Horror Movies

Fysh

LAC wrote: »

I taught the Silent Hill film was a good idea until I saw it I loved the game really disliked the movie I taught it came off really ridiculous and a bit stupid. I taught it was a joke to have Dahlia Gillespie a sympathetic character anyone that has played the game knows she was one of the most evil characters in it and there was some scenes in this movie that actually made in laugh in the cinema also

"Mother is god in the eyes of a chlid " was just silly also the witch burning s was just as ridiculous

Sorry about that mini-rant there. I guess its just preference of taste and I know a lot of people that really liked it.This was one of the scenes that I just couldn't take seriously tho.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waRFhPSFvfQ&feature=related

I thought the games had great potential for a film, but the execution was pretty mixed - the horrible "look, it's like a clumsy bit out of an adventure videogame" segments in particular. I don't understand why they didn't just stick with the idea of either adapting one of the games (either 1 or 2 would've been fine by themselves as a film plot, with some clever adaptation work) or doing what the comics did and coming up with new stories in the same setting.

The line about

"Mother is god in the eyes of a child"

always reminds me of The Crow more than anything else, which doesn't help.

Was reading back through some of the horror films I watched in recent months and was surprised by just how many I genuinely enjoyed. All of the films are American produced and most of the films listed below were low budget direct to DVD films, and while very few will set the world alight they were all entertaining in their own way and managed to offer up something original within the confines of the genre or was just fun to watch.

Shamelessly copy and pasted from my viewer log on the horror forum, typos and words in the wrong places remain as they originally appeared.


The House of the Devil - Wow, just wow. The House of the Devil is for want of a better word the perfect old school horror film.

It features a truly unnerving atmosphere, a slow delicate build up, spot on performances and gorgeous cinematography. Shot to resemble an 80s horror film which is does superbly it is a real throw back of the suspense horror or yesteryear. There is little in the way of gore or violence for the vast majority of the run time relying instead on a truly amazing central performance and a great atmosphere of true horror.

I really can't remember the last time a horror film has left me staring at the screen and thinking that I can't wait to re-watch it. It's just a truly magnificent achievement and one which I really do wish had played cinemas here.

2001 Maniacs - Rewatched this preparation for Field of Screams, it's an absolute hoot and one of my favourite horror films in recent years. It's also one of the few remakes which betters the original.

The film has everything you want in a horror film, it's funny, well-played, has some great deaths and is the perfect companion to a six-pack and some pizza.

2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams - I'm not sure just how much I like this one yet, sure the gore is inventive and the film did put a smile on my face but at the same time it has it's fair share of problems. The biggest of which is that all the dialogue seems to have been dubbed in post which gives the film an early 80s martial arts feel which isn't necessarily a good thing especially when lip movements don't match up.

The budget for the film was tiny and it shows, production values are low, the acting is woeful in places with only the Maniacs impressing butSullivan's direction is energetic and there is a cosntant sense of fun.

The film is very reminiscent of Herschell Gordon Lewis's original, which at the end of the day is perfectly acceptable if you enjoy lowbudget blood and guts.

Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film - An interesting documentary discussing the early classics of the genre. Many of the interviews are informative and fun but there are some grave oversights, the lack of any mention of Black Christmas (The film which laid down the rules of the genre) is near unforgivable.

Some of the contributions are priceless though everything being said on screen has been repeated a dozen times before. If you enjoy the genre then it's a fun way to waste 80 minutes but for anyone looking for an examination of the genre look elsewhere.

From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman's Daughter - This is how you do a sequel, take the formula which worked so well first time round, tweak just enough to make it different and add gallons of blood. Anyone familiar with the original won't get lost here, a group of weary unsuspecting travellers stumble into the vampire den. The film is 90 minutes of blood spilling nonsense which will raise a smile in any genre fan.

Highwaymen - Robert Harmon returns to the highway unfortunately it's no Hitcher but it does remain a very entertaining and enjoyable film with a great idea which Tarantino borrowed for his dreadfully dull Deathproof. Jim Caviz Jesus travels the dusty highways searching for his wifes killer and in the process we witness some great automotive destruction. With a running time of 70 minutes it's over doesnt out stay it's welcome and does what it does well for those 70 minutes.

Laid to Rest - One of the more entertaining and inventive slasher films of recent years, the story is all over the place with characters seemingly determined to do the most idiotic thing possible in order to ensure their death. Thankfully then that the gore is superbly handled with faces torn off and a whole host of B movie stars meeting rather grisly ends.

Nightmares in Red, White and Blue - One of the best documentaries on the horror genre and how society shapes the tales we see on-screen. Highly informative, well made and featuring a montage of Friday the 13th deaths it's a must watch for horror fans.

American Grindhouse - An interesting documentary charting the evolution of grindhouse cinema though like most documentaries on cinematic movements a large portion of the area is overlooked. Loaded with clips and famous talkin heads it's an informative if rather short overview of one of the most constantly entertaining genres in cinema.

Bone Dry - One of those great ideas let down by a lackstruck script, it's pretty much Saw in a desert with the always reliable Lance Henriksen and Luke Goss impressing. The last ten minutes completely tears the film apart turning what could have been a satisfying little piece into a film which strives to something much more.

The Hills Run Red - This is how you made a lowbudget direct to DVD slasher film. You write a witty, intelligent, gore laden script which features nods to the genre but never becomes a parody. For anyone who feels that the cookie cutter nature of modern horror has become to repetitive it's the perfect antidote.

Dead Silence - Dead Silence is one of the creepiest films of the past decade. With little in the way of gore of shock tactics it instead relies on a truly astonishing atmosphere of dread which will have you right on the edge of your seat right through to the credits. It features one of the most genuinely chilling baddies in horror history and is a real throw back to the past masters.

The Plague - Billed as a Clive Barker film the Plague is in fact a rather low-key, story driven film from writer/director Hal Masonberg. It's an entertaining romp with some very well handled moments though watching it you can't help but wish to see the proper directors cut. Barker and his fellow producers recut the film substantially, removing an hour of footage, they concentrated on violence rather than allowing for a truly great slow burning horror film.

Flight of the Living Dead: Outbreak on a Plane - Enjoyable hokum which does exactly as it says on the case. There's a plane, there are zombies and there's a whole lot of carnage. Trashy fun at it's best, featuring the always value for money Kevin J. O'Connor. If you're a fan of B movies then Flight of the Living Dead is the perfect nights viewing.


Undead or Alive - For some reason I adore Undead or Alive. One of those films which is guaranteed to put a smile on my face no matter how down I feel. Chris Kattan and James Denton play 2 cowboys who end up facing off against a horde of the recently departed. With plenty of laughs, some fantastic effects and a great story Undead or Alive is a truly fantastic little film which few have seen let alone heard of.

Route 666 - Lou "I used to have a career" Diamond Phillips takes on an undead road crew while transporting a prisoner to trial. From the director of the 80s classic Scarecrows, Route 666 is absolute nonsense from start to finish but that doesn't mean that it's not entertaining hokum. while it's not a film worth going out of your way to see it's at least got some original ideas and won't leave you felling robbed of 80 minutes.

Reeker 2: Fantastic fun, plenty of gore, inventive deaths and a few laughs. Basically a remake of the original only with added story concerning the Reeker and his origins. It's never going to be considered a classic but for what it is, a low-budget, horror sequel its value for money.

The Deaths of Ian Stone - A good idea let down but an final third where ti all just falls apart. With creature effects from Stan Winston you expect something unique and not costumes which are forever hidden by cheap cgi smoke. it all looks rather cinematic and production values are high but the lack of any real originality does drag the film down.

Down - i bought this knowing nothing about it bar that the cast featured Michael Ironside and Ron Perlman. Expecting a generic B movie I was instead greeted with one of the most entertaining 100 minutes of film I have seen in a long time. The premise about an elevator which kills may seem like the most ridiculous concept ever but by playing it completeely straight and with great fx work it somehow really does work. It's teh kind of film best watched knowing as little about beforehand, and lets not forget the scene in which Ironside and Perlman talk is the B-Movie fans version of Heat.

Tucker & Dale vs Evil - I absolutely adore the film, one of the funniest I have seen in a long time and with enough fun deaths and gore to satisfy. It's a genius piece of film which manages to perfectly capture the mood of cabin in the woods films and sprinkle in enough genuine comedy moments to make it a must see. So good is it that I'm watching it again and looking forward to owning it.

Hard Ride to Hell - Hard Ride to Hell is a thoroughly ridiculous satanic bikers film which is a hell of a lot of fun. A real throw back to genre cinema of the 70s its entertaining as hell all the while be completely and utterly ludicrously bizzare.

Mother's Day - Been looking forward to this for a long time and it didn't disappoint, a truly fantastic remake and a great film in it's own right. The original is a cult classic but this is good enough to be a true genre classic, great performances, a great script and direction and some genuinely fantastic deaths and situations.

jaykhunter

As a big Silent Hill (game) fan; here's my two cents :
The film felt, looked and sounded like Silent Hill -- all plusses. I loved hearing SH music on the big screen.

The storyline is horrendous. The most aggravating problem was that they shoehorned in many characters (

Lisa/Nurse, Pyramid Head etc

) for no particular reason. There they are, on screen, bye now. It's like "here's 90 minutes of a nightmare", one you can't remember - no rhyme or reason; and it's over. It was thoroughly unsatisfying.

Silent Hill games all have a major storyline, which was completely glossed over in the film; a medium based on narrative. Usually due to the protagonist's big life events or family, usually both. There's a reason they were brought to Silent Hill, to learn the truth and able to move on. But this is horribly discarded in the film.

Honestly, I don't see why they couldn't just trim down Silent Hill 2 (game) into 90 minutes. Amazing plot, characters, look and storyline arcs.

Da Shins Kelly

NunianVonFuch wrote: »

30 Days of Night - fantastic chiller, up there with The Thing for the group dynamic and feel of mistrust between the characters. Best vampire film I've seen in years, almost went to see Twilight: Eclipse as it had the same director. Almost. Presume he was paid quite handsomely!

+1. Excellent film. This and Let The Right One In have really gone a long way to salvaging the reputation of vampires after Twilight.

Norma_Desmond

I honestly can't remember the last hoor film that scared me, I find them all pretty boring these days.

Dead Silence was the last one that I thought was slightly good, didn't scare me but still good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQVsCcr-Lfo

Still trying to find one to scare me though and I don't find gore scary, just looking for a good old fashioned scare

Pablo Sanchez

Dunno if they have been mentioned before but Jacobs Ladder and Angel Heart were certainly scary and thankfully dont fit into the schlock horror movie template.

Mulholland Drive/Inland Empire/Blue Velevt or pretty much anything by David Lynch while not traditional 'horror' films are certainly deeply unsettling at times.

But i must say that the last scene in The Blair Witch Project still works for me, my guilty pleasure if you will.

NunianVonFuch

Deleted User wrote: »

2001 Maniacs - Rewatched this preparation for Field of Screams, it's an absolute hoot and one of my favourite horror films in recent years. It's also one of the few remakes which betters the original.

The film has everything you want in a horror film, it's funny, well-played, has some great deaths and is the perfect companion to a six-pack and some pizza.

+1

Deleted User wrote: »

From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman's Daughter - This is how you do a sequel, take the formula which worked so well first time round, tweak just enough to make it different and add gallons of blood. Anyone familiar with the original won't get lost here, a group of weary unsuspecting travellers stumble into the vampire den. The film is 90 minutes of blood spilling nonsense which will raise a smile in any genre fan.

Completely disagree, but I'd say everything you just said about From Dusk Til Dawn 2! It just didn't click with me, don't think I was drinking at the time which is essential for the FDTD movies so I was just getting annoyed at the ham acting and bad plot :pac:

Haven't seen any of the others you mentioned, but jotted down their names all the same

The King of Moo

Pablo Sanchez wrote: »

Dunno if they have been mentioned before but Jacobs Ladder and Angel Heart were certainly scary and thankfully dont fit into the schlock horror movie template.

Mulholland Drive/Inland Empire/Blue Velevt or pretty much anything by David Lynch while not traditional 'horror' films are certainly deeply unsettling at times.

But i must say that the last scene in The Blair Witch Project still works for me, my guilty pleasure if you will.

I loved Jacob's Ladder when I saw it first. I was quite young and watched it late on rté one night, not knowing it was a horror, and was very pleasantly surprised. It's also one of the few good examples of combining a fairly serious dramatic storyline with a horror film.

A lot of David Lynch's films have a great sense of horror about them, especially the ones you mentioned. I love how sometimes you'll be blindsided by a sudden horrific moment in an otherwise innocent, innocuous scene. Mulholland Drive's great for that. Both the Twin Peaks series and the (underappreciated, IMHO) film have some genuinely scary moments. Lost Highway is another film of his that has some really creepy and bizarre moments, but it's very hard to get hold of.

I loved The Blair Witch Project the first couple of times I saw it, especially the ending. I even loved the sense of tension and dread during the daylight segments as you were waiting for them to find a way out before it got dark, and things got more desperate as the light began to fade.
I watched it again recently and didn't get into it, though that might be due to knowing it too well and having seen other lesser found footage films in the interim. Still loved the end though.

NunianVonFuch

NunianVonFuch wrote: »

Completely disagree, but I'd say everything you just said about From Dusk Til Dawn 2! It just didn't click with me, don't think I was drinking at the time which is essential for the FDTD movies so I was just getting annoyed at the ham acting and bad plot :pac:

Haven't seen any of the others you mentioned, but jotted down their names all the same

The problem with part 2 is that the version released has been seriously cut. The original run time was close to 100 minutes with the DVD release being less than 90.

caroline010

can watch anything but zombies for some reason....funnily enough they dont bother me in 28 days later...it's the guys from the older Living dead movies that freak the hell out of me....

Horror films have either tamed down or we are just so used to them at this stage nothing shocks anymore

Fysh

I watched The Tunnel the other night after hearing about the whole "releasing it free" strategy and it was pretty damn good, a very slickly-made film that IMO is a better documentary-style horror film that other efforts like the Blair Witch Project. I'm buying a copy on DVD come payday

Harrocks

Watch Wakewood over the weekend had me on edge at times been awhile since a horror has gave me that creepy feeling .

sensibleken

I saw stake land last night. absolutely gobsmackingly good movie

constitutionus

im not a huge fan of horro films so im not really able to comment on alot of titles metioned but in terms of the genre it seems to me the concentration on gore as opposed to genuine chills has alot to do with the view that many of whats released is crap.

im racking my brain to think of the last decent horror i saw and i think it was 30 days of night.

really got back to the monsterous side of vampires and their whole tactic for taking out the town works so well you end up thinking " yeah, the rest of the world would think its just an indutrial accident".

the pan shot from above the town of them attacking the residents is probably one of the best moments ive seen in a film of this type in years.

maybe its just me.

i was raised on stuff like sapphire and steel , tales of the unexpected, armchair chillers etc, where sod all money meant more work went into lighting and mood with an emphasis on quality acting.

but with the profileration of CGI i just dont find visual horror i.e gore all that shocking or scary as i KNOW its not real. so not only dont i enjoy stuff like "final destination" as a horror, but i get bored by it. hence why i dont go to em anymore.

that said there IS one coming out by guillermo del torro that looks kinda fun : "dont be afraid of the dark". so i may go see that , but alot of its due to the fact i like what he did with hellboy and know at the very least he doest good suspense.

on the silent hill thing.

i really liked that.

yes its nowhere near as good as it couldve been. and for the life of me i dont know why the hell they switched from the da looking for her to the mother. i mean its not like thats a cliche or something. but it still holds the the title for best video game conversion IMO.

sticking with the game soundtrack was a smart move and the town and general look of the place was spot on. just a pity they went all over the place with the story.

didnt know it was getting a sequel, hopefully they'll address that issue there as i think with a few tweeks it really could be a cracker of a guinely scary movie.

Resident evil doesnt even try to be scary anymore, its more sci/fi action than anything else now. which is a shame as that game scared the bollocks off me back in the day. maybe well get a reboot down the road when it stops being a cash cow. the last one was not only not frigtening in the least it was the WORST film ive seen in years as it made no sense from a storytelling POV whatsoever.

i didnt even cop that was jill at the end because they never explained the blonde do and change to RE5 Look. even a bloody "yes miss valentine" wouldve helped there.

TBH I think alot of problems in the genre come down to whats wrong in other one. lazieness on the part of studios that just want a quick buck.

Kiith

I've not been scared by a film in a good while. Granted, i don't watch a huge amount of horrors anymore, as they are mostly ****. There are some really creepy foreign horror films, but it's been a while since i've seen a good one. Most western horror is laughably bad these days, although i've heard good things about Stake Land. Also, there's absolutely nothing scary about gore films either.

If you really want to be scared, play Amnesia: The Dark Descent on the pc. Scarier then anything listed in this thread so far.

Arkaron

Weird question: does anyone know of any horror movie set during the 1920s? Not necessarily made in the 20s, just set during this time.

Decuc500

The Awakening starring Dominic West, more of an atmospheric ghost story, I had to look it up to make sure, it's set in 1921.

Arkaron

Worst thing is: I saw it at the cinema and liked it. Thanks a mil for reminding me! Any other suggestions welcome.

NunianVonFuch

Shadow of the Vampire (2000) with Willem Dafoe and John Malkovich. Set during the filming of Nosferatu (1922) it's more of a drama than your typical horror. Very good film all the same.

PeteK*

Hostel 1, 2 & 3

The Hills Have Eyes 1 & 2

Wrong Turn 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6

The Descent 1, 2 & 3


If you like any one of these, then you'll enjoy the rest, too.

Dair76

There is no third installment to The Descent.

PeteK*

Dair76 wrote: »

There is no third installment to The Descent.

I had that debate with my partner.. I said we didn't see it but apparently we did.
You proved me right!

Skerries

someone posted this on Reddit the other day and I have only seen 3 of the 15 so I am going to try some of the others listed

http://imgur.com/gallery/d1BVL