***Official 6th Annual HTF October Scary Movie Challenge*** (1 Viewer)

[Bonnie*F]

Why not? I'm not a bit horror fan - the old cheesy monster movies, oh yea, but the genre of "horror" I mentally connect with slasher films.

But it'll give me a chance to deliberately watch some movies that I normally wouldn't...and that is always a plus.

Death Takes a Holiday (1934) I had never seen the original (having only seen the 1971 TV movie previously)so I knew the basic premise - Death becomes mortal, wishing to understand why humans fight him so much in the end. There were times that I was about to change the station since it was not holding my interest but I stayed with it. Fredric March seems a bit over the top in places which I attribute more to the writing, directing and the time-period this movie originally was intended.

Nick Knight (1989) This was the pilot for the TV series "Forever Knight" which - I admit - I watched years ago (yes, I have the TV DVD sets). Basic premise: Detective is investigating case where homeless people are being murdered while second case involves stolen artifact. Oh, yea, cop is a vampire. A couple of times I was thinking "did this in the series" and yet the series came second. The actual cases were emphasized more than the fact that the investigator happened to be a vampire.

2006 Scary Movie Challenge
1. Death Takes a Holiday (1934)
2. Nick Knight (1989)

 

[Jason Roer]

Hey All,

I knocked off one today that I had begun yesterday.

Creepshow - Well I can't say much positive about this one. I was really looking forward to it; I've been on the lookout for a good anthology movie. I found myself watching the clock more than the screen. I really wanted to stick it out in the hopes maybe one of the stories would have held my interest. One was alright. It was the one with Leslie Nielson and Ted Danson.

I was surprised to see that one of the stories had Ed Harris in it. Amazingly you could see he was a standout actor even in this film. He never went over the top like most of the rest of the cast.

Next up is a real bedtime horror/comedy classic - Young Frankenstein.

Hope everyone enjoyed their movies today.

Cheers,

Jason

2005 Scary Movie List
1. Tim Burton's Corpse Bride (4/5)
2. Night of the Living Dead (5/5)
3. Dawn of the Dead (2.5/5)
4. Poltergeist (4/5)
5. Creepshow (1/5)

 

[Matt Stone]

Haha. I would have definitely been kicking her out of the house with that kind of a statement. C'mon...Silver Bullet has Terry O'Quinn for God's sake.

I was able to squeeze in Creepshow 2 without being paged into work again. This was a first for me, and my reaction is so-so. I really liked The Raft, and Old Chief Woodenhead was passable, but The Hitchiker was pretty sucktastic. Enjoyable...but not as much as the first.


2005 Scary Movie List
1. House on the Edge of the Park (1/5)
2. Children of the Corn (2.5/5)
3. Creepshow 2 (1.5/5)

 

[Garrett Lundy]

Garrett's 2005 Scary Movie Challenge.

All films being seen for the 1st time are in Red. Films are described briefly, and followed by a number grade:
1/5 = Terrible. Among the worst films possible. Seriously, pointing the camera in the wrong direction bad.
2/5 = Bad movie. And there are alot of them in the world.
3/5 = Average movie. The kind of movie you forget you watched last week.
4/5 = Good movie.
5/5 = Excellant movie. A rare gem, to be studied and loved.

10/2 The Addiction (1995): Vampirism as drug addiciton metaphor meets first year philosophy major "doomed race" fatalist attitude. Cigarette smoking and navel-gazing abounds. Holocaust images are mixed in to make the film even more cheerful!

Overall Score 2/5 (A bad movie, but still better than Torque)

10/3 April Fool's Day (1986): A group of wealthy college students spend time at Muffy's summer house, and pretty soon they all start dying-off one by one. Is the killer the ferryman who was injured because of an April Fool's Day prank??
The acting is only so-so, the haircuts and clothes don't age well, but the cinematography and directing are spot-on, and the ending boosts the film straight from 'average' to 'good' all by itself.

Overall Score 4/5 (A better than average slasher movie)

10/4 Flesh For The Beast (2003): A group of ghost hunters, filmmakers, and a psychic attempt to rid an old mansion/whorehouse of its evil spirits.
A horrible movie, shot horribly on cheap film and video. Mostly just titties & gore. Of course if you like titties & gore, this film is probably great. bad acting, bad directing, bad cinematography, bad fake blood, bad monster FX, bad bad bad..... But the titties are good.

Overall Score 2/5 (A bad movie, even by slasher-movie standards)

10/5 The Company Of Wolves (1984): A budget 'Red Riding Hood'. Mainly a cautionary tale of sexual predators for teenage girls.
Looks like it might have been a made for TV film (it just has that look), gore hounds might like the practical-effect werewolf transformation, which is better than any computer version so far, but maybe not upto AAWIL, or The Howling. Or maybe you like this one more, its a personal choice.

Overall Score: 3/5 (But a very tame film, target audience: tweens.)

10/5 The Amityville Horror (2005): 1979's essential haunted-house film redone for a modern audience.
A decent cast, big budget and some very good tense build-up ultimately lead into ho-hum FX, a stupid reveal, and cheap "cat scares".

Overall Score: 3/5 (this is about as good as you can expect from a studio film these days).

10/6 An American Werewolf In London (1981): Good werewolf horror/black comedy movie. premiered within weeks of the "other" werewolf horror/black comedy The Howling. The movie remains good decades later, and the creature effects stand the test of time.

Overall Score: 4/5

10/11 House On Haunted Hill (1999): Remake of a ho-hum 50's B movie. This one has oodles of ghost special effects, and a cast that at least isn't comprised entirely of teenagers.

Overall Score: 3/5 (average film)

10/11 Undead (2003au/2005us): Australian Shaun Of The Dead. I rented it assuming it was horror, but its really a comedy/horror. the films are different, but have similar stories (at least the first 90 minutes), and a similar comedy style.

Overall Score: 3/5 (4/5 if you really liked SOTD).

10/16 Red Riding Hood (2003): Stupid, stupid movie. 12 year old girl and her "dog" go on a vigilante justified killing spree in Rome. Horribly acted and shot on videotape. If this movie cost $5000 I would be shocked.

Overall Score: 2/5 (really bad, but at least it makes some kind of
sense).

10/16 Return Of The Living Dead 3 (1993): The last in the series of "classic" ROTLD zombies. Really bad, and having no redeeming qualities. I'd watch it only to do something like bolster your horror-movie challenge numbers.

Overall Score: 2/5

10/16 Return Of The Living Dead 4:Necropolis (2005): This and "rave of the grave" were filmed back-to-back. The "new" line of zombies are more Resident Evil, they are killable with enough bullets, headshots are not required. The look is dark & gritty (1-3 had a saturated color palette). Zombie intelligence is limited to screaming "Brains!" and shuffling. Except for Zeke who speaks with perfect english and is an expert in the unarmed martial arts!

Story involves a half dozen or so 25 year old highschoolers to invade a guarded tower and save their captured friends from zombies. Include's BBEG (big bad evil guy in game speak) zombies, which are a cross between Star Trek's Borg, and Wolfenstein 3-D's augmented gun zombies.

Overall Score: 2/5 (bad movie, but nice looking)

10/16 Return Of The Living Dead 5: Rave To The Grave (2005). And the zombie mythos changes again, becoming DOTD, meaning zombies must be shot in the head to be killed regardless of gunshots to the body. The zombies are a bit more active this time around. And the filmmakers try to restore some of the comedy of the original, but fail (three bad visual jokes does not a comedy movie make). This one has bumbling INTERPOL agents, and more zombie titties!

Overall Score: 2/5 (bad, yet again... its been a crappy day for me :frowning: )

10/19 Das Tesament des Dr.Mabuse (1933). This "landmark" film is a police procedural with a villain possessing supernatural powers. It hasn't aged well in 72 years and wouldn't even make for a good episode of Medium in 2005.

Overall Score: 2/5 (booooooring)

10/19 High Tension (2003France/2005US). Wow! Don't walk run to th nearest videostore and rent this DVD. The film is nearly perfect until the ending, and I do have a nit-pick with an earlier on poor special effect. The performances were spot-on (especially Cecile de France), suprising in a slasher genre picture.

This is also the best example of a great movie title. starting about 10 minutes in the tension just builds and never lets up. For best effect do not pause the movie to answer the phone/go to the bathroom. Take it like a man, you'll thank me afterwards.

Overall Score: 4/5 (Would have been nearly perfect if it ended 10 minutes sooner).

[COLOR=royal blue]2005 Halloween Challenge Complete[/color]
Score: 11 of 14 were first viewings!

EDIT: On further thought I had to drop a star for High Tension. The second ending really disrupts the intensity of the film. I guess less really could have been more (but the film would have been quite short)

10/21 The Beast Of Bray Road (2005): Werewolf movie. made with no money by some poor guy and all his friends (everyone in the movie appears to be 25). Very Stupid.

Star Wars 2 & 3 may have been nice, but digital video has allowed far more shitty movies to be made for no money than should be legal. Seriously, just look at my challenge reviews.... I've wasted several hours of my life this month on no-budget pain parades that somehow found their way onto Blockbuster's shelves. My god, I sometimes wish Mystery Science Theater 3000 were still on the air, its not like theres ever going to be a lack of worthless movies to heckle.

Overall Score: 2/5

 

[Ruz-El]

Well I'm off to a slow start! I planned on finishing the "Steve McQueen Box" from Warners yesterday so I could jump in heads first to the challenge today, but things came up, so I didn't get a chance to finish until today.
:frowning:

I did get in one horror movie yesterday at a friends place, so here's my meager start (first viewings in red).

Russell Grant's Scary Movie Challenge 2005
1. Darkness (3/5) A pretty decent ghost story with Anna Paquin.
2. Murders in the Rue Morgue 1932 4/5: a great Bela Lugosi flick!
3. The Black Cat 1934 4/5 Another great Lugosi movie, with a Bela in a hero roll!
4. The Raven 1935 3/5. Not up to The Black Cats standards.
5. The Invisable Ray 1936 3.5/5 nice glowing efects!
6. Black Friday 1940 2/5. A let down for a brain swapping movie. Karloff and Lugosi were both wasted.
7. Curse Of Frankenstein 4/5. A great Hammer adaptation
8. Taste the Blood of Dracula 3/5 Not enough Dracula for my taste, but still enjoyable.
9. Brides Of Dracula 2/5. Not bad, just a little draggy.
10. Curse Of The Werewolf 3.5/5 A slow starter,Oliver Reed shows up, it turns into a pretty good Werewolf movie.
11. Phantom Of The Opera (hammer) 2.5/5 A slow first half doesn't make up for the later variances in the story.
12. Paranoic 4/5 A real good, Hitchcock style thriller.
13. Kiss Of The Vampire 3.5/5, a really well done vampire flick, with a nifty occult slant.
14. Nightmare 2/5, gorgouse B/W cinimatography doesn't save this clunker.
15. Night Creatures 4.5/5 A GREAT movie!
16. The Evil of Frankenstein3/5 Not the greatest Frankie film I've seen, but not bad.
17. Sometimes They Come Back 2/5 : Pretty Forgettable.
18. Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer 3.5/5 : Still a pretty effective film.
19. The Invisible Man (1933) 5/5 : I love this movie!
20. Sometimes They Come Back Again 1.5/5: I real stinker of a film.
21. Jaws 3.5/5 : Still a good film, I'm not as big on it as others.
22. The Return of the Invisible Man 3/5 : Played more as a murder mystery than a thriller, it doesn't work near as well as the original.
23. The Invisible Woman 2/5 : A disapointment, played for laughs instead of scares.
24. Invisible Agent 4/5, the best of the sequels, keeps the laughs to a min.
25. The Invisible Man's Revenge 3/5: Not a bad finally to the Invisible Man series.
26. Creature From The Black Lagoon 5/5: One of my favorites of the monster movies.
27. Revenge OF The Creature 3/5: A not bad sequel.
28. The Creature Walks Among Us 4/5 : this was a great sequel, with one of the best monster attacks you well ever see!!
29. The Mummy (1932) 4/5 : It's staggering to me how superior this is to the crappy 90's remake!
30. High Tension 4/5 : Deffinately lives up to it's reputation.
31. The Mummy's Hand 2.5/5: A giant step down in quality over the original.
32. The Mummy's Tomb 2.5/5: An uninteresting follow up to "Hand"
33. The Mummy's Ghost 3.5/5: Still not a great movie, but the best of the sequels.
34. The Mummy's Curse 1.5/5: This was just boring crap.
35. PANIC IN YEAR ZERO 3.5/5: This is a damn fine atomic bomb scare film!
36. Last Man On Earth 3.5/5: Vincent Price fights zombie vampires, nuff said!
37. Dark Water (Japanese Version) 1/5: If you find leaky ceilings scary,than you've found your movie!
38. The Ring Two 2/5 : The same director of "Dark Water" squeezes out another turd!
39. Carrie 4/5: Holds up remarkably well, losing none of it's impact.
40. Halloween 5/5: An absolute classic. Nuff said.
41. Gozu 3/5: I preffered "Ichi" and "Audition" but it's still pretty interesting.
42. Cat People 3/5: I like the atmosphere and the cinematography, but on the whole, it left me a little flat.
43. Curse of the Cat People 3.5/5: No monsters, but a great exploration into childhood
44. I walked With A Zombie 4.5/5:A new favorite, one of the best zombie films!
45. The Body Snatcher 4/5: Hannible Lechtor can kiss my ass, Karloff in the Body Snatcher is the sociopath to beat.
46. Isle Of The Dead 3.5/5: Another winner, I'm liking how these Val Lewton films play with the subjectivity of the supernatural.
47. Bedlam 2.5/5: Karloff was great, but it was a better message film than spook show.
48. Robot Vs. The Aztec Mummy 2.5/5: It's got a mummy, it's got a robot, they fight.
49. Braniac 2.5/5: Having neither robots or mummy's it did have a historically accurate Spanish inquisition theme, I think.
50. The Ghost Ship 3.5/5: Another winner from the Val Lewton set.
51. The Leopard Man 3.5/5: Another nice mix between the supernatural and "real" world.
52. The 7th Victom 3.5/5: A good murder mystery.
53. Shadows in the Dark: The Val Lewton Legacy 3/5: A glossy biography, but interesting all the same.
54. Rosemary's Baby 5/5: My favorite of the devil movies, still packs all of it's punch!
55. Christine 4/5: A personal favorite, nice to see it hold up so well.
56. Man with the Screaming Brain 2/5: I really wanted to like this more than I did but I just couldn't get into it.
57. Bubba Ho-Tep 4.5/5: A poignant examination of the elderly in our culture.
58. Evil Dead 2 5/5: It's funny, the last "Evil Dead" film I watch becomes my favorite!
59. Within The Woods 1.5/5: It sucked, showing none of the flair that Raimi had in his debut.
60. Nine Inch Nails : Broken 4/5: This is the "Cannible Holocaust" of music videos.

 

[Martin_T]

Well, Sunday morning I had a chance to dig thru the old laserdisc collection and out popped a couple of titles to add to my Scary Movie List.

First off this morning was Stuart Gordon's Dolls. Probably been about 10 years since I saw this one, and despite it being a so-so pan and scan transfer, I would have to say that it has held up very well. A group of people wind up spending the night in a old house in the middle of nowhere that is filled with killer dolls.

Next up was Dolly Dearest. Sam Bottoms, Denise Crosby and Rip Torn in Mexico versus a killer doll. I like Crosby and Torn, but they can do nothing to save this stinker of a flick.

I ended the morning with Demonic Toys. A Police Detective (played by Tracy Scoggins) and a handful of civilians prove to be easy victims for the demon possessed toys that they are trapped with in a warehouse for the night. First time that I have seen a Full Moon Entertainment flick in years, and this was a good example of their work. Lots of humor, some gore, two hot babes, a bit of nudity. I also loved how the Jack-In-The-Box demon toy looked just like a Killer Klown From Outer Space.


2005 Scary Movie List

1. Friday The 13th Part 6: Jason Lives 4.2/10
2. Friday The 13th Part 7: The New Blood 4.5/10
3. Friday The 13th Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan 2.7/10
4. Dolls (laserdisc) 5.6/10
5. Dolly Dearest (laserdisc) 2.9/10
6. Demonic Toys (laserdisc) 5.0/10

 

[John Bryant]

2005 Scary Movie Challenge
First time viewings in blue

1.Shaun of the Dead (10/5) - :star::star::star:1/2
2.28 Days Later (10/12) - :star::star::star:1/2
3.The Machinist (10/14) - :star::star::star:3/4
4.From Dusk Till Dawn (10/17) - :star::star:3/4
5.Saw (10/26) - :star::star::star:1/4
6.Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (10/26) - :star::star::star:1/2
7.I Walked with a Zombie (10/26) - :star:3/4
8.The Body Snatcher (10/26) - :star::star::star:1/4
9.Frankenstein (10/27) - :star::star::star:1/4
10.The Bride of Frankenstein (10/27) - :star::star::star::star:
11.Dracula (10/27) - :star::star:1/4
12.The Wolf Man (10/27) - :star::star::star::star:
13.Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (10/28) - :star::star::star:1/2

 

[Rick Spruill]

I know I'm not going to come anywhere close to last year's 56 movie total, but I'll give it a try.

First time viewings in bold:

10/1 - Don't Torture a Duckling - 4/5
- Perhaps my favorite Fulci. It's so downbeat and depressing yet a lot of fun. Fulci makes good use of the gore without going overboard.

10/2 - Dungeon of Harrow - 1/5
- Man, is this thing a complete waste of time. It’s really not worth writing about.

10/2 - The Big Alligator River - 2.5/5
- Obvious rip-off of Jaws and other "Man vs. Nature" type films. Nice cast including Mel Ferrar, Barbara Bach, and Richard Johnson in a cameo. There is enough low-budget goofiness to make it worth a look. And the NoShame DVD is amazing given the type of material presented.


2005 Scary Movie Challenge Summary

1. Don't Torture a Duckling - 4/5
2. Dungeon of Harrow - 1/5
3. The Big Alligator River - 2.5/5

 

[Ryan Wishton]

Dolls: Been years since I have seen this one. It's not as great as I remember it being years ago, but it still holds up to some extent.

After Midnight: This film is a Tales from the crypt sort of film with three stories and a wrap around that ties them all together. I thought the third story (a radio show host being phoned by a nut) was the best of the bunch. The wrap around started off decent but became overboard cheesy by end. Nothing really soars in this film, but I thought it was ok. The first story dragged for what seemed like forever for me though. Good ending to the first story though.

The Ex: This was a DTV movie starring some chick named Yancy Butler. I laughed multiple times throughout this film. I am not sure if this was intentionally a parody of Fatal Attraction? I don't know if this movie was suppose to good, but as a dark comedy I enjoyed it pretty much so. I am stumped as to what this was trying to accomplish? The lead ex made this movie enjoyable for me though with all her psychotic antics and lame one liners. I enjoyed it very much so. I just still don't understand why? But, I did, so that's all that counts.

The Stepfather: I have always found this movie to be very good. O'Quinn takes most if not all the credit.

Films viewed so far (I have changed a bit due to thinking afterwards):

1. The Kiss: *** out of *****
2. Battle Royale: **** out of *****
3. Dolls: **1/2 out of *****
4. After Midnight: **1/2 out of *****
5. The Ex: ***1/2 out of *****
6. The Stepfather: **** out of *****

 

[Joe Karlosi]

10/2/05

The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958) :star: :star: :star:
The second film in Hammer's series is another good one, mainly boosted by Peter Cushing's cool Baron and some good dialogue. Francis Matthews is refreshing as Frankenstein's eager new assistant. A worthy sequel to THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN.

SCARY MOVIE CHALLENGE 2005 (First timers in BOLD)
01) Indestructible Man (1956)
02) The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)
03) The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958)

 

[SteveGon]

Well, I guess I'll get in on this. I'll shoot for 13 films (though I may do more).

Dark Woods (2003)

(first viewing)

Solid Finnish horror flick about a television producer who takes his crew to an isolated cabin in a mysterious forest for a weekend of "rough" living. His tyrannical ways soon have everyone butting heads and to make matters worse, something is out there in those deep, dark woods... Nothing really new here, but it's well-done and suspenseful with gorgeous location shooting.

:star: :star: :star: out of :star: :star: :star: :star:


(Available on a Finnish R2 DVD; the disc has optional English subs for the movie.)

 

[Josh W]

It was a slow weekend but I did get in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003). I'm probably in the minority, but I like the remake over the original. I watched the 1974 version last year and just couldn't wait for it to end. Also in the remake I get to watch Jessica Biel which makes me

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) - ***/****

 

[Sebastien S]

10/02/05 - "Resident Evil: Apocalypse" - 7.5/10

Though not a complete failure, this one falls a bit short. Starting right where the first movie left off, this movie actually includes a very limited few characters from the games who were somehow missing from the first movie...

"Jill Valentine"


is actually included in this movie and since she is my favorite character from the games, I'm glad they added her to this movie. Her part in this movie is the main one after Milla's (who reprises her role as "Alice" from the previous movie) and the "Nemesis"
and the actress who play's her (Sienna Guillory) does a decent job. "Carlos Olivera" & "Nicholai Sokolov"
also appear in this movie but their parts are minor at best and out of the two, only "Carlos" makes it to the end.


This movie takes place mostly in the streets of "Raccoon City" and because of the "mostly" outside setting, the "claustrophobic" feeling of the first movie is virtualy lost.

While the story itself isn't bad, it's not good either... Many details are omited not explained. This is the second movie but it is largely based on the 3rd game in the series. While the first movie stood on it's own as a completely new and unique story, this one does a good job of destroying the game it's based on...

At one point, the "Nemesis" switches sides and actually becomes one of the good guys!


&

"Nicholai" is actually one of the good guys in this movie...


There is also a scene involving Milla's character and a chopper that is taken directly from the 4th game in the series (Resident Evil: Code Veronicca) but that should be played out by another main character from the game not included in either movies... This scene really does not belong in this movie!

I understand that this is fiction but some action scenes/stunts are unbelievable... Also, some of the creatures that were so tough in the first movie "the Lickers"
are easily dispatched in this movie.

Finally, this movie's basic plot is about a bunch of survivors who ban together to try and make it out of a doomed city. Once they actually manage to do this, I find it hard to believe that all these characters (who have nothing in common) all chose to return together to rescue "Alice" (who had been captured by "Umbrella" while excaping but was presumed dead).


Despite all of it's flaws, I never the less enjoyed the movie. Because I'm such a huge fan of the games, I cannot help but be a little biased and give this movie a "slightly" higher rating than it actually deserves.


October 2005 Scary Movie Challenge. All never seen titles are listed in "Red" and ranked on a scale of 1 to 10.

1. Resident Evil - 8.5/10 - 10/01/05
2. Resident Evil: Apocalypse - 7.5/10 - 10/02/05

 

[JohnS]

MY MAIN HALLOWEEN LIST
Titles in bold are first timers

1.Mindhunters (2005) **/**** watched on Oct 4th
2.Venom (2005) */****-viewed Oct 6th
3.Urban Legends:Bloody Mary (2005) */****-viewed on Oct 7th
4.Eye 2 (2005) **/****-viewed on Oct 9th
5.Man with the Screaming Brain (2005) ZERO STARS-viewed Oct 10th
6.Scooby-Doo 2:Monsters Unleashed (2004) **/****-viewed Oct 11th
7.Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004) ***/****-viewed Oct 11th
8.Wallace & Gromit:Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) ***1/2/****-viewed on Oct 17th

 

[Christopher B]

Had a busy weekend watching my friend play in the United States Australian Football League Nationals in Milwaukee, but still managed to squeeze in 5 movies.

May -
There have been some recent threads about this movie, so I will just say that I liked it. Very sad movie, but very good in a dark depressing sort of way.

Evil Dead Trap -
Saw this over a year ago and thought it was alright. I purchased Synapses Extreme Asian Cinema box set, and it came with that. Lots of interesting ways to die! The ending gets a little over the top, but it is supposed to be "extreme".

Nightmare on Elm Street 3 - Dream Warriors
Patricia Arquette has a great scream! This was actually not a bad addition to the Elm Street movies. It takes the story a little farther and gives a bit more history about Freddy. It is unfortunately the first movie where every killing is accompanied with a Freddy one-liner. "Welcome to prime time, b*tch".

Nightmare on Elm Street 4 - The Dream Master
I just got the NOES box set, can you tell?

Tetsuo - The Iron Man
I am not sure if I would call this a horror movie, probably more of a Sci-Fi movie, but I will take it for the sake of the Challenge! I haven't seen this one for years. It is such a visually amazing movie, who cares if you cant' really figure out what is going on? I love all the stop motion stuff Tsukamoto does. My wife just kind of sat there with her mouth open trying to figure it all out.

 

[Garrett Lundy]

Snappy one liners are half the reason America loves Freddy Krueger. His 'Greatest Hits' album is the other half

 

[Adam Portrais]

Ok, I didn't get to Ju-On last night (I'll save that one for later) but I did get to Dark Water (Japan). Dark Water takes a bit to get going but one point near the end made the movie worth while.

Today I watched the original Amityville Horror. Quite boring as well as a shitty quality DVD. This movie could have been so much more but I feel that it fell well short of how creepy if could have been.

6th Annual HTF October Scary Movie Challenge

1. Ginger Snaps :star: :star: :star: :star:
2. The Card Player :star: :star: :star:
3. Dark Water :star: :star: :star:1/2
4. Amityville Horror:star:1/2

All movies based on a five star rating. All movies in red are first time viewings.

 

[Brook K]

Ring 2 - I thought the 1st film was better than the Japanese original and one of the best American horror films of recent vintage. The sequel is virtually a complete waste of time. It has none of the creepiness, mystery or suspense of the 1st, instead substituting CGI-overload and a "scare" every 5-7 minutes as if the audience can't stay interested in the thin sliver of story without it. Naomi Watts has much less to do and is unremarkable, while the child actor is the only thing approaching scary in the film and that isn't meant as a compliment. In closing, this film features a fearsome herd of CGI deer. 'nuff said - D

6th Annual HTF October Scary Movie Challenge

1. Ring 2 - D



First timers in Blue

 

[Ryan Wishton]

I just had to sit though a ghastly episode of "Full House" where the guys and Rebecca sing and play a guitar. It was a truly awful episode even for this series. Can I count this?

Anyways, today I saw:

Nightmare on Elm Street: Nostalgia kicks in here for me. This was the first R-rated horror film I believe. It's the first one I remember seeing upon it's video release all those years ago. Time and the downgrade of the character over the years have tainted this movie. It's a damn shame really. This was a very good, even frightening thriller back in it's day with a neat premise and an interesting villian. I went from being terrified by Freddy and hiding under a blanket in 1984/1985 to being amused by his silly antics by 1988. Possibly one of the fastest transitions (not for the better overall) of a character. It's a shame really. Still, I can't help but be kind to this movie as I remember it as the dark horror film it was back in 1984.

**** out of *****. Would give it a solid 5 if this was still the 80's.

6th Annual HTF October Scary Movie Challange:

1. The Kiss (1988): *** out of *****
2. Battle Royale (2001): **** out of *****
3. Dolls (1986): **1/2 out of *****
4. After Midnight (1989): **1/2 out of *****
5. The Ex (1997): ***1/2 out of *****
6. The Stepfather (1987): **** out of *****
7. Nightmare on Elm Street (1984): **** out of *****

 

[Joe Karlosi]

For a time it was okay, but ultimately he ruined the seriousness of modern horror films by those gags. And it's one of the reasons I couldn't wait to see Jason beat the crap out of him.