....this bore of a movie. Boooooring it was indeed. The monsters in this movie are laughable. The acting is quite pathetic. I mean I don't expect much from Katie Holms but Guy Pearce...WTF, really. I know this is a remake and I've never seen the original but this movie certainly does not make me want to watch the original either. It neither works as a horror film nor as a fairytale for adults. Meh. So yeah, this one I won't watch again.

Day 17: Amer

Amer is a French movie, its directors are from Belgium I believe. Now this one was weird and interesting. I don't even know whether it really fits into the horror genre. Probably not entirely. It's sort of a surrealistic, psychological horror/mystery movie on LSD...yeah, something like that. I'm not even sure if I fully understand it. Well, actually I am absolutely certain I don't quite understand it. But I enjoyed it. It's definitely an hommage to Italian Giallo movies and I quite like that. It certainly had Argento written all over it. I'll probably have to rewatch this one a couple of times to fully appreciate it though.

I just got home from the cinema after watching Prisoners. It was a good film. Don't watch it. It'll ruin your soul.

[EphelDuath666]

I just got home from the cinema after watching Prisoners. It was a good film. Don't watch it. It'll ruin your soul.

nice, that's the best type of movies In a strange way, of course.

Gravity.

Despite the liberties taken with physics, I found it to be very enjoyable and emotional; Alfonso Cuar

[EphelDuath666]

Day 18: Julia's Eyes

Another Spanish horror/mystery movie produced by Guillermo del Toro. This one was actually pretty good. The only problem I see with the movie is that it's a little too long. It's almost 2 hours long actually. If they had cut it down by 20 minutes I think the movie's pacing would have greatly benefited from it. Performances were good, good atmosphere too. It may not be the most plausible of plots but oh well, it's just a movie after all. Not quite sure if I'll ever watch it again though, like I said, it can be a bit of a drag at times due to the movie's length.

Day 18: House of Wax 3D

So I watched the remake of House of Wax. No, not the re-remake with "One night in Paris" Hilton. I watched the first remake with Vincent Price in 3D. And I have to say I greatly enjoyed it. The movie was shot in 3D so it was not just a shitty 3D conversion (although there are actually good 3D conversions). And i was quite impressed, to say the least. It's quite amazing to watch a movie as old as this one with such impressive 3D effects. The movie itself was a lot of fun though, 3D or not. And now I know who Michael Fassbender reminds me of...Vincent Price. Dunno, it's his voice and facial expressions. Pretty similar, in my opinion anyways. I'm quite sure I'll watch this one again.

Day 19: Zombie Flesh Eaters/Zombie/Zombi 2

This is most definitely my favorite movie by Lucio Fulci. I'm quite sure I watched it last year already and probably the year before too. But I purchased this newly restored and remastered version of it on Blu-ray and I couldn't help but watch it again. This movie has the same kind of "problems" that other old Italian horror movies have too. Not so great acting and really terrible dubbing. So people who don't really care for Italian horror flicks because of that probably won't like this one either. Zombie Flesh Eaters is quite clearly a Dawn of the Dead rip-off, it even was called Zombi 2 in Italy to cash in on Dawn of the Dead's success, which was called Zombie in many countries.
But this movie does so much right, it's easy to forget about its flaws. Atmosphere is great, the zombie design is also completely different than in Dawn of the Dead for example where you had Zombies that had a bit of a Smurf look to them, heh. Here zombies actually look rotten and gross. Gore effects are pretty damn good too. Sure, you absolutely can tell that it's all rubber and puppets. But if you consider when this movie was made and that it was not a big-budget Hollywood production but a very low budget B-movie then it's quite remarkable. So yeah, I love it and I'll probably watch it again next year.

Day 19: The Innkeepers

So apparently this one got a lot of bad reviews and has a rather low score on IMDb. It's got a pretty damn good 79% on Rotten Tomatoes however and I gotta say I tend to agree with that sentiment. I liked it. It was fun to watch the 2 main characters Luke and Claire. Especially Claire. There was more quirky humor in this than I expected but that made the whole movie feel fresh and different. It's the little details. Like when Claire tries to take out the trash and has the hardest time getting the bag into the trash can. She just felt more real and was more likeable than any of the standard horror movie bimbos.

I loved the fact that this was not the typical type of haunted house movie where you either got a bunch of dumb chicks screaming and doing stupid things or the Insidious type of haunted house movie that takes itself far too serious without ever being scary. No, this one felt different and I liked that. I don't really think it is very similar to Ti West's House of the Devil either. Yes, it's a slow burner but the tone is just a completely different one. I enjoyed this one more than I expected. Not bad for a movie that didn't even cost a million bucks to make.

Also, thank goodness for home video. If I had not re-watched the very last scene of the movie with enabled audio commentary then I would have missed a very specific detail about it.

Flicks for the past couple days:

10/18: Tonight's horror flick was Piranha DD. I really enjoyed the first Piranha remake when I watched it last year for being all anyone could want in a purposely shitty movie but the same can't really be said for this, the sequel. The trailer for DD is fucking hilarious (I'll post it below) and got me really excited for it, but sadly this is one of those movies where literally every good part of the movie is shown in the trailer. The whole "attack on the water park" that the trailer purports the movie is all about lasts all of about 15 minutes of the movie, and the rest is shitty set up that isn't entertaining. I think as hilarious an idea is of a piranha attack on a water park is I think the execution in the movie is obvious that the creators had no idea how to fill an entire movie with the idea. I mean, it's a water park... how hard is it to get people out? The whole movie ends up feeling old hat to the original remake and never reaches how funny and ridiculous that one gets. If you want a better experience spend your hour and a half just watching the trailer on loop. At least the movie has David Hasselhoff being a douche, Gary Busey biting the head off a piranha, Ving Rhames exploding piranhas with a shotgun leg, and the triumphant return of the mighty Christopher Lloyd. But again, you get all that in the trailer...

4.5/10

10/19: So no movie for yesterday, but here's todays.

Today's flick was Paranormal Activity 4. I loved the first Paranormal Activity and the third one was pretty well done too so I figured I'd continue the tradition and watch the 4th. PA has become one of those Halloween traditions a la Saw or the big slashers and even if the flick isn't good it's still fun to watch just as another installment in a Halloween tradition. PA4 fits that description pretty well; it's not particularly good or bad but it's fun, tense movie that is pretty effective at giving you that PA uneasy feeling. However, for all the tense waiting there really aren't that many scares and whereas PA3 brought some refreshment to the franchise PA4 is content with not bringing much new to the table. The story really doesn't advance hardly at all and if anything just becomes more convoluted and plot hole filled. I liked the new touch of having new technology such as computers act as cameras but really other than that it was just same old same old.

Really only getting so high a rating because it kept my interest and kept the tension going well, but really other than that not much to see here.

5/10

[EphelDuath666]

Day 20: La Horde

watched the french zombie action/horror movie La Horde and I guess it was OK. At least when it comes to the action. But in all honest there was not a single likeably character in this movie so whenever someone died I was like "well, who gives a shit?". The more I actually think about it the more disappointed I am because friends of mine told me how good this movie is. You basically got a couple of scumbags fight their way through a zombie filled skyscraper. That's all there is to it, really. Meh. Doubt I'll watch it again.

Day 21: Rosemary's baby

Now this one's a classic and not for no reason. Great atmosphere, quite good acting, pretty weird characters. It's all there. It's a bit of a slow burner and it's not the type of horror movie that bombs you with jump scares but it's effective in its own way. If there's one thing I would change about the movie then it might be the ending. I don't really like that Rosemary just kinda gives in in the end. Wish she had burnt them witches, so to speak. Or something like that. Wish she had just done something in the end. Oh well but that is just one minor complaint about an overall great horror movie.

[EphelDuath666]

Day 22: Nightmare before Christmas 3D

everybody knows this movie is awesome. But I had the chance to watch the 3D version of Nightmare before Christmas and it was actually really, really well done. I'm usually not the biggest fan of 3D conversions as they can go pretty wrong. Yes, I'm looking at you, Clash/Wrath of the Titans. But NBC was actually quite excellent in 3D. But with or without 3D this movie is just a whole lot of fun.

Day 22: The Others

Hmmm, apparently Nicole Kidman actually had a human face once. Anywhoo, I really enjoyed this movie. I think I've seen it before on TV and back then I could already see the plot twist at the end of the movie from a mile away. Sixth Sense anyone? But I still enjoyed the movie. It was well done, the movie's atmosphere was creepy and the entire cast actually performed well. Could have been just a wee bit shorter maybe and like I said, the plot twist is quite predictable but I don't regret watching it.

Time for a Wes Craven double feature
Day 23: Nightmare on Elm Street

This one's a real horror classic. Too bad it spawned so many shitty sequels. But the first Nightmare on Elm Street movie is really, really good. It's still kinda weird to see young Johnny Depp in it though. Amazing how many well known actors started their careers with horror flicks. NoES is cheesy, sure but at least it's not as stupid as most of the sequels. I haven't seen the remake yet but I was told not to waste my time. What a crime to replace Robert Englund in it. I love Englund as Freddy. And in the first NoES flick he is genuinely scary, in the sequels he got more and more silly, in my opinion. So yeah, 'tis a good one indeed.

Day 23: The Last House On The Left (1972)

Sooooo I watched Wes Craven's first movie and what can I say.....guess you gotta start somewhere! Did this one start the whole 'rape and revenge' genre? Dunno. Well, it's not a bad movie per se. It sort of reminded me of The Texas Chainsaw massacre in a way. It was shot on 16mm with a very low budget, the acting is kinda bad, there's a certain amount of silliness to the movie, despite the horror/terror. It may even be unintentionally funny. But it's just not as good as TCM. And the subject itself, rape, is just such a serious one that the silliness really feels a bit out of place. But still it's not really a bad movie either. I just doubt I'll watch it again.

Hotel Rwanda. Gah! Onions, everywhere!!!
It didn't really do much visually, I guess, but the feels was strong with this one! The acting really struck a chord with me, especially the Cheadle and the lady who played his character's wife felt very genuine. Powerful stuff! If it weren't for the unimaginative visual storytelling, this could've been a Schidler's List/Grave Of The Fireflies-level film.

I actually thought the visuals in Hotel Rwanda worked just fine, particularly for the roadside massacre scene. I will agree that Schindler's List is the better movie between the two, but Rwanda is certainly worth watching.

Funny enough, this was the movie I was watching my friend before she decided to be more than friends and have sex.
We hadn't reached the sad part yet.

Oh don't get me wrong, overall the movie was great! What I meant really was that the visuals were fine, but didn't do anything completely amazing like the darkly beautiful style of Schindler's List or the absolutely gorgeously picturesque Grave Of The Fireflies.The story, dialogue and acting made it a great film, nonetheless. Just a small blip away from the god-tier ones.

I have a hard time imagining it as a date-movie, though. Tears as lubricant?

I can never tell with her. We could be watching basically anything, and from out of nowhere off she goes, regardless of the content.
Needless to say, I wasn't so surprised when we saw Black Swan.

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