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Post by Logoboros on Oct 3, 2017 11:35:11 GMT -5
As we're entering Halloween season, I thought it might be nice to have a designated spot for talking about horror movies and our individual relationships to them.
I'll kick things off with an interesting conundrum I've wrestled with. I think a lot of "serious" horror fans -- people who consider themselves connoisseurs of horror movies (and not in a snobbery sense; merely expertise) -- have experienced this phenomenon, that they don't really find horror movies particularly scary anymore. There are always occasional exceptions, but it does lead to a strange situation. You're a fan of movies whose ostensible purpose and design are intended to scare you, but your familiarity with the tropes and conventions and just general conditioning to horror aesthetics means you don't experience that effect (or experience it at a muted or abstracted level). But we horror fans still love horror movies, even though they largely fail to work as intended on us.
I can't really think of another genre or class of art where this happens. I guess there are people who like dance music but don't feel any actual urge to dance. You could maybe argue that there are wine/beer/liquor aficionados who don't drink to get drunk (but that's assuming getting drunk is the main aesthetic reason for drinking, which is certainly not a truism). Maybe truly jaded erotic adventurers come to appreciate sex without necessarily caring that much about orgasm. But in any of these cases, it still seems weird.
Actually, maybe the best parallel would be being really into religious music or art without having any spiritual reaction to it. There is a very cerebral quality to one's enjoyment, which can sound odd when it's describing a gorehound or someone similar, but I think its true.
So what's your take on horror movies? Do you identify as a horror fan? Do you find anything paradoxical about enjoying horror movies even if you don't find them scary (and assuming they are supposed to be scary -- there is certainly a wide vein of horror that is meant to be more ghoulish and carnivalesque than genuinely scary).
Speaking for myself, I'm not a gorehound, but I like to admire well-executed or creative or even just craftsy special effects. That's a main reason why I'm big into creature features and performers in latex suits and puppeteers hiding behind furniture. I'll go with a good ghost story, though I'm beyond fatigued with all the super cheap found-footage "ghost hunters encounter real ghost!" flicks that seem to just be piling up on Netflix and Amazon Prime (though there remain some gems in there). I'm least interested in slasher films and even less so in torture porn, but I nonetheless love Texas Chain Saw Massacre (even some of the remakes/reboots/spin-offs) and Hills Have Eyes and Wrong Turn -- I have a blanket exception of dysfunctional cannibal families as a genre. Torture porn involving a psychopathic sadist is a huge turn off, but change that sadist into a mad scientist and add some body horror, and suddenly I'm fully back on board. I really don't know how to parse the boundaries of what appeals and what doesn't. I suppose there must be some significance to how talking about what one likes and dislikes in horror takes on the same rhetorical patterns as describing fetishes, but I don't think it's just the frequent sexual content of the horror genre that's responsible for that. I don't know what is, but maybe that's another possible point for discussion.
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dwarfoscar
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Post by dwarfoscar on Oct 3, 2017 13:00:40 GMT -5
As much as i love horror movies, I too don't get really scared with them. Or I do get scared, but those are very 'movie' scares, and they have very little in common with real-life scares. A joke I hear in a comedy will make me laugh the same way I'd laugh at a joke a friend of mine would tell ; I feel about a character in a good drama (almost) the same way I would feel if I personally knew a person going through a similar ordeal. But movie scares and real-life scares are nothing alike to me.
That's also why I think a good horror movie is not a movie with intense scares, it's a movie with interesting scares. Scares with a tinge of humor, scares that make you think, or, my favorite, scares with a tinge of sadness. Because, like the orbs at the end of Inside Out, real-life scares are never monochrome. For exemple, I'm a sucker for horror movies that make me empathize with the villain, like Mama or The Orphanage. Nothing is more boring than a movie where the villain is just eeeeeevil (Looking at you, The Conjuring).
I can think of two movies that genuinely Scared me with a capital S. One is Sinister, solely for the BBQ tape with the music by Ulver. The second one is Australian indie Lake Mungo, that I couldn't recommend more. There's a scene towards the end that shook me the way few films did. You know exactly what scene I'm referring to if you saw it.
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Post by Logoboros on Oct 3, 2017 13:13:38 GMT -5
As much as i love horror movies, I too don't get really scared with them. Or I do get scared, but those are very 'movie' scares, and they have very little in common with real-life scares. A joke I hear in a comedy will make me laugh the same way I'd laugh at a joke a friend of mine would tell ; I feel about a character in a good drama (almost) the same way I would feel if I personally knew a person going through a similar ordeal. But movie scares and real-life scares are nothing alike to me. That's also why I think a good horror movie is not a movie with intense scares, it's a movie with interesting scares. Scares with a tinge of humor, scares that make you think, or, my favorite, scares with a tinge of sadness. Because, like the orbs at the end of Inside Out, real-life scares are never monochrome. For exemple, I'm a sucker for horror movies that make me empathize with the villain, like Mama or The Orphanage. Nothing is more boring than a movie where the villain is just eeeeeevil (Looking at you, The Conjuring). I can think of two movies that genuinely Scared me with a capital S. One is Sinister, solely for the BBQ tape with the music by Ulver. The second one is Australian indie Lake Mungo, that I couldn't recommend more. There's a scene towards the end that shook me the way few films did. You know exactly what scene I'm referring to if you saw it. I'll second the Lake Mungo recommendation. And we could probably have more discussion, too, on what it means to be "scared" by a movie. Because most people, even people who aren't seasoned horror fans who are just going to a scary movie as Halloween time date for some screams and cuddly arm-clutching aren't seeking the emotional experience of fear as you would experience it in real life. It's already a special kind of rather carefully bracketed off and artificial fear (artificial even with the jump scare, which produces as instinctual a reaction as anything). Again, we border on sexual terminology, but it's something to do with fear with consent, which is fundamentally different from the real experience of being afraid without any control. And along those lines, even as a horror fan, I don't like those rare movies that do give me nightmares. Because once that fear is now in a nightmare, it has, in a way, gone out of my control. It is, in a way, no longer consensual. I don't blame the movies for giving me nightmares, but I tend not to enjoy them even on revisits, with the exception of things that scared me as a kid that I can see anew and more or less overcome as an adult. The worst nightmares a film ever gave me as a pre-teen stem from the Zelda scenes in Pet Semetary. But now I like Pet Semetary, Zelda included. But I also don't still have Zelda nightmares. |
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Post by Logoboros on Oct 3, 2017 13:20:58 GMT -5
Also, on the subject of nightmares, this may rank as one of the greatest horror short films ever (albeit, embedded in a larger movie):
And if the clip breaks, for future reference, this is the infamous "Winkies Scene" from Mulholland Drive.
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dwarfoscar
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Post by dwarfoscar on Oct 3, 2017 13:44:35 GMT -5
And along those lines, even as a horror fan, I don't like those rare movies that do give me nightmares. Because once that fear is now in a nightmare, it has, in a way, gone out of my control. It is, in a way, no longer consensual. I don't blame the movies for giving me nightmares, but I tend not to enjoy them even on revisits, with the exception of things that scared me as a kid that I can see anew and more or less overcome as an adult. The worst nightmares a film ever gave me as a pre-teen stem from the Zelda scenes in Pet Semetary. But now I like Pet Semetary, Zelda included. But I also don't still have Zelda nightmares. I've been lucky enough that no horror movies have ever given me nightmares. In fact, I don't have nightmares anymore. Unpleasant dreams yes, but no scary dreams anymore. We're in that way not that different than the more casual movie-goers you describe. Even if we like our horror more emotional, what we seek is enjoyable scares, never traumatic ones. The nightmare-inducing scares happen on accident. |
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Post by Post-St. Patty's Day Bloat on Oct 5, 2017 17:34:53 GMT -5
Great thread!
I've been a horror fan since my pre-teens, and I can certainly relate to the "not scared/entertained regardless" aspect of genre fandom. I think the last time I can recall being scared or shaken by a horror movie would be Eden Lake back in 2009 and I would have to think pretty hard to come up with another movie that hit me on that level before.
For me, I think I used horror as a way to power through a rough and lonely childhood. Renting the Friday the 13ths was a rite of passage between me and my friends and we bonded over the grotesque deaths (which are pretty tame by today's standards) and, of course, the titillating nudity. On the homefront, I spent many Saturday afternoons/evenings glued to the USA Network, watching heavily cut versions of Halloween, Elm Street, etc. As a kid, it was scary at first, but the more I watched, the more "power" I felt I had acquired from "surviving" the experience. In retrospect, I think it gave me a mental armor that very subtly reassured my brain that everything would be OK and that I could survive anything. And I think I carry that with me to this day.
Nowadays, my love for horror is just as big as it was then, perhaps even deeper. I still spend way too much money on Blu-Ray releases from companies like Scream Factory, Arrow and Synapse and I feel like I can never run out of new classics to discover, even 25 years or so since the love affair started. My shelf is mostly dominated by horror and it's something I don't see myself growing out of any time soon. The stuff I love is always the more cerebral and over-the-top; stuff from Cronenberg, Argento, Romero -- the super gruesome stuff that gives you something to think about or a stunning aesthetic to distract. On the other side of the coin, I am constantly reaching for the likes of Re-Animator, Return of the Living Dead and the Evil Dead series. At this point, the genre is pure fun for me and I don't get an ounce of terror from it, and that's OK.
It's also been a blast showing some of these to my very open-minded girlfriend of two years who is not very well-versed in the genre. Watching some of the old classics through her eyes for the first time is always a treat.
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Post by MrsLangdonAlger on Oct 5, 2017 20:49:26 GMT -5
This is the second time in as many days I've seen Lake Mungo and a certain scene in it recommended. I'll have to find it and watch it!
I've been a horror fan since I became a film fan, basically, so in my teens. I don't tend to enjoy slasher/home invasion/super gory movies, with some exceptions (like I think You're Next and Hush are both fantastic). I tend to prefer movies that are atmospheric or psychological. I also don't tend to get scared by them, but I can definitely think of plenty of ones that have unsettled me: Pontypool, Green Room, and plenty of others, for varying reasons.
Sometimes specific scenes will scare me, oddly enough usually in otherwise crappy movies. For example, The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer has this one scene where a goblin first appears that gave me nightmares.
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Post by songstarliner on Oct 5, 2017 22:14:26 GMT -5
I used to think I was immune to horror movie scares, but you know what? As I got older and, ahem, more aware of my own mortality (not to mention the terrifying realization that I couldn't protect my child from everything always, and that the boogie monster wasn't coming for me but for him), I started to feel the scary again. And I like it. I feel like I appreciate scary films much more because I'm dialed in to the horror.
Have horror movies been getting better? Or am I more sensitive? Anyway, I wholeheartedly recommend the following:
Under The Skin
It Follows
The Visit (really. I loved it.)
The Witch
The Blackcoat's Daughter
And, um, A Dark Song (which is on Netflix now ...)
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Post by Post-St. Patty's Day Bloat on Oct 7, 2017 10:32:12 GMT -5
I used to think I was immune to horror movie scares, but you know what? As I got older and, ahem, more aware of my own mortality (not to mention the terrifying realization that I couldn't protect my child from everything always, and that the boogie monster wasn't coming for me but for him), I started to feel the scary again. And I like it. I feel like I appreciate scary films much more because I'm dialed in to the horror. Have horror movies been getting better? Or am I more sensitive? Anyway, I wholeheartedly recommend the following: Under The Skin It Follows The Visit (really. I loved it.) The Witch The Blackcoat's Daughter And, um, A Dark Song (which is on Netflix now ...) It's hard to say. I haven't noticed as many standout genre films in this decade as I did in the '00s. I can't tell if I'm just not as dialed-in as I was then or if the good films have been few and far between as of late. Having said that, I really, really enjoyed It Follows. A great, modern horror with a vintage twist. |
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Post by chalkdevil 😈 on Oct 9, 2017 14:07:58 GMT -5
I think for me, the nearest I can think of is comedy films that I like but don't actually make me laugh. Like, I'll be amused, it can be a good movie in and of itself, but I'm not, as the kids say, lol'ing. My examples would probably be the comedic Coen brothers films. I watch those, and I'm amused, but they don't really contain a lot of actual jokes that make me laugh. I think this is the similar to how I feel about horror. I'm not ever really afraid anymore, but I can get the general feeling of tension or unease. The best, for my money, comes from pairing of comedy and horror. You get that horror build up and then get that good cathartic laugh.
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Post by ganews on Oct 10, 2017 20:17:35 GMT -5
The original Cat People (1942) is the best of the classic horror movies (i.e. before 1950), and I will brook no dissent. Too bad, Universal.
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Smacks
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Post by Smacks on Oct 18, 2017 9:51:38 GMT -5
Ooh I'm glad I found this thread!! I'll start with my top 5 horror movies of all time and then recommend some new stuff. I do want to clarify that my horror interests are mainly in the supernatural genre. I am put off by pure gore and torture porn, realistic 'person goes crazy and hurts people' horror. I can find that on the evening news.
1. The Shining
2. The Blair Witch Project
3. IT (the original)
4. Amityville Horror (the original)
5. Event Horizon
Anyway, two newer films I found on Netflix that I enjoyed were "They Look Like People" and "I Am the Pretty Thing that Lives in the House". "People" is one of those great films where you're really not sure what's really happening or if it's what the characters are perceiving is happening. I love a good mind-fuck. "Pretty Thing" is all about the art direction, there's barely any dialogue but man, it creeped me out.
I recently discovered Blair Witch 2016. It's not as good as the first but has some pretty creepy elements that worked for me. I just learned about 1994's "In The Mouth of Madness". Sounds like something I'd get into and I love Sam Neill so that's on my agenda for this month.
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Smacks
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Post by Smacks on Oct 18, 2017 10:24:04 GMT -5
Ok, adressing the subject matter more, I can say that I absolutely DO get scared but it rarely stays with me. Or if it does I'm pretty skilled at pushing it away. I find jump scares hilarious, but it's those elements of horror where something is incongruous with real life and has you questioning your sanity that really get to me. For instance in the original Blair Witch those sounds in the forest at night. That "am I just imagining it or is it real" fear. In this most recent Blair Witch its the fact that once they spend the first night in the woods the sun just never comes back up. Just. Doesn't. Rise. Fucks with my head. They now have no concept of time/reality. It's brilliant. That kind of stuff makes me think about my reality bending just enough to make me question what's real. I'll get up in the middle of the night and think about seeing something like, an extra doorway in the hall, or a shape out back in the woods and those are the types of things that stick with me, the unknown. My imagination is my worst enemy but I love it that way. Which is why I fuel it by indulging in horror. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 18, 2017 10:36:47 GMT -5
As a kid, I used to get nightmares all the time, so my parents tried to keep me from watching ANY scary movies because they'd have to deal with me waking up in the middle of the night scared. But it didn't stop me...
In my teens once I mostly got over those, I started binging on all of the movies I'd avoided before then, as well as watching "Movie Magic" on the Discovery Channel, which often had shows about the SFX in horror films, which helped me as well.
(I've told the story about Freddy Krueger saving me from other monsters in my nightmares here about a dozen times, but it's still cool to me. I definitely prefer villains with a personality and/or a sense of humor over faceless mute killers.)
Currently there isn't a lot in horror films that actually scares me or gives me nightmares (my worst nightmares in the last 15 years have been of being attacked by plain old people with knives), but I love movies that build a good sense of dread.
I second (or third, fourth, etc.) the recommendations for:
It Follows
Hush
You're Next
Event Horizon
In The Mouth of Madness (Sam Neill is amazing in everything, pretty much)
I would add:
New Nightmare (the best Freddy movie, IMHO)
Freddy vs. Jason (hilarious)
The Ring
The Grudge (first J-horror movie I saw that actually scared me - The Ring was good but not as scary)
The Innkeepers (hoooooly shit - when I say "dread"? This movie nailed it)
EDIT - I mostly don't mind gore, but the more extreme stuff, especially if done without any breaks, can really get to me. I've tried to watch Cabin Fever a couple of times and noped out pretty quick...and I notoriously passed out watching Saw 2, so even though the first film in that series was brilliant, I've never seen any of the others.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 18, 2017 10:38:57 GMT -5
Ok, adressing the subject matter more, I can say that I absolutely DO get scared but it rarely stays with me. Or if it does I'm pretty skilled at pushing it away. I find jump scares hilarious, but it's those elements of horror where something is incongruous with real life and has you questioning your sanity that really get to me. For instance in the original Blair Witch those sounds in the forest at night. That "am I just imagining it or is it real" fear. In this most recent Blair Witch its the fact that once they spend the first night in the woods the sun just never comes back up. Just. Doesn't. Rise. Fucks with my head. They now have no concept of time/reality. It's brilliant. That kind of stuff makes me think about my reality bending just enough to make me question what's real. I'll get up in the middle of the night and think about seeing something like, an extra doorway in the hall, or a shape out back in the woods and those are the types of things that stick with me, the unknown. My imagination is my worst enemy but I love it that way. Which is why I fuel it by indulging in horror. A few weeks ago, I was sleeping on the couch facing our sliding glass door. Shortly before I woke up, I imagined seeing a shadowy person at the doorway, and when my consciousness fluttered, it jumped forward to loom over me a foot away. YEAH, I was awake after that! And it scared me at the time, but after a few minutes I was more like "That was pretty cool, just like a horror film!" |
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Post by ganews on Oct 18, 2017 11:08:20 GMT -5
I like suspense. The two best suspense/horror scenes I have ever seen are the diner from Mulholland Drive and the opening interrogation from Inglourious Basterds.
Jump scares (that are effective on me) just plain make me angry, dissatisfied with the primal, irrational part of my brain that is programmed to be scared of that sort of thing. (I want to be in control; this is why I'm not a good horror fan.) And I think jump scares are lazy. They can be done well or done poorly, but they're on the level of sneaking a cucumber behind a cat.
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Post by chalkdevil 😈 on Oct 18, 2017 11:10:56 GMT -5
As I said above, I really like horror-comedy. Here is a list of horror-comedies I enjoyed in what is an increasingly inaccurate order of my enjoyment of them. I tried to find where they are streaming too, for those with all the streaming services or access to their parents' premium cable account.
1. Evil Dead 2 - The gold-standard as far as I'm concerned.
2. Tremors (Cinemax, I guess) - A god-damned cable classic.
3. Shaun of the Dead (Showtime) - Great send up of zombie flicks from people who clearly love zombie flicks.
4. Tucker & Dale vs Evil (Netflix & Hulu) - This one is such a great send up of the killer hillbilly trope. Plus Alan Tudyk.
5. Dead Alive - Just gory madness.
6. Slither - I like a good gross creature and this one doesn't disappoint. Michael Rooker is the best.
7. Beetlejuice - Whoa. Sandworms. You hate 'em right? I hate 'em myself!
8. An American Werewolf in London (Prime, Hulu) - I haven't seen this one forever. This will probably get a rewatch soon.
9. Zombieland - Kind of mining the same vein as Shaun, but still charming and great.
10. Grabbers (Hulu) - It's the irish Tremors, which isn't just something that happens when you run out of whiskey. *rim-shot*
11. Dead Snow & Dead Snow 2 - Nazi zombies fuck off.
12. Black Sheep - Not the Chris Farley one, but the one with the mutant sheep in New Zealand. My parents are still made at me for making them watch this 10 years later.
13. Cabin In The Woods - Maybe a little over-rated but still good deconstruction of horror movie tropes.
14. Gremlins 2: The New Batch - This is so much better than the first Gremlins, which is, as we all know, a Christmas movie.
I got a couple movies here that are way more on the comedy side, but with a horror backdrop and really nothing that equates an actual scare:
1. Young Frankenstein (Netflix) - I mean, it's Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder. Side note, when in London I went to a preview show of the Young Frankenstein musical. It was fantastic.
2. Addams Family (Netflix & Hulu) - This movie is a Halloween staple in the House of the Chalkdevil. Always a good movie to have on while the trick or treaters come around since our tv is viewable from the front door.
3. What We Do In the Shadows (Prime) - So, so funny. Taika Waititi is one of my new favorites between this and Hunt For The Wilderpeople.
What am I missing? What do I need to see?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 18, 2017 11:24:26 GMT -5
As I said above, I really like horror-comedy. Here is a list of horror-comedies I enjoyed in what is an increasingly inaccurate order of my enjoyment of them. I tried to find where they are streaming too, for those with all the streaming services or access to their parents' premium cable account. 1. Evil Dead 2 - The gold-standard as far as I'm concerned. 2. Tremors (Cinemax, I guess) - A god-damned cable classic. 3. Shaun of the Dead (Showtime) - Great send up of zombie flicks from people who clearly love zombie flicks. 4. Tucker & Dale vs Evil (Netflix & Hulu) - This one is such a great send up of the killer hillbilly trope. Plus Alan Tudyk. 5. Dead Alive - Just gory madness. 6. Slither - I like a good gross creature and this one doesn't disappoint. Michael Rooker is the best. 7. Beetlejuice - Whoa. Sandworms. You hate 'em right? I hate 'em myself! 8. An American Werewolf in London (Prime, Hulu) - I haven't seen this one forever. This will probably get a rewatch soon. 9. Zombieland - Kind of mining the same vein as Shaun, but still charming and great. 10. Grabbers (Hulu) - It's the irish Tremors, which isn't just something that happens when you run out of whiskey. *rim-shot* 11. Dead Snow & Dead Snow 2 - Nazi zombies fuck off. 12. Black Sheep - Not the Chris Farley one, but the one with the mutant sheep in New Zealand. My parents are still made at me for making them watch this 10 years later. 13. Cabin In The Woods - Maybe a little over-rated but still good deconstruction of horror movie tropes. 14. Gremlins 2: The New Batch - This is so much better than the first Gremlins, which is, as we all know, a Christmas movie. I got a couple movies here that are way more on the comedy side, but with a horror backdrop and really nothing that equates an actual scare: 1. Young Frankenstein (Netflix) - I mean, it's Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder. Side note, when in London I went to a preview show of the Young Frankenstein musical. It was fantastic. 2. Addams Family (Netflix & Hulu) - This movie is a Halloween staple in the House of the Chalkdevil. Always a good movie to have on while the trick or treaters come around since our tv is viewable from the front door. 3. What We Do In the Shadows (Prime) - So, so funny. Taika Waititi is one of my new favorites between this and Hunt For The Wilderpeople. What am I missing? What do I need to see? I 100% agree with all of the movies on this list that I've seen...only ones I haven't yet are Grabbers, Dead Snow 1/2, Black Sheep and What We Do In The Shadows. |
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dwarfoscar
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Post by dwarfoscar on Oct 18, 2017 12:24:20 GMT -5
As I said above, I really like horror-comedy. Here is a list of horror-comedies I enjoyed in what is an increasingly inaccurate order of my enjoyment of them. I tried to find where they are streaming too, for those with all the streaming services or access to their parents' premium cable account. 1. Evil Dead 2 - The gold-standard as far as I'm concerned. 2. Tremors (Cinemax, I guess) - A god-damned cable classic. 3. Shaun of the Dead (Showtime) - Great send up of zombie flicks from people who clearly love zombie flicks. 4. Tucker & Dale vs Evil (Netflix & Hulu) - This one is such a great send up of the killer hillbilly trope. Plus Alan Tudyk. 5. Dead Alive - Just gory madness. 6. Slither - I like a good gross creature and this one doesn't disappoint. Michael Rooker is the best. 7. Beetlejuice - Whoa. Sandworms. You hate 'em right? I hate 'em myself! 8. An American Werewolf in London (Prime, Hulu) - I haven't seen this one forever. This will probably get a rewatch soon. 9. Zombieland - Kind of mining the same vein as Shaun, but still charming and great. 10. Grabbers (Hulu) - It's the irish Tremors, which isn't just something that happens when you run out of whiskey. *rim-shot* 11. Dead Snow & Dead Snow 2 - Nazi zombies fuck off. 12. Black Sheep - Not the Chris Farley one, but the one with the mutant sheep in New Zealand. My parents are still made at me for making them watch this 10 years later. 13. Cabin In The Woods - Maybe a little over-rated but still good deconstruction of horror movie tropes. 14. Gremlins 2: The New Batch - This is so much better than the first Gremlins, which is, as we all know, a Christmas movie. I got a couple movies here that are way more on the comedy side, but with a horror backdrop and really nothing that equates an actual scare: 1. Young Frankenstein (Netflix) - I mean, it's Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder. Side note, when in London I went to a preview show of the Young Frankenstein musical. It was fantastic. 2. Addams Family (Netflix & Hulu) - This movie is a Halloween staple in the House of the Chalkdevil. Always a good movie to have on while the trick or treaters come around since our tv is viewable from the front door. 3. What We Do In the Shadows (Prime) - So, so funny. Taika Waititi is one of my new favorites between this and Hunt For The Wilderpeople. What am I missing? What do I need to see? What I'd add : - The original Fright Night (1985) - An American Werewolf in London is hardly a comedy, but is balances funny and somber moments in an exceptional way - Bad Taste : it's not as good as Dead Alive, but it's chuckle-worthy enough. - Incident at Loch Ness : If you don't want to watch a mockumentary where Werner Herzog chases the Loch Ness monster, well that's on you... - Re-Animator : I mean, come on ! - Witching and Bitching : I'm stretching the definition of a horror movie, but I'll die before I miss an opportunity to recommend that movie. |
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dwarfoscar
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Post by dwarfoscar on Oct 18, 2017 12:43:40 GMT -5
Also, here are some random recommendations for unusual horror movies, specially tailored for the jump-scare-skeptics :
Bug (2006) : Creepy as hell, and a one-of-a-kind performance by Michael Shannon. Also, one of the very few movies that have a 'F' Cinemascore.
Lo (2009) : Micro-budgeted horror-drama-musical mixture with a gut-punch of an ending.
Kairo (2001) : I could wax poetics for hours about the genius of Kiyoshi Kurosawa, the Master of slow and contemplative horror. Mike D'Angelo is with me on that one.
Santa Sangre (1988) : by notorious weirdo Alejandro Jodorowski
Tetsuo (1989) : short manic black & white cyberpunk nightmare
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on Oct 18, 2017 13:37:28 GMT -5
It doesn't lean too heavily on the comedy end of the spectrum, but Peter Jackson's The Frighteners is a real favorite horror-comedy of mine. Good premise, and great performances by Michael J. Fox, Jeffrey Combs and, you guessed it, Frank Stallone Jake Busey.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 18, 2017 13:50:09 GMT -5
It doesn't lean too heavily on the comedy end of the spectrum, but Peter Jackson's The Frighteners is a real favorite horror-comedy of mine. Good premise, and great performances by Michael J. Fox, Jeffrey Combs and, you guessed it, Frank Stallone Jake Busey. YES! And John Astin as The Judge! That was the movie that my friend, a Peter Jackson fan, showed me to prove to me that Lord of the Rings would be handled well. He was not wrong. |
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repulsionist
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actively disinterested
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Post by repulsionist on Oct 18, 2017 14:34:28 GMT -5
chalkdevil 😈, I suggest Blood Diner(1987), Frankenhooker(1990), The Stuff (1985), and Vampires (2010).
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repulsionist
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actively disinterested
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Post by repulsionist on Oct 18, 2017 14:37:25 GMT -5
Toxic Avenger(1984)? Street Trash (1987)?
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Post by chalkdevil 😈 on Oct 18, 2017 14:44:33 GMT -5
As I said above, I really like horror-comedy. Here is a list of horror-comedies I enjoyed in what is an increasingly inaccurate order of my enjoyment of them. I tried to find where they are streaming too, for those with all the streaming services or access to their parents' premium cable account. 1. Evil Dead 2 - The gold-standard as far as I'm concerned. 2. Tremors (Cinemax, I guess) - A god-damned cable classic. 3. Shaun of the Dead (Showtime) - Great send up of zombie flicks from people who clearly love zombie flicks. 4. Tucker & Dale vs Evil (Netflix & Hulu) - This one is such a great send up of the killer hillbilly trope. Plus Alan Tudyk. 5. Dead Alive - Just gory madness. 6. Slither - I like a good gross creature and this one doesn't disappoint. Michael Rooker is the best. 7. Beetlejuice - Whoa. Sandworms. You hate 'em right? I hate 'em myself! 8. An American Werewolf in London (Prime, Hulu) - I haven't seen this one forever. This will probably get a rewatch soon. 9. Zombieland - Kind of mining the same vein as Shaun, but still charming and great. 10. Grabbers (Hulu) - It's the irish Tremors, which isn't just something that happens when you run out of whiskey. *rim-shot* 11. Dead Snow & Dead Snow 2 - Nazi zombies fuck off. 12. Black Sheep - Not the Chris Farley one, but the one with the mutant sheep in New Zealand. My parents are still made at me for making them watch this 10 years later. 13. Cabin In The Woods - Maybe a little over-rated but still good deconstruction of horror movie tropes. 14. Gremlins 2: The New Batch - This is so much better than the first Gremlins, which is, as we all know, a Christmas movie. I got a couple movies here that are way more on the comedy side, but with a horror backdrop and really nothing that equates an actual scare: 1. Young Frankenstein (Netflix) - I mean, it's Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder. Side note, when in London I went to a preview show of the Young Frankenstein musical. It was fantastic. 2. Addams Family (Netflix & Hulu) - This movie is a Halloween staple in the House of the Chalkdevil. Always a good movie to have on while the trick or treaters come around since our tv is viewable from the front door. 3. What We Do In the Shadows (Prime) - So, so funny. Taika Waititi is one of my new favorites between this and Hunt For The Wilderpeople. What am I missing? What do I need to see? What I'd add : - The original Fright Night (1985) - An American Werewolf in London is hardly a comedy, but is balances funny and somber moments in an exceptional way - Bad Taste : it's not as good as Dead Alive, but it's chuckle-worthy enough. - Incident at Loch Ness : If you don't want to watch a mockumentary where Werner Herzog chases the Loch Ness monster, well that's on you... - Re-Animator : I mean, come on ! - Witching and Bitching : I'm stretching the definition of a horror movie, but I'll die before I miss an opportunity to recommend that movie. - I need to watch the original Fright Night. Looks like it's on Hulu. I saw the remake, it was...fine. - An American Werewolf in London - I remember the progressively decaying friend being a funny bit that's been ripped off a few times. I don't think I've seen this at least 15 years. Needs a rewatch. - Bad Taste - That was on my list after I saw Dead Alive in college but never got around to it. This was pre-Netflix so I would have had to track down a DVD or VHS (since that was still a viable thing in the early 2000s, especially for weird horror flicks). - Incident at Loch Ness - I do want to see this. - Re-Animator - Dammit! I knew I was forgetting something important. - Witching and Bitching - I always see that on Hulu and lumped it in the cheap stoner horror like Gingerdead Man and The Evil Bong. I just watched a trailer for this and it looks ridiculous. So, that's a watch. - The Frighteners - That's a pretty great one too. Peter Jackson was killing it in the horror comedy. Someone give him $50 million and tell him to make us something ridiculous again. Andy Serkis can do a funny voice in it if he wants. |
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Post by DangOlJimmyITellYouWhat on Oct 18, 2017 15:28:04 GMT -5
Yay horror!
There are many, MANY kinds I don't like - home invasion, pretty much anything where someone is kept captive, torture porn, straight-up slasher, etc - and yeah, I'm also on the "don't get scared/entertained anyway" train most of the time.
I was pleasantly surprised by Hell House, LLC; I thought it was going to be total cheese, and it turned out to have some nice creepy. There was a moment that I actually found upsetting, but it didn't last very long.
And The Last Exorcism wasn't ground-breaking in any way, but for some reason I enjoyed it. Usually exorcism stuff or anything with heavy religious overtones bores the shit out of me.
The Descent - I thought the "being in a cave and small spaces" would be the scary for me here, and almost didn't watch it because of that. That part wasn't bad, the other things were and if you have seen it, you know what I mean. NOPE.
Yes I do like Jeepers Creepers, ok? I also quite like that it's a brother and sister being terrorized; it's a whole different dynamic than you normally get in horror.
Still love The Others, and I also really like horror that has this same kind of sort of...hmmm...mysterious and gradual ambiance. You know what I mean.
Near Dark which is NOT AVAILABLE STREAMING, what the fuck, I ask you?
Agreed on Event Horizon
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dwarfoscar
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it's complicated
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Post by dwarfoscar on Oct 18, 2017 15:33:00 GMT -5
chalkdevil 😈 , I suggest Blood Diner(1987), Frankenhooker(1990), The Stuff (1985), and Vampires (2010). +1 Frankenhooker ! That reminds me I need to catch up on Henenlotter. It's the only one of his that I've seen. |
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Post by songstarliner on Oct 18, 2017 17:51:14 GMT -5
Right, so funny horror is another thing altogether. A few of my favorites have been mentioned already - Evil Dead 2 (which is >>> 1 or Army of Darkness), Re-Animator, Slither, Cabin In The Woods - but here, have some more:
From Beyond (1986) and Dagon (2001), both from director Stuart Gordon of Re-Animator fame.
The Lair of the White Worm (1988), written and directed by Ken Russell and starring Amanda Donohoe, Hugh Grant, and Peter Capaldi
Tales From the Crypt: Demon Knight (1996), dumb, but on the other hand: Billy Zane
Creepshow (1982), pretty much perfect
Pet Sematary (1989), maybe not intended to be a comedy, but nevertheless one of the funniest films I've seen.
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Post by ganews on Oct 18, 2017 18:34:47 GMT -5
Right, so funny horror is another thing altogether. A few of my favorites have been mentioned already - Evil Dead 2 (which is >>> 1 or Army of Darkness), Re-Animator, Slither, Cabin In The Woods - but here, have some more: The Lair of the White Worm (1988), written and directed by Ken Russell and starring Amanda Donohoe, Hugh Grant, and Peter Capaldi I haven't seen it, but if this title isn't a horror/sex comedy, don't shatter my illusions. |
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Post by songstarliner on Oct 18, 2017 18:51:52 GMT -5
Right, so funny horror is another thing altogether. A few of my favorites have been mentioned already - Evil Dead 2 (which is >>> 1 or Army of Darkness), Re-Animator, Slither, Cabin In The Woods - but here, have some more: The Lair of the White Worm (1988), written and directed by Ken Russell and starring Amanda Donohoe, Hugh Grant, and Peter Capaldi I haven't seen it, but if this title isn't a horror/sex comedy, don't shatter my illusions. It most certainly is. |
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