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Post by loverofbeers on Dec 19, 2012 3:33:38 GMT -5
Just watched P2.
Didn't expect much from this movie and wondered how you could make a nearly one hour, forty minute horror film that takes place in a parking garage under Manhattan and make it good. Well this was a very good (great?) horror thriller with one Hell of a kill scene involving an office chair, duct tape, a flashlight, and a car. I recommend, and it takes place on Christmas Eve.
Drinking a Deschutes Black Butte Porter from Oregon. Good stuff. Cheers!
LOB-10
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Post by loverofbeers on Dec 19, 2012 23:37:36 GMT -5
I just watched Silent Night, Bloody Night (1974), not to be confused with the Silent Night, Deadly Night series from the 1980s.
This was a "meh" movie at best. Boring script, dry acting, terrible editing, a ludicrous plot, and characters that are all forgettable. One historical note, this was a "proto" slasher movie. Almost there, so close to that genre, but close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. Gonna have to finally watch Black Christmas this month! But, nothing worth watching here folks.
Drinking a Deschutes Black Butte Porter and my house is nearly silent. A Cheers! to peace and quiet and sanity. One pup to go (Terry Gordy III).
LOB-14
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Post by jakeawesomesnake on Dec 20, 2012 0:14:02 GMT -5
I've seen that one twice ,but with commentary so it was more lively. I did think it was funny how Carradine literally had no lines the whole movie and spoke only with a bell.
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Post by loverofbeers on Dec 20, 2012 23:46:44 GMT -5
I just watched my first Amicus horror anthology and their first of many anthologies, Dr. Terror's House of Horror (1964). I dug it and recommend.
The wrap around story had a very young Donald Sutherland, Peter Cushing as Dr. Terror or Dr. Schreck with all his hair, and Christopher Lee with dark hair. The wrap around occurs on a train carriage. My favorite moment was when Cushing enters the coach, sits, looks at Lee, looks away, and Lee looks at Cushing before returning to his paper. Trust me, it was funny. They looked at each other for a moment with the air of "Don't I keep meeting you, you no good son-of-a-bitch?" It was a quick moment at the start of the movie and it made me smile. A very fun little ride with a Twilight Zone feel.
Oh yeah, great special effects especially the severed hand which that Michael Caine 1980s horror film ripped off. Well I guess that was it for great effects. You also have your vampire bat on a string and the snarly dog close-up for the werewolf. Still, fun times.
LOB-16
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Post by jakeawesomesnake on Dec 21, 2012 18:10:43 GMT -5
I really liked the vodoo one , mainly because of the song.
First I watched 1989 Christmas horror movie Elves starring Dan Haggerty. Oh my god I love this movie in the so bad it's good sense. Laughable bad acting, funny plot, Nazis, oh my god there's just so much in this movie. I will say that one thing that surprised me was how good the elf looked, it actually looked creepy like an updated Nosferatu, I also thought the gore looked good and liked the soundtrack particuarly during the shootout. Nazi elves that are really the antichrist with an incest plotline and a slow motion explosion when the ground gets stabbed. It also had an ending shot similar to House of the Devil.
After that I watched Satoshi Kon's 1998 Japanese animated horror movie Perfect Blue which I thought was great and lived up to the point. Similar to his other horror work that I'd seen (Paranoia Agent) it does a really good job using psychological horror and simply fucking with your head in an effective manner. The voice acting (I listened to the English dub) was great, as was the soundtrack, great quality animation, especially all the scenes involing violence. This movie has a creepy feel throughout and I liked the gore. I also liked how everything made sense at the end. High reccomend and glad I finally checked it out. Don't want to give spoilers.
On a sidenote I wish there'd be more animated horror movies, because I feel you can get really gory and crazy easier due to the medium and be just as scary as the best live action horror movie.
JAS-35
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Post by loverofbeers on Dec 23, 2012 0:00:55 GMT -5
Yeah, that Voodoo song was great. The soundtrack overall was really good jazz, especially when the gods were angered in the Vodun segment.
Just watched a British Christmas slasher flick, Don't Open Until Christmas (1984). Many canine distractions during this one for me so I can't say if the movie was as not-so-great as I thought. It felt like part second or third-tier slasher movie and part dated BBC teevee police detective series. The slasher kills many Santa impersonators. Many. I did like the end. It felt more realistic and creepy than the rest of the movie and reveals why the killer was motivated towards naughtiness. Okay stuff overall.
Drinking a St. Arnold (Houston, Texas) Christmas Ale. A good solid beer. Cheers!
LOB-20
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Post by jakeawesomesnake on Dec 24, 2012 21:11:12 GMT -5
First I watched an American Christmas slasher from 1980 called To All A Goodnight which is about a killer Santa Claus and knight that go around killing in a sorority house during Christmas time. The acting, cinematograhpy, and gore is god awful. The soundtrack is alright, with some of it being good, while other parts of it are bad. The dialogue however is of the so bad it's good variety. At least the movie goes quickly.
After that I watched Italian-French horror movie The Sweet Body of Deborah from 1968 about a newlywed couple that gets harrassed and possibly haunted. Like many Italian movies I've seen it is dubbed and the dubbing is god awful; firstly it doesn't come close to matching the character's mouths and secondly the voice acting itself is god awful, absolutely atrocious. However, I still managed to enjoy the movie mainly due to having two strong factor's on it's side. The cinematograhpy is great and has multiple interesting camera angles which manages to break up what would otherwise be boring monotony, this coupled with the great jazzy soundtrack and a piece by Tcaikovsky which results in the movie moving quickly. Nothing really happens until the last third of the movie, which actually has a good , surprising twist and short ,but good gunfight. Not a good movie ,but due to the aformentioned qualities it wasn't torterous like some horrible movies I've seen.
JAS-41 points
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Post by loverofbeers on Dec 25, 2012 17:40:09 GMT -5
Okay. Here goes my best and very long attempt to cover two days of movie watching, which was interrupted at times, oh yeah, bad puppy news, the elderly woman who adopted 'Nilla Wafer frantically returned the sweet and smart gal. What a freak this lady has been for over a week. Back to square one in the adoption process. Oh well, could be worst.....
First, The Munster's Scary Little Christmas a teevee movie (1996). I thought I would hate this movie. I didn't. I only hated the pussy and worthless piece of dung that Eddie Munster was turned into. He was was bullied at school, and all sulky because he missed Transylvania during Christmas with the relatives in the "Old Country". He didn't like it in Mockingbird Heights, California, USA, or his great house on Mockingbird Lane, and was going to be a sad shoe-gazer for the near duration of the movie. The plot centered on making this worthless character happy, and that is where the good times start. So Lily takes young Eddie and starts to spruce up their house and yard all Yuletide, but in grand Munstar tradition. She also invites The Wolfman, The Creature, and other Creepy relatives and friends from Transylvania for a Christmas party in Mockingbird heights, again to cheer up miserable little Eddie. By the way, Grandpa looked anorexic or bulimic, whichever, he just didn't look like Al Lewis or healthy in general (I voted third party FOR Al Lewis in a New York Senate race in the late 1990s and against as Granpa put it "tweedle Dee and Dweedle Dum" his opponents, the ambitious like the Devil Representative Schummer and the corrupt and criminal to the core Senator Alfonzo DeMato (sp?), two real life creeps, Yay! Grandpa, a Squirt Grapefruit Flavored Cheers! to Al Lewis). Anyways, if not for the shoes he had to fill, the actor played Grandpa very well and over the top... the right way, just very skinny. Grandpa screws up Christmas by conjuring Santa and two of his horny and liquor loving elves who were nearly god-like in their magical powers and awesome abilities. Those elves were fun degenerates. Grandpa tries to figure out how to return Santa and the elves for the next almost hour of the movie and Herman who was played also very well, hangs out with Santa, a life long dream. Marylin as usual is down to earth and very hot but she doesn't know it (too bad all women aren't like that... I am a misogynist yet pro-equal opportunity and pay, I just PERSONALLY don't trust women now in my more seasoned middle life years). Back to the story, through hijinks and stumbling onto a solution after more mistakes like turning Santa into a cake, the Munsters finally save the Christmas that they originally fucked up and Herman is rewarded by getting to ride as Santa's special helper on Christmas Eve, delivering toys to the world, his big-eyed life's dream-come-true. I can't believe I liked this, minus the worthless third-tier Eddie Munster. Second I watched Black Christmas (1974), the ORIGINAL and oft-times forgotten Slasher flick from sunny Canada. I was so very impressed by this movie, this is proper Horror at it's best. And this was a Slasher flick all the way, it touched all the bases as it hit a home run. Low budget, but like John Carpenter's Halloween someday would also be, an effective and very creepy and horrific movie. I re-learned that sorority girls are very stupid. SPOILERSPOILERSPOILER Begins. How many times do you have to say "Put the phone down, and walk out the front door, DO NOT go upstairs!" by a frantic policeman on the other line, who finally in a last ditch attempt to save her from her own stupidity even told her that the killer was upstairs inside the house on another phone which as an idea that was lifted and turned into the movie When a Stranger Calls which I need to revisit from my childhood someday. SPOILERSPOILERSPOILER Ends. This was a great and classic movie with the future Lois Lane (Margot Kidder) as a foul-mouthed and funny yet vulgar future victim in this night of obscene and homicidal phone calls and vicious murders. Another aside, I guess I like crazy which is why I fear the women. Margot Kidder always and still looks so cute-sexy to me. Looks like my type, which usually is the first mistake, "My Type" is the wrong looney type, yet cute. Aaarrrgh! But if any women are reading, I jest, I jest, really....
Third from the Balkan state of Macedonia, "Zbogum na dvaesetiot vek", also known as "Goodbye to the Twentieth Century" (1998). So the movie starts off in the dystopic year 2019 in the mountains of Macedonia. In a mountain tribe of Balkan hillbillies, where everybody looks like they are out of the Yugoslavian version of The Road Warrior and heavily armed with automatic weapons, a fighter named Kuzman is wrongly blamed for all of the village's children's mysterious deaths because he had a sacreligious and perverted vision of the local lady deity/Saint and himself getting it on. He is shot to death a good number of times over the next few minutes and it is revealed that he is damned and cannot die until he ventures on an odyssey to kill the "Green Haired Man". Which he easily does. But the point here is that the future is fucked. The movie then jumps back to the present prior to the turn of the century in 1999. There is a Santa impersonator and much weirdness and symbolism that I was not in the know of but basically, the present is why the future is fucked. Oh yeah, this movie was endorsed and sponsored by the Macedonian state tourism board. I don't use the word "surreal" except once every few years, I watch a lot of movies and celebrate the weird. This movie was surreal, period. I recommend it to EDIT those who like symbolic and artistic somewhat independent foreign films. Good confusing stuff. Hey, I'm not Macedonian after all. A three-pointer for this movie.
And finally "And All Through the House" (2011) from Georgia (Bad Street), USA. A very good independent horror comedy and very original and entertaining. A big-time recommend. This was a lowish budget horror anthology with comedic elements throughout. SPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERS Begins. Here is the plot.... A dad and his son are out doing last minute Christmas shopping because his Scrooge-like boss made him work late on Christmas Eve day while the radio reports that a dangerous lunatic has escaped from the local sanitarium. We see a drunk Santa impersonator stumble out of a door onto the street when he is immediately bludgeoned by the lunatic. Donning the Santa suit, the bad man climbs into the back seat of the dad and son's car. Dad drives them all home and the family goes inside to celebrate Christmas Eve festivities and love in a troubled economic era. The Scrooge-boss (who is still at work and making the single female employee work into Christmas Night instead of going to hang with her familiars and being a lecherous asshole all the while) calls Dad at home, and with the threat of being fired on Christmas, tells and makes the Dad call the other employees to tell them that their Christmas bonuses are now cancelled (on Christmas Eve, that rotten old bastard!), and to call the soon to be retiring thirty year employee, an elderly black man from Louisiana and a practitioner of Vodun, and fire him and tell him that all of his retirement benefits are now null and void. The Dad does this via phone message, apologizes, and wishes the old man a Merry Christmas. The loony Santa hovers and creeps around the background occasionally for the next thirty or so minutes and spies on the wife, son, and dad. Oh yeah, the son has an "imaginary" friend named "Fluffy Face" who is later revealed to be real and to have glowing red eyes and crawls low to the the ground in the dark of the house's hallway. More on that later. When the Old Man hears the message, he vows to kill the Scrooge-boss via Vodun spells. He conjures up an evil spirit/imp/demon that is now unleashed to murder. This is not good enough, so he ventures to kill his ex-boss himself. Of course he runs into the imp, the "Gooba-Gooba", and slapstick violence occurs like when the Old Man trips over the Gooba-Gooba's first (still living but useless) victim in the dark of the house where all the threads of this anthology meet up and resolve over the next thirty minutes. First, the Gooba-Gooba was truly frightening, the practical make-up effects were top of the line. This monster looked REALLY good. And the technicaly enhanced effects such as see through spirits and hallucinations are so very well done and I believe will still lok "fresh" over the next several years of technical effects breakthroughs. This movie feels low budget yet it's special effects, practical and cGI, hold up proudly in my opinion in the annals of the Horror film genre. Back to the SPOIL-HEAVY plot... The Gooba-Gooba's first victim... Weeeelll, the Gooba-Gooba is crouched over outside the home and a brave and clean-cut young jock-type exits the house and sees the monster. He walks up to it with a crowbar or some such blunt tool and is about to clobber the heel, but almost shits himself, drops his weapon, turns around and tries to run to safety. Why? The Gooba-Gooba turned around and simply revealed its face. Fun creepy stuff. Thee Gooba-Gooba EATS the face off of the poor guy leaving him alive with his "only" injury being having the front of his skull, eyeballs, ears, and all skin , muscle, and sinew chewed away to the red and white bone. Well, the Gooba-Gooba leaves the useless living victim passes out on the floor of the now pitch black living room where the Old Man blindly trips over him and keeps wondering speaking out loud, "What was that thing I tripped on?" The Gooba-Gooba continues to fuck with the Old Man who conjured him while the Old Man seeks out the Scrooge. The Scrooge meanwhile is visited by a first and a second spirit who he mistakenly mistake as The Ghosts of Christmas from Dickens. They definitely are not the same, and there is no "Third Ghost". The second ghost causes Scrooge to hallucinate do final good deeds, and have a heart attack and die. The lurking Santa suddenly is eaten by "Fluffy Face". The Gooba-Gooba departs living the Old Man to go home and get a new phone message. Scrooge reversed his executive Christmas decisions prior to his untimely death. SPOILERSPOILERSPOILER ENDS. And the good guys celebrate Christmas. Yay!
I liked all four movies, except for the worthless Eddie Munster clone. He was no Butch Patrick who is a legend in Jackson Hole, Texas. Trust me, two degrees of separation from three different individuals. Mr. Patrick is a wild-man, or he was in his younger days. I'm not drinking a beer yet today, so a Squirt Grapefruit Flavored Cheers! to Butch Patrick!
Fifteen Yuletide points! Score!
LOB-35
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Post by jakeawesomesnake on Dec 25, 2012 18:32:22 GMT -5
Yeah I really liked Black Christmas , particuarly the antagonist. He's really good at crazy on the phone and that scene with his eye in the keyhole scared me when I first watched it.
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Post by loverofbeers on Dec 27, 2012 5:06:39 GMT -5
I just watched Gingerdead Man. The movie was awful (another crappy Full Moon hack production). This was one of the worst horror movies that I have ever seen. Gary Busey plays a killer who is electrocuted for murdering half a family. He was entertaining in the first few minutes but barely phoned in his performance as the killer cookie. I blame the director, the writer, and the producers.
And this god awful movie had no Festival Season anything. No points. A total waste of time.
LOB-Zero, Zilch, Nada on this abortion of "cinema".
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Post by jakeawesomesnake on Dec 27, 2012 21:11:49 GMT -5
First I watched Guillermo Del Toro's 2001 Spanish horror film The Devil's Backbone. The only thing that bugged me about it was the look of the ghost. Parts of it including the blood pouring out looked really bad ,but at the same time I thought the ghost's eyes looked creepy and liked the design itself just not the overall execution. Aside from that everything else in this movie was great. The acting, gore, realism in acts of violence, story, and cinematograhpy were all magnificent. The movie really takes advanatge of the setting in the Spanish desert. It's about a recently orphaned boy who moves to an orphanage during the Spanish Civil War and about the perils he faces there.
After that I watched John Hillcoat's (director of The Road) 2005 Australian western set at Christmas about the intertwining schemes of an outlaw gang, the authorities, and the aboriginees. Great movie right here. The acting, cinematograhpy, soundtrack, gore, and actual acts of violence are all great. Also it's both realistic and historically accurate. Don't want to give away what happens ,but I've loved the two John Hillcoat films that I've seen.
JAS-46
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Post by loverofbeers on Dec 30, 2012 15:47:05 GMT -5
First I watched the bomb of this bunch. To All a Good Night (1980) was half the original Friday the 13th (parent killing out of the loss of a child) and Prom Night (teen falling backwards to their accidental death). The one swerve and SPOILER (but, seriously, skip this one) is that BOTH of the parents are dressed as Santa and killing moronic sorority girls. Nothing to see here folks, move along, move along.
Second I watched El Dia de la Bestia (The Day of the Beast, 1995) from Spain. The Anti-Christ is due to be born on Christmas in Madrid and a sinning priest is trying to prevent this. A very black comedy Horror film that was so very wel made. I recommend this one more than just about any other movie I watched this month. Great movie-making here, folks.
Second I re-watched my favorite Christmas movie, A Very Harold and Kumar 3-D Christmas. Ridiculous but so much fun. Out of this trilogy, this one is the lamest, but these are better made movies than their predecessors by Cheech and Chong, which I loooove. Cough. I recommend this for fun seasonal times. And there is a claymated scene. Yay. I love claymation. Much penis though. Great one-liners, "I am gay for pussy", "Your coke baby has super-powers!", and countless more. Neil Patrick Harris stole his scenes again in this movie and comes off as the most predatory not gay freak. So hard to imagine that he is really gay. I can't believe that he is the Doogie Howser, M.D. which I watched in junior high every week back in the day. The guy is talented as are John Cho, Bobby Lee (Mad TV), Danny Trejo, and of course Kal Pen. The breasts in this movie were all absolutely gorgeous and looked very much like man-mades that resembled naturals. Pretty. Oh yeah, Santa smokes from a candy cane striped bong at the end. Fun times!!!!
Third, I watched El Dia de la Bestia (The Day of the Beast, 1995) from Spain. The Anti-Christ is due to be born on Christmas in Madrid and a sinning priest is trying to prevent this. A very black comedy Horror film that was so very well made. I recommend this one more than just about any other movie I watched this month. Great movie-making here, folks. No SPOILERS here except that after Harold and Kumar, this movie also had a penis shot or three (the old uncle of the Satanic heavy metal character always wears an open bathrobe and nothing else). Watch this sometime folks.
Last, I watched Violent Night: The Movie, a low budget American Horror comedy shot on a shoestring budget. This was not a good movie but it appears to be a recent independent film posted on Youtube and Facebook by the director. It was a charming little movie that could not be taken at all seriously, but that said, it made me smile at it's hokiness more than once. The last five minutes are creepy though. I dug it, but I won't recommend it to the masses (Jake and Wulf). This movie could be remade with a bigger budget and a better cast. A good time but there are so many much better movies out there.
LOB-50
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Post by loverofbeers on Dec 31, 2012 0:30:33 GMT -5
I just watched Home for the Holidays (1972), a made for teevee movie that played on ABC. Wow, what the Hell was going on during the nightmare Nixon years in this country. A movie like this wouldn't play on a broadcast (non-cable) teevee today, except for FOX. Here is the description from IMDB: "An ailing man summons his three daughters home for Christmas and asks them to kill his new wife, who he suspects is poisoning him". Well, we have a good movie here that is a thriller/horror movie with an unknown murderer in a yellow rain jacket and a pitchfork who kills these daughters and the old man. The swerve got me, it was great and I didn't see it coming. The murderer is not suspect by the viewer in this one. Truly horror in ambiance and plot, but not ONE drop of blood being seventies teevee. I recommend this one on a rainy night. Oh yeah, it stars a post Gidget Sally Fields.
Fuck it, here is IMDB again: "Four sisters return home to the country to visit there ailing father over Christmas. Their father believes that his current wife has tried to poison him, but Dr. Lindsay and the sisters disagree. A storm comes and causes the roads to be flooded and the phone lines are down. Soon it becomes clear that someone wants to kill the sisters as well when one is found murdered by cause of a pitchfork. The youngest sister then tries to run through the woods one day to reach Sheriff Nolan for help. But she has her own encounter as she sees someone chasing her dressed in a large poncho carrying the pitchfork. She turns back home, only to discover that her other sister and her father were murdered as well. The suspect becomes clear it was NOT (EDIT to correct the reviewer on IMDB, they missed the word "NOT") their father's wife, but was it someone else?"
Maybe Hollywood should look at the plots of some of these made for teevee movies since original ideas have seemingly evaporated in that town obsessed with remaking and re-imagining the old. Drinking a St. Arnold (Houston, Texas) Winter Stout, not a small beer but not a 10% plus ABV monster. Good stuff year after year, Texas mild winter after Texas mild winter. Cheers!
LOB-54
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Post by jakeawesomesnake on Jan 1, 2013 2:45:14 GMT -5
In my last push I first watched so bad it's good masterpiece and Christmas horror film Jack Frost about a killer snowman. Everything from the acting to plot to actual killer snowman is so absurdly bad that it is funny. I thought the soundtrack consisting of rock covers of Christmas classics was great. SO glad to have finally watched this movie after seeing it's poster in a rental store as a child.
Then I watched 1974 Christmas horror movie Silent Night, Bloody Night. This is a bad movie ,but nonetheless still has a few so bad it's good moments such as the random guy running around on fire or the fact that Carradine speaks throughout the whole movie with a bell and still manages to be the most likeable character.
JAS-54
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Post by loverofbeers on Jan 1, 2013 8:23:39 GMT -5
Final score for the month, LOB-54 and JAS-54
What a month. I was nearing the last minutes of Tales From the Crypt, the final story in the anthology, last night with thirty minutes to our deadline to go and.... a puppy put its face on my keyboard to get a head scratching, and there went my download too late and too long to download before midnight Pacific time. Jake, I almost beat you last night. You owe my pup a head scratch!
You won the last competition, you are still in the driver's seat. Mystery Box averted for at least another month. What's the competition gonna be for January 2013? Oh yeah, have a great new year Sir!
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