It's October - who wants to watch some SCARY MOVIES? (1 Viewer)

[Bruce Hedtke]

I can thank this thread for getting me to watch a bypassed genre. Since I've not watched many horror films in my time, I'm catching up with the latest releases of that genre. And, for that, I curse this thread!
Anyhow, Valentine was the latest disaster, I mean horror film, to befall my axe. Standard, by the numbers teen horror film that didn't even have the benefit of gratuituous nudity. What passed for a plot was as old as the genre itself. Betrayel, revenge and a raging case of teen crush gone madly wrong. Maybe it's me, but why do all these teen films all center on how malicious and mean-spirited teens can be to one another? Put down after put down...every one of these girls should've been spending their time pining away in some room wondering why they didn't have any freinds. Just despicable.
The audio/video was good. Sharp, clear and full of surround activity that helped set moods and establish tension. But, of course, the actual actors had not the ability to make it believable anyhow.
Valentine

Up Next: Stigmata
Bruce
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Welcome aboard the Satellite of Love
[Edited last by Bruce Hedtke on October 13, 2001 at 04:28 PM]

 

[Brook K]

Well, I watched 3 pseudo-horror films, but I'm not sure any of them really count as horror, they certainly weren't scary.
Young Frankenstein was a disappointment. I don't know if it was the years of buildup, or seeing some of the better lines on countless highlight reels but I just didn't find the movie that funny. I could count the laughs on one hand. No where close to as good as Blazing Saddles.
Joy Ride started out interesting and I like that Leelee is braless throughout, but once the characters are getting stalked, it's just like every other crappy teen/20 something "thriller".
Coffin Joe: Awakening of the Beast: I own At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul and liked it quite a bit so I've been wanting to see the other Coffin Joe films. This is supposed to be his masterpiece but I didn't get a whole lot out of it. It's more of a Fellini-esque "trip" movie than horror. A psychiatrist regales a room full of intelligentsia about various sexual/drug vignettes, than there's something of a summation of director Jose Majica Merens' career via TV doc, than he's put on trial, than there's the obligatory looonnnggg trip scene before Coffin Joe's final appearance. Maybe this is one of those films that were meant to be seen while high.
One thing to recommend it, it has a Bridge on the River Kwai parody that must be seen to be believed.
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"It's funny how the colors of the real world only seem really real when you viddy them on the screen"
S&S Challenge: 72 ...24
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[Mitty]

Thanks for the reminder Brook, re: 'Joy Ride.' I was hoping to have at least one theatrical scary movie viewing as part of this challenge, but I couldn't think of any in circulation.
I took Wes and Ricky's collective advice and rented Black Christmas. I didn't find it scary per se, but since it predates Halloween and, say, When A Stranger Calls, it's pretty clear that a lot of concepts were introduced in BC that were driven into the ground by a lot of lesser films (not that 'Halloween' is a lesser film). It's a very good movie, with a lot of humour near the beginning (Margot Kidder and the woman who plays the House Mother are both very funny) which mostly erodes away as the film builds momentum. It's very well structured. I appreciated that the police (with the exception of the useless tit policeman) don't just dismiss the threats, but take them very seriously.
One thing that's hard to miss for a Canadian and especially a Torontonian, is how very Canadian the film is. SCTV's Andrea Martin in a dramatic part, Margot Kidder, and cast members from 'North of 60' and 'Seeing Things' in early roles. Even the first girl to "disappear" was played by the same woman who played the female lead in Strange Brew. Plus, the whole film was shot on the University of Toronto campus (my alma mater).
It's a very well acted and well structured movie; it's good storytelling, and it's easy to imagine its influence on the genre.
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Do you like SCARY MOVIES?
Scary Movie Challenge: 13, 12, 11, 10 9 to go!

 

[Brian Lawrence]

Ah hell I'll give 15 a shot
-Die Monster Die- Watched 10/14, A pretty good gothic horror flick with a silly title. The 16:9 transfer on this MGM dvd looks great

-Dracula (Spanish version that I have been meaning to get to)
-Dunwich Horror- Watched for first time on 10/21 - MGM have certainly turned out a great looking dvd that does an admirable job of handling all of the films intense colors but I could not help but giggle every time a young Dean Stockwell would try to look menacing and mysterious. The storyline reminds me a lot of THE NINTH GATE. I liked some of the psychedelic visuals but all in all I felt that this flick kind of blew the donkey.

-House by the Cemetery (never seen)
-The Mummy (1932)Watched 10/28 for the first time.

-Tales of Terror-Watched for the first time 10/14, Three stories in one movie, "The Black Cat" was great while the other two where just okay. The disc is another winner from MGM

-Twice Told Tales Watched on 10/15 for the first time. Like 'Tales of Terror' this contains three stories and all three star Vincent Price. I found this film to be a little more consistent as all 3 stories where excellent. The 1.66 non-anamorphic transfer is very nice with a clear image and vibrant colors

-The Faculty Watched for first time on 10/16. This movie had it's moments but was nothing to write home about. Cheesy entertainment.
-Oasis of the Zombies(never seen)
-Pieces- Started to watch this one but could not endure more than 15 minutes, This dvd is crap crap crappity crap crap. It looks to have been transferred off of an EP VHS tape. Opening credits are cropped off the screen, Image is nothing more than video mush. This disc was overpriced at $6.00

-Castle Freak (Have not seen in years)
-Halloween III (I watch this one every year)
-Fascination
-House on Sorority Row (I've been needing an excuse to finally buy this one)
-Whip and The Body- Watched for first time on 10/14, Gothic romance/Horror from Mario Bava. I kind of liked this film but would not rank it among Bava's best work. The dvd has a nice non-anamorphic transfer of the restored 3 strip technicolor film print. I have not yet listened to Tim Lucas's running commentary, But expect that it will be a good one, as he seems very knowledgeable about Bava in his postings over at http://www.mhvf.net/forum/euro/index.shtml
[Edited last by Brian Lawrence on October 29, 2001 at 11:17 AM]

 

[rhett]

13 Films?! Why not make it 31
In the last few days I've watched
Carrie: De Palma's best in my opinion. The opening shower scene was beautifully shot and the performances were top notch.
Bram Stolker's Dracula: Watched this in a film class, the plot is a little shakey with lots of confusion and dead ends, but the photography is amazing!
American Werewolf In London: I never tire of this film, no matter how many times I see it! A whole lot of fun, and for my money, special makeup effects don't get better than Baker's work with the werewolf transformation scene. Love the soundtrack too.
Friday the 13th Part 5: One of the weaker entries in the series, but still a nice nostalgic trip back to the 80's slasher craze. Some decent death scenes, and T&A, but other than that, pretty shallow.
Friday the 13th Part 6: Very strong follow up to the Jason series, with this one often going into self-parody. This plays like a clever wink-wink B movie, and succeeds on every level. The 007 spoof is great.
Sleepaway Camp: Another 80's slasher (what can I say, I'm hooked) but this film benefits from one of the best shock endings ever in a horror film (right up their with the original Friday the 13th). The rest of the film is mildly entertaining, but it is all the ending that makes this film.
Cape Fear: Travis Bickle meets Freddy Krueger! A great take on the original classic, with standout performances all around. Making the family not-so-perfect really works well in creating tension throughout the film.
Dressed To Kill: Saw it for the first time, and I must say I was rather disappointed. It was pretty obvious right from the start who the killer was, and this film is a total Hitchcock rip-off in every sense. Good performances and some intruiging camera work by De Palma make this entertaining, but not nearly the film I was expecting.
Boogeymen DVD: Although not really a movie, I spent a fair bit of time on this, and should get some credit in the challenge! Not a bad little DVD, although many of the scenes shown for each killer were not their best, it was still nice to take a trip back to memory lane with all these quintessential horror icons.
Halloween II: I've always had a soft spot for this series, and watching Donald Pleasence go off the deep end in his portrayal of psycho Dr. Loomis ("I SHOT HIM SIX TIMES!!"). While not nearly as good as the original, there are still some good frights, and one can never tire of watching Ms. Curtis on the run. The 2.35:1 ratio is a bonus too, as I've always favored the wider ratio for horror films.
Friday the 13th: The one that cashed in on Halloween and started the whole horror craze of the 80's...Although I enjoy Part 2, 3 and The Final Chapter better, I still feel this is an enjoyable little film. Betsy Palmer hams it up as Ms. Voorhees, and nothing beats seeing Kevin Bacon get speared through the neck The ending is a perfect little shocker as well!
So that's 11 of a total 13 in about 5 days, not bad! I am going to try and delve a little bit into more "respectable" horror and watch The Wicker Man tomorrow, as well as Peeping Tom. Great thread, I love reading posts from fellow horror buffs!
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[Seth Paxton]

1) The Mummy Returns
Well, I'm not sure if I should count it since it's really more action than horror, but for now I will. I thought the first one was a lot of fun, even though it was 2nd rate Raiders obviously. This one used TOO MUCH CGI, not enough focus on reality. Couldn't it have ended with The Rock looking like himself, that wouldn't have been bad enough? Nope, we have to get some computer moron involved with bad artistic skills to ruin what could have been a pretty exciting ending (who didn't want to see the Rock come in and start whipping butt at the end).
2) Phantasm
A repeat viewing for me of a film that scared the hell out of me as a kid. Still nice and creepy, lots of fun. There's a song that samples the "You've played a good game boy" lines, but I can't remember what it is and at the time I had forgotten that they had come from this film.
Anyway, I was really struck by how much this film felt like Susperia which I just saw before OCT (so I can't count it) for the first time. Not sure if the influence is there, but if DC said a film like that affected him, I would believe it.
Makes you long for those days of good mood horror films.
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[Hedde]

Scarrrrryy.....HOHOHOHO
So here I am, I been in this challenge this last week, but it´s been a mess about my password to this forum. so I haven´t been able to write something in here. but here I am!
Great challenge, this is a perfect time for me to see all those horror movies I been wanted to see, well not ALL of them. but some of them
Well it´s was quite easy to put up a list, unfortunately I couldn't get all those movies I wanted to, but what the hell this will do.
And by the way isn´t 13 movies a quite small amount?
I mean I watched 5 movies in two days.
couldn't we expand the amount a little? like 20 or something? that would be great!
so now to my list:
Hellraiser
The Shining (Kubricks)
Blair Witch Project
Halloween
Psycho
Rocky Horror Picture Show
Rosemarys Baby
Night Of The Living Dead
Scream
Cut
Children Of The Corn
Army Of Darkness
I have come around to watch:
Night Of The Living Dead
Scream
Cut
Children Of The Corn
Army Of Darkness
Re-animator
and I will post reviews of all of the later but now
Night Of The Living Dead :
First of all, what a great movie?!
I have never seen this movie before, but as I sat down and watched it, it really got to me. WOW!
this was great, the storytelling, the situation, the actors
and the end
I think it was in style with, psycho and other Hitchcock movies. now I can´t wait until I get to see :
Dawn of the dead
and
Day Of The Dead
Anybody seen these?
well, great thread
keep it up!
and don't stop watching those horror movies!
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[Mitty]

Welcome to the forum, Hedde.
I picked 13 for the simple reason that it's the same number I used last year, only that was over a mere 13 days. A lot of people didn't finish. I did, for fear of shame at not completing a challenge that I started.
For myself, it's unusual for me to watch 13 horror films in a month. I'm not willing to watch horror movies exclusively. After all, a lot of us have recently acquired the Godfather trilogy among other things. We're busy couch potatoes!
However, if you wanna leave us squarely in the dust, that'd be cool, we'll happily welcome your insights.
Cheers!

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Scary Movie Challenge: 13, 12, 11, 10 9 to go!

 

[Peter M Fitzgerald]

Since I didn't have anything in particular I had to do yesterday, I ended up watching 9 films (all horror films on VHS that I'd never seen before in their entirety) in a row within a 16-hour day, surpassing my previous record of 7. They were, in order:
1) THE MEPHISTO WALTZ (1971) A pretty good feature film made by people normally associated with network tv (star Alan Alda, producer Quinn Martin (THE UNTOUCHABLES, THE FUGITIVE, CANNON, etc), Paul Wendkos), involving witchcraft & satanism amongst modern-day elite society, likely inspired by the success of ROSEMARY'S BABY. It took a turn towards the climax I wasn't expecting. Jacqueline Bisset was as luscious as usual.
2) THE HORROR CHAMBER OF DR. FAUSTUS (1959-French, aka EYES WITHOUT A FACE) The granddaddy of all those medical horror films about skin grafts taken from murdered girls and used to restore the scarred face of a mad doctor's once-beautiful loved one. Classy, often poetic imagery from director Georges Franju. Unusually jaunty (considering the film's subject matter), carnival-like theme music by Maurice Jarre, which would be very much at home in a Fellini film.
3) CAPTIVE WILD WOMAN (1943) Edward Dymytryk (THE CAINE MUTINY) directed this fun quickie about a mad scientist (John Carradine, in oily mode), who, through "gland transplants", transforms a big hairy gorilla into a lovely human woman (Aquanetta), who can scare lions & tigers with a glance, and has a super-jealous crush on a lion tamer (Milburn Stone), who is engaged to Evelyn Ankers (whom Aquanetta wants to jealously crush, after reverting to her simian state in a rage). When Carradine's nurse gets cold feet about experimenting on humans & animals, Carradine has no qualms about transplanting her brain into the ape's body, in the name of SCIENCE! A lot of the fun is from the breakneck pace that all this pulp nonsense is squeezed into the film's brief, 61-minute running time.
4) JUNGLE WOMAN (1944) Aquanetta returns as the Ape Girl, but this film, directed by the dreaded Reginald LeBorg, was a dud. The film is told in flashback, during an inquest. A quarter of the movie was eaten up by a recap of the first film ("Previously, on CAPTIVE WILD WOMAN..."), except the climax, involving Evelyn Ankers being abducted by Carradine, somehow never happened. This film's mad scientist, J. Carroll Naish, isn't mad. There's a dim-witted lunk (think "Lenny" from OF MICE & MEN), played badly ("Awwww...whatta gyp...") by a guy who looks like a third-rate Broderick Crawford. Aquanetta isn't shown in any monster makeup, except for a final shot, after she's dead.
5) JUNGLE CAPTIVE (1945) Not quite as fun as CAPTIVE WILD WOMAN, but a vast improvement over JUNGLE WOMAN. Aquanetta is gone, so Vicky Lane plays the resurrected Ape Girl. Same plot as the other two movies in this series, with Otto Kruger as the mad scientist (fortunately he's mad in this, plus he has a periodic edge of sarcasm, good for some laughs), and Rondo Hatton as his deformed assistant, who has a habit of killing witnesses.
6) NIGHT TIDE (1962) A creepy mood piece from director Curtis Harrington, in which sailor Dennis Hopper (strange seeing him as a relatively happy, normal guy, rather than a psycho or neurotic) falls for a mysterious girl who plays a mermaid in a boardwalk attraction. Quite well-done, for an early "indie" film with almost no budget.
7) CRY OF THE BANSHEE (1970-British) Historical horror, somewhat along the lines of THE WITCHFINDER GENERAL (1968-British), aka THE CONQUEROR WORM), starring Vincent Price as a local magistrate in 15th Century England, where witchcraft is afoot. Some nice period detail, but not all that well-directed (by Gordon Hessler), nor as atmospheric as it should have been. It has a moderately shocking ending, though, and opening credits animated by Terry Gilliam.
8) INVASION OF THE SAUCER MEN (1957) Cheapo drive-in favorite of teens versus little bug-eyed, big-headed space men who inject alcohol into people via needles in their fingers. Done as a comedy by director Edward L. Cahn (THE FOUR SKULLS OF JONATHAN DRAKE), but has an atmospheric quality (the whole story takes place at night), and scenes of the aliens repeatedly attacking Frank Gorshin with their needle-fingers is a bit nightmarish. Plus the crawling, dismembodied alien hand with its own little eyeball was pretty cool.
9) DON'T LOOK NOW (1973-British) Very creepy, sophisticated suspense from director Nicholas Roeg (WALKABOUT), about a man (Donald Sutherland) haunted by visions of his drowned daughter, and his wife (Julie Christie) getting chummy with a psychic blind woman in Venice, Italy. The narrative is intentionally fragmented and oblique, which kept me guessing, on the one hand, but blunted my sense of satisfaction a bit when it was over. The climax was particularly chilling, however. Well worth seeing.
Current scary film tally: 15 watched
Next up: DVDs of 13 GHOSTS ('60) and THE MUMMY ('59)...

 

[Mitty]

Allow me to be the first to congratulate you, Peter, on having completed (obliterated?) my little challenge.
Perhaps next year, I'll have to set it up in divisions/tiers:
Lightweight:

Horror-ific:

MAXIMUM BLOODSHED:

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Scary Movie Challenge: 13, 12, 11, 10 9 to go!

 

[Peter M Fitzgerald]

Mitty,
Thanks. Mutationship has its privileges...

[Edited last by Peter M Fitzgerald on October 14, 2001 at 01:45 PM]

 

[Brian Lawrence]

As I don't really have a whole lot to say, I will just edit my earlier post with updates as I watch more on the list.

 

[Scott Bell]

Since last post I have had a "Living Dead" marathon:
Night of the Living Dead
Dawn of the Dead
Day of the Dead
Return of the Living Dead I, II, III
also Zombie thrown in the mix
current Horror movie total......22
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"What the smeggin' smeg have I smeggin' done?!" -Lister

 

[Brook K]

I'm making my own ruling and counting Joy Ride and Awakening of the Beast, but not Young Frankenstein. So that makes for a piddling total of 3 so far. I watched The Shining last night because I'm still working my way through the Kubrick set, but since I've seen it many, many times, though never looking close to this good, I'm not counting it.
I have a new batch of 4 ready to go from Netflix, but I imagine they won't arrive until the end of the week.
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"It's funny how the colors of the real world only seem really real when you viddy them on the screen"
S&S Challenge: 72 ...24
DVD BEAVER

My DVD Collection

 

[Hedde]

So Here i am again, this time i have watched
Rosemarys Baby (untill now unseen)
and
Re-Animator (untill now unseen)
so that leves me with 6 movies left :
Hellraiser
The Shining (Kubricks)
Blair Witch Projekt
Helloween
Psyco
Rocky Horror Picture Show
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Rosemarys Baby
I must say i was pretty impressed, the way Polanski make you feel about the caracters in the movie, especially Rosemary
he used the first hour to build up what to come, and when it finaly did. you really felt for them, you cried with them and you pitty them.
all in all the movie had this undergrowing feling of paronoia, who can you thrust? am i crazy? is there a plot agains me? and this was great!
good movie, good actors and a hell of a story!
3,5 av 5
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Re-Animator
well this was the first time i ever saw this, and i didn´t really know what to expect. i mean surely i had heard that the movie excisted, if not well i damn find uot in American Beauty, right
well it was a nice movie, most of the time i didn´t know if i were to laugh or be scared? and well most of the time i was both i really enjoyed this movie, and i think i will watch this movie several times more in the future! if was just so damned funny sometimes, but in a good way. not in Braindead way whitch in My honest opinion wasn´t funny, it was just to damned silly for me. And it didn´t have that selfcontrol Re-animated had, it know how to balance humor and horror. And it got it just right. A very enjoable movie!
3,5 of 5
so this was the movies for this time, i probably post reviews for my earlier movies tomorrow. look out for them
and remember...
Don´t stop watching those horror movies !
and by the way, i be right back!
Hedde
October Horror Fest!
15...10...7 and i have 6 to go!

 

[Sam Hatch]

I slammed back a few flicks this weekend. Still haven't gotten around to watching the tried and true favorites, but I still can't stop picking through the mountain of VHS horrors I recently recieved as hand-me-downs. So Sunday night was filled with the silly fun of:
Popcorn, the first one on my roster that I'd seen before. Still silly, not as great as the tape case makes it out to be - but fun regardless. The movies within the movie are probably the biggest kick throughout. I still don't know why there's a (very unscary) Reggae festival in the middle of the film. I know it was shot in Jamaica, so maybe the director got the band to invest in the project in return for a prominent spot in the film. And you gotta love that 'blink-and-you'll-miss-it' performance by Ray Walston!
Igor and the Lunatics was about as bad as it gets. I'm a sucker for the horrible experiences, so I stuck it out. It's a wildly unfocused story of a 60's LSD cult that just won't die out. Lots of silliness in the woods, bad special effects and even worse acting. The oddest bit is that Igor isn't even the cult leader. I guess 'Paul and the Lunatics' didn't sound as catchy. Then it was...
The Devonsville Terror, which I had seen ten minutes of back in the '80s on cable. The bit with Donald Pleasance retrieving worms has stuck with me ever since, so I was eager to finally watch this Ulli Lommel flick in full.
It was shot well, and had surprisingly strong performances.
Storywise, it seems to bite off a bit more than it can chew.
It would have been a great miniseries, but ninety minutes just doesn't allow the story to get told properly. Still, I don't think I've ever seen a better 'death by flaming wheel' scene!
And just to mix the bad with the great, I went to the theaters earlier in the eve to finally see The Others - which was simply incredible. Probably the best ghost movie I have ever seen. The limbo-like world of the island castle was perfectly done to sustain a mood of unease from start to finish. As opposed to a movie that 'never lets up' in action, this never lets you stop feeling this heavy, isolated oppression. So in mood alone this film wins any contest hands down.
Spoiler:Story-wise, it's incredible. The script is just downright brilliant. Stories focusing on the ghosts have been done, but the concept of a familty of ghosts haunted by the living was fucking perfect. I love how you don't get to see any live people until the last ten minutes. This was crafted exceptionally well. You can figure out bits and pieces, but the 'big picture' is a wonderful surprise. And it doesn't come out of a nonsensical left field either. This was so well written I'm simply stunned. Needless to say the acting/directing/cinematography etc. was similarly sublime.
The sound field was wonderful as well. Surrounds were VERY aggressive when used and added greatly to the creepiness. The 'junk room' scenes had powerful surrounds that really sunk their hooks in. And this was one of those rare occasions where 'shock jump' type scares are perfectly used.
That pretty much sums it up. Perfect. If there's a better ghost movie out there, I have yet to run across it.
Okay, now back to the schlock!
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"Negative. I am a meat popsicle."
[Edited last by Sam Hatch on October 16, 2001 at 07:31 AM]
[Edited last by Sam Hatch on October 16, 2001 at 07:40 AM]

 

[Peter M Fitzgerald]

Latest viewing:
13 GHOSTS (1960), directed by gimmick master William Castle. I've seen this several times before, but watching the new DVD was a new experience, thanks to Columbia Tristar finally giving it to us in its original "Illusion-O" format, including opening and closing sequences featuring director Castle himself, that are normally missing from prints that have been shown on TV and released on LD and VHS.
13 GHOSTS is very cheesy, and as a movie, is a bit inferior to many of Castle's other films, particularly THE TINGLER (1959), HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL (1958), and HOMICIDAL (1961). But the film is still a lot of low-rent fun, mostly due to "Illusion-O". In this process, color sequences in the black & white film are printed blue, with the ghosts printed red, and viewing them thru the red portion of the 3D-like "Ghost Viewer" makes them appear more distinct and luminous. Viewing them though the blue portion makes them disappear (more or less), and watching the film without the viewers works fine, although the ghosts don't pop out from the background as well. When the film is shown entirely in black and white, as it is on the other side of the DVD, you can bearly make the ghosts out at all.
The film isn't really horrifying, though it tries to be, here and there. It plays like OZZIE & HARRIT MOVE INTO DISNEY'S HAUNTED MANSION. The cast is professional, but rather blah (Donald Woods, Martin Milner), apart from Margaret "I'll get you, my pretty" Hamilton as the witchy housekeeper, and she isn't given much screen time. The thin plot exists merely as a vehicle for "Illusion-O". Still, I love it whenever the big "Use Viewers Now" message appears on the screen. The scene where Donald Woods puts on his special glasses in the cellar, and sees ghosts for the first time (and the number "13" burned (sort of) into his hand), is probably the best scene in the picture.
A good, tame Halloween night flick for little kids (its intended audience).
Current scary film tally: 15 watched
Next up: THE MUMMY ('59), and probably AND NOW THE SCREAMING STARTS ('73) and SPECTRE ('77)

 

[Bruce Hedtke]

Stigmata
Starts off a bit sluggish, hits a tremendous peak in the middle and dwindles down to a standard, ho-hum ending. Patricia Arquette gives another strong, understated performance as Frankie, a woman with no religious connection but who begins displaying the Stigmata. According to Catholicism, only the most deeply religious persons can bear the Stigmata, yet we are told to believe she became afflicted because her mother sent a rosary in the mail?? That is a mighty big jump in plausibility. The film does settle after that and becomes quite intense and powerful. Arquette is perfectly cast as an aggressive, confused and terrified woman. If the film could have carried the middle intensity all the way to the end, it might have been a classic. But, it spoiled itself by wrapping it all up in a hurried, uneven manner that seemed to suggest her affliction could have been driven out at any time by nothing more than a forceful denouncement. There was an alternate ending available and it made a hell of a lot more sense and would've underscored the hopelessness of Frankies plight with conviction. As it were, the feel good ending really dragged Stigmata down.
Stigmata

Next up...Night of the Living Dead
Bruce
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Welcome aboard the Satellite of Love

 

[Dome Vongvises]

Well, hell, I think I'll take a pause from AFI and have a little bit of Halloween fun.
I will try to watch the following, bold titles are ones I've never seen and want to see.
1. Suspiria
- quite possibly one of the scariest movies I've ever seen
2. Halloween
- classic Carpenter
3. Black Christmas
- Wes Ray will be showing this movie for the umpteenth time to me. Good golly miss molly.....
4. Rosemary's Baby
- I hate this movie. But like 2001, I actually believe it deserves a second chance.
5. The Haunting (original version)
- See number #4 above.
6. The Wicker Man
- If it's good enough, then I'll definately get the limited edition wooden box set.
7. The Phantasm
- Shiny ball of death? Can't pass this one up.
8. The Re-Animator
- The Dead rising from the grave, and a woman receiving oral sex from a corpse's head? NOW THIS I GOTTA SEE!!!
9. The Excorcist
- "What an excellent day for an exorcism..."
10. Hellraiser
- Something about Pinhead makes me want to say, "Ouch"
11. Opera
- It's Dario Argento. Need a reason?
12. Bram Stoker's Dracula
- The world's most eclectic cast
13. Scream
- I'm probably the only HTF member who probably liked this Scooby Doo mystery.
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My DVD Collection

 

[Seth Paxton]

Well, I just got back from finally seeing The Others. An excellent horror film done in that 60's/70's style familiar from films like Legend of Hell House and the Lee/Cushing pairings in Hammer films. I always thought that style carried strong horror weight with the cold, flushed out colors and lots of fog lighting, houses made with pale white stone exteriors.
The film is well directed and very entertaining. Highly recommended although I did figure out anything that you might figure out about halfway through the film, but it didn't matter. It was more a case of the story being well-told which allows you to correctly anticipate it, and I still enjoyed seeing the story unfold. My g/f had no idea so it at least kept her off-gaurd.
This film is classic horror right there with something like The Changling.