October Horror Thread 2021

The Other Side of Underneath (1972) - 7.5+ /10 first time watch

Fascinating, exhausting, pretentious with almost a Sylvia Plath "doom comes to life" like feel to it - an experimental film on schizophrenia with a very loose narrative plot - the staging of these scenes (and they are staged) - like nightmarish howls - evokes Bergman in Hour of The Wolf......... and a sort of otherworldly terror of the mind.

Not a horror movie per se but very much plays like one...........the DVD case says this was "the only British movie directed by a female alone (ie not in collaboration) in the 70s" - can that be true?

There's a version of this on Youtube with Italian subtitles but there are better copies out there.....quite a unique movie - some of this is hard to shake off and feels like the folk-horror sub-genre.

Mulholland Drive (2001, rewatch)

Listen, I would never think to put this on a horror best of list, or vote for it in a horror poll, or anything like that. It's almost never classified as a horror film, and rightfully so, I would say. If it belongs to any clear genre (which Lynch's films don't, really), you'd place it within the context of the film noir that the film borrows so much of its cinematic language and imagery from (only to entirely subvert, destroy, and to some extent, venerate that imagery all at once). 

That said, I often say that Mulholland Drive frightens me more than most horror movies do, and any movie with Lynch's sound design and a Badalamenti score *that* ominous belongs in a thread dedicated to spooky stuff like this. Obviously, the Man behind Winkie's gets all of the attention in terms of this movie's scares; a jump scare so famous and thrilling that it subsequently haunts every slow, creeping turn around a corner that comes in the 2+ hours of film after it. Yet the moment that continues to spook me the most, one rewatch after the next, is a much smaller one: when Betty and Rita discover the disfigured corpse of "Diane Selwyn," the score swells, Rita shrieks, and at that moment, the abrupt entrance of a sharp, pronounced knocking on the front door ... what's happening? has such a gruesome fate come to claim our protagonists, too?

Turns out, it's just Diane's neighbor at the front door, wondering what happened to the two ladies ... yet every gesture in a Lynch film can be laced with infinite degrees of meaning, lacking any one clear answer. Those knockings will return, after all, in the film's terrifying finale, and never do we find out who's on the other side. Diane's surly neighbor? Suspicious police detectives? Something far more sinister?

Lynch's film is not horror in the traditional regard, yet what his film hints at might be the greatest horror of all: that all the lies we tell ourselves only exist to conceal dark, cruel, evil realities. If Mulholland Drive can't send a spooky season shiver down your spine, I'm not sure what else will. 

"Cut" (2004) segment of "Three Extremes" on TUBI (rewatch)


Mostly marvelous Park Chan- wook short film within "Three Extremes" - only hurt slightly by some over-explanatory slow-motion close-ups - his segment (starts at 37:47) incorporates a wicked, audacious De Palmaesque movie within a movie opening, with Oldboy levels of glorious plot improbabilities and Vengeance trilogy-like ruminations on the motivations and ramifications of long-simmering revenge.

To watch this is to see a genuine master filmmaker at work - one of the few living / working - who can make an audience squirm........look away........ uncomfortably laugh ......or sit up in their seats with anticipatory excitement ..........all without compromising his quite malicious artistic intentions in any way.

There is not another director who can go from evil to good - or more often the reverse - as quickly in character's presentation (think the "crying" turning to hysterical laughter of Stoker's shower scene or the "smile" fading to the final grimace of Oldboy).

He also enjoys mocking things we already think we know (like a director's "control" of things, ha!) or twisting things we would never actually dare say - like, I mean fnck the poor, their motives are as - if not more so! - as despicable / morally reprehensible as the rich or privileged ...............and they got nothing to lose - ammirite?

The Manor
. . . well it isn't a 2021 horror movie without either a cult or some sort of -ism theme. So if you want 90 minutes of Barbara Hershey looking confused, then this is for you!

Seance
I liked this a good deal. It's new on Shudder and unlike so many horror movies where the character makes the most boneheaded decisions possible, this one actually has a level head on her shoulders. Definitely recommend this.

Bad Samaritan
Two in a row! Doctor Who does a good job mixing scary crazy and just plain ol' crazy very well. Also recommend this.

Lost Child
Okay, this wasn't a horror movie at all! What the fuck is this shit?! It's just a backwoods family drama movie! WHY WOULD YOU LIE TO ME?!

The Afflicted
Dreadful. Just... dreadful.

11. Witchfinder General (Michael Reeves, 1968)

Self-described "Witchfinder General" Matthew Hopkins and his lapdog John Stearne are thought to be responsible for as many as 100 executions over the course of just two years in the mid 17th century, and Michael Reeves took no prisoners in this brutal retelling of their exploits in East Anglia during the English Civil War. I wish I had seen this before watching Mark of the Devil last year, which was made to capitalize on this film's success (but I didn't realize that then) and was much more violent. Both films have a grindhouse feel to their approach to torture and execution, and even though Witchfinder has much less gore, the effect of watching a screaming woman dragged to a gallows and another lowered onto a raging fire to an agonizing death to the smug contentment of the superstitious onlookers is still potent and chilling.

If I had to complain about something, it'd be that there's too much going on for such a breezy runtime. Too many characters in too many locations, and the ending comes too abruptly. Mark of the Devil has the advantage here with a more focused cast and setting. I mean a lot of that movie is just people being tortured in a castle.

Shaun of the Dead (2004, rewatch)

My roommate who is squeamish with horror wanted to watch a movie last night. I insisted we watch something horror or horror-adjacent, and so we settled on this. My first rewatch in quite some time ... I still think Hot Fuzz is the more perfect version of this ... which I think doesn't have as tight of control of tone (especially as it progresses), has a handful of jokes that have just not aged well, and all around doesn't hit as many laughs as its spiritual successor. That said, this is still pretty damn fun ... especially the first 30 or so minutes. 

I will not withstand any further The Faculty libel!

now you're talking 

12. Inside [À l'intérieur] (2007) - fucking bruuuutal. Borders on torture porn, but I think it's eerie enough in the early going to make it more than just a well done bloodbath. Had to watch some comedy clips after this to recover.

13. The Haunting of Hill House (2018) - time equivalent to 5 movies... so I'm fucking counting it.

14. Absentia (2011) - the spooky build-up was more involving than anything that happened after the husband's return, but this was still eerie in the end and impressively done on such a low budget.

15. Saw (2004) - for the most part, this thing still kicks ass. That ending is undeniably one of the most epic, iconic movie moments of the 2000s.

16. The Empty Man (2020) - first dud of the season. Fools you into thinking it's better than it is by looking like a Fincher movie... but juggles way too many ideas and doesn't really deliver on any of them. The opening twenty minutes, while slightly drawn out, showed promise for a much better movie than what it actually turns into. The ending twist actually was pretty interesting, but I was mostly checked out by the time it happened so I hardly cared. Release the 90 minute cut.

does anyone recommend Rob Zombie's Halloween 2 or the OG Halloween sequels from the 80s?

Blade (1998)- One of Marvel's earliest cinematic successes, this was definitely more of an action than a horror, but glad I finally checked it out nonetheless. Wesley Snipes inhabits the titular character to a tee, to the point where it'll be hard to picture anyone else in this role (best of luck, Mahershala!). Great supporting cast, that includes a never-better Stephen Dorff as the enjoyably over-the-top Deacon Frost, and his unhinged and jokey right-hand man played by Donal Logue in a funny and memorable turn. Found it interesting that this movie essentially scooped The Matrix in terms of its style, from its black-clad heroes and villains, to its kung-fu-inspired action sequences, to even a moment of bullet-time. Clearly a huge influence on early-2000s action horrors such as Resident Evil and Underworld as well, for better or worse. 7/10

Blade II (2002)- Helmed by Guillermo del Toro, this sequel is unsurprisingly a more handsomely made film than its predecessor. Pretty much everything that was good about the first is good here as well, with Wesley Snipes once again owning the role entirely. Biggest downside to this one, oddly enough, is that it takes itself too seriously. The original film had a real tongue-in-cheek quality to it that this one doesn't quite capture. As a result I found it a bit less fun. 6.5/10

Possession (1981, rewatch)

Saw this in a theater. Kind of an out of body experience tbh. Even though I remembered this from first viewing being basically the most batshit movie I've ever seen, still it feels like no expectation can prepare you for how purely unrelenting and over-the-top and oh so glorious the whole thing is. Simply the fucking best.