Ipickthiswhiterose
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Posts posted by Ipickthiswhiterose
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The Suspiria remake is a goshdarn masterpiece IMO and I nearly put it quite a bit higher, only keeping it lower for recency adjustment. One I could write a whole essay on but it would be indulgent. Explores gender and speculative fiction in a wildly original way. With several moments of high tension, and one particularly nightmarish sequence.
Another thing I could probably write an essay on is my intense distaste for "Bram Stoker's" Dracula. I can certainly understand that there is plenty for folks to enjoy about it - the costumes, the design and the early sequence in Transylvania - but I just can't get on board with anything it's trying to do. Least of all the casting, the eclecticism and the small-r romanticisation.
I probably feel about It Follows the way Baumer feels about Suspiria. I'm fine with the movie in and of itself, I thought it was fine enough, I just don't get where the uber-praise comes from. I probably would say the same about Poltergeist actually. That said, they have both had - for differing lengths - long legacies of popularity and did so without the kind of imagery that many horror films have, so clearly connected very well.
And I'll always prefer Dog Soldiers to the Descent. I recognise there is lots of amazing stuff in The Descent, the performances are wonderful as well as the creature design and I respect anyone who adores it. It's just scuppered for me by being one of those films that have IMO
SpoilerToo relentlessly miserable a tone and herald the fact that they will have a downbeat ending so much that it is hard to project any real stakes. I'm all good with downer/evil wins endings, but there needs to be a tension of the possibility of survival, and personally I just never feel that watching Descent.
Really sad to see Martyrs miss the list. A real modern classic IMO.
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Both Aster films, Body Snatchers and Raw were all on my list so really pleased to see them do well.
Neither Godzilla nor Cabin in the Woods were in my classification of horror, but I like Godzilla and love CITW so glad to see them in the list also.
Dawn of the Dead isn't my bag really but I recognise its quality. Zombies aren't my thing in general, even less than slashers. Night, Shaun, Pontypool and I Walked with a Zombie are about as far as I get before finding it all bit samey. I'm not even keen on 28 Days Later, which is fairly sacrilegious as a Brit horror guy.
And it just goes to show you that you're just never going to be exposed to *everything*....I have been 'in' horror for 15 years now - albeit mostly live rather than film - and watching it casually for a lot longer...... and I've simply not crossed paths with Carnival of Souls. Just not on my radar, couldn't tell you a thing about it. Barely heard of it outside of recognising the name. Amazing stuff. Will clearly have to track it down now.
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Lots of enjoyable movies in this batch. Great to see some classics make the list, even if it's contained to the very famous titles. Not seen The Wolf Man since I was teen so will have to hunt it down.
Signs is a great single-watch movie. Saw it in cinemas at the time and it felt like an event. But it is a single-watch movie for me and not a plot to dwell on too long.
Malignant....ha. Don't know what to say really. It was a good time, and while hardly the wildest of horror movies in and of itself it was certainly an amusing Kaufmanesque trick to play on mainstream audiences. Trapped somewhere between being the Showgirls and the Starship Troopers of the horror genre. Which isn't a bad thing.
Ring is a good remake. Naomi Watts is a great actress. It is directed well. It's a better *made* film than the original but Ringu has a raw/dirty quality that works better for me with that story.
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24 minutes ago, baumer said:
Not a big fan of the Birds. First of all, I didn't care for the film. I found it to be one of Hitchcock's weaker efforts. But to @Ipickthiswhiterose point, yes, it's even more icky now that over the past few years we've learned how Hitchcock not only stalked her but physically assaulted her and threatened to ruin her career. I know we're supposed to separate the film from the behind the scenes stuff but in this case, Tippi's story makes it hard to enjoy the Birds, or Marnie.
The first time I watched The Birds I picked up on it straight away. I didn't know the real life story, it just stood out to me immediately that the only reason the entire movie was a framing device for an old man to perv on a young woman. It's why I find it so confusing that it still gets good repute, the birds element is just - from my perspective - totally tacked on and Hitchcock isn't interested in them. I can understand separating the artist from the art, but in this case the art IS the artist.
Watching it feels like looking at a 2 hour upskirt shot.
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Delighted to see Peeping Tom, Mouth of Madness, Devil's Backbone and Prince of Darkness make it onto the list. Not films I would have expected to see but absolutely deserving - and as far as I'm concerned in the case of Peeping Tom, essential. Reappraisal of the apocalypse trilogy as a whole has been a long time coming, one day it'll happen with Ghosts of Mars too.
The Omen falling in notoriety is a pattern I've noticed in academic circles as well. Might be due to the increase in status of Rosemary's Baby potentially. It was a bit hit with significant cultural impact at the time and that can take a while to fade. Or it could just be happenstance.
I've still only see Let the Right One In once. It was good. I probably need to rewatch it.
Quiet Place is popular. I don't have much to say about it. Glad people enjoy it.
The Birds is one of my most disliked movies. Creepy for all the wrong reasons. At least with Michael Bay and Megan Fox she knew what he was doing, Tippi Hedren had no idea. And the film itself I find to be emperor's new clothesesque - if it wasn't made by a man who was otherwise a proven genius, I don't think any of us would have heard of it.
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14 minutes ago, Valonqar said:
To be fair, critics are inclined to be more polite to director's slump right after the career highlight. They go off on repeat offenders but when someone they hold in high esteem doesn't deliver they tend to pull punches. For example, a good number thought that Us script was complete nonsense and bit more than it could chew. But reviews were still highly positive cause they focused on the good - terrific performances and GOAT editing in fight/dance scene. So instead of trashing Peele's wring, they highlighted Lupita, the cast, editor, score. You can work around it if a movie gives you enough material. Jackson's King Kong came on the heels of ROTK clean sweep, but went down in history as King Long and a poster for unnecessary bloat. Yet it was given a critical pass on Naomi Watt's soulful performance and state of the art SFX. But after that, credit wore off so The Lovely Bones and The Hobbit trilogy didn't get away.
I'm saying that, while critics certainly want to be invited, as you and Scott Menzel say, they do pause and think what to say if a director who previously scored awards has delivered a turkey or close.
These are really good examples (Us and King Kong) of critics pulling punches. I'd add It:Chapter Two and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark got bizarrely generous reviews for the horror genre - It Chapter Two because of the first, and SSTTITD due to nostalgia for the books.
But I think that other dynamics can happen as well that lead to different forms of slight groupthink in the other direction. Horror's the obvious one, which is why the outliers above are so distinct. From the late 90s to late 00s horror films couldn't buy a good review for love nor money unless it was a pre-existing IP or pretended to straddle another genre.
Biggest example I can think of though for harshly reviewed movies was Waterworld. I don't love the movie by any means but there's no doubt that anyone there at the time could confirm that there was blood in the water (no pun intended) and pencils being sharpened desperate to pummel Costner for some reason: something about the one-two punch of Dances with Wolves and Robin Hood's overwhelming successes had REALLY gotten to people. It was going to be framed as a bomb no matter what.
I'd also say that Warcraft and Nutcracker: Four Realms are two movies in recent years where I got the flavour of "We actually think this movie is better than we're saying, but it's sort of the common consensus it's terrible, we don't think it's *amazing* and it's clearly not going to do well so the safe thing is to pan it" from many reviews.
As for Eternals itself, no idea. I suspected it was going to be the most divisive of the recent MCU movies but it's still hard to see how it's going to fall in terms of general audiences. I think it's healthy to challenge expectations and templates, but not sure that's what this will be - especially if it's as plot heavy as is being implied. That said, I hope there aren't going to be people who have moaned about the MCU being cookie cutter that then NOW complain it's doing something else. But.....yeah, it's a lot of characters to introduce and it is certainly possible critics are holding back from saying what they really think in one or both directions.
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(Edit: Quoted myself rather than edited myself)
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The Others and The Invisible Man I both enjoy a lot. Excellent leading performances in both movies and tension managed effectively. Still find it humorous that classic Brit physical comic Eric Sykes managed to be in a huge box office triumph just before he passed on. The Host isn't really for me, don't know why, I just found it duller than it makes any sense to be.
Yes Little Shop!!!!! Just goes up and up in my estimation over the years. Perfect stage to screen adaptation which is so difficult with any musical.
It is so hard to appraise since the quality of the second was sacrificed to make the first as good as possible - changing the book's structure and de-emphasising the effects Pennywise has on the town overall all assisted the first movie but utterly compromised the sequel which, at one point, literally repeats the exact same scene 5 times back to back to back. I generally evaluate films exclusively on their own merits but it's essentially impossible in that case.
I could write an essay on why I find mother! to be extremely poor - which to be fair is at least indicative that there's lots to say about it and it's interesting, but in short the representational nature of the movie is so obvious that reading the movie at anything even approaching face value is stakesless. I can't care for characters when they so obviously aren't characters and are just semiotic puzzle pieces, especially when the semiotic puzzle isn't hard to crack, and what the film ends up saying is frankly simplistic. I can only assume those who enjoy the movie are able to crack into a suspension of disbelief and read the characters as characters and it becomes a Kafkaesque living nightmare thing. Or I'm missing something.
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More films that I didn't include but have plenty of time for in Ready or Not, any Gremlins film and Under the Skin. Really enjoyable movies.
Wan's formula isn't my thing and the Conjuringverse is to the supernatural-jump-scare era what Friday 13th was to the slasher era (ie. I largely pretend they don't exist and just let the kind of people who like it get on with their business) but I appreciate that the Conjuring series has done effective things for its fans.
Always find DeNiro an absolute car crash in horror. Indeed I find pretty much any of the 'great' American naturalist actors to be disasters in horror apart from Nicholson - partly because he was an Adler guy and partly because he intuitively isn't a naturalist. The method has always been a disaster for American horror cinema IMO and it's only recently the US has been turning out actors of mainstream prominence capable of leading non-naturalist films outside of the occasional stage-seasoned outlier like Willem Defoe and John Lithgow, and when American actors have given incredible blended non-naturalistic performances they generally haven't been rewarded (Rachel McAdams not being nominated for any major award for her masterpiece in Mean Girls tells you everything you need to know about perceptions of "character acting" and its place against "worthy acting"). Watching ScarJo learning to blend acting styles in Under the Skin and Jojo Rabbit was a treat and really promising to see this sort of thing just staaaart to be appraised differently now. Until then American audiences will continue to be confused as to why the Brits and Australians keep wandering over and taking plum blended and gestic roles.
American Psycho I need to rewatch. Haven't seen it since the early 2000s.
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1 hour ago, Krissykins said:
On a side note, while looking at these lists:
The Full Monty was the biggest film of all time in the UK at one point (before Titanic) and grossed £52.2m.
In 1997.
When tickets were £3.54.
With a 15 certificate.
for a film about unemployed Dad’s who decide to strip.
What a cultural phenomenon.
I remember it well.
Entire friendship groups and office groups - especially of women - were going multiple times as whole parties.
Extremely similar dynamics to what happened with both Mamma Mias and Bohemian Rhapsody, but even more so.
Sort of like Black Panther in the US in terms of becoming driven by organised viewings by collective groups.
It's phenomenon was forgotten quickish since Titanic came along so soon after. That was a wild back-to-back for UK cinemas.
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I should probably add my thanks to WrathOfHan for doing this. A big ol' undertaking and appreciated.
I didn't include Jennifer's Body, Eyes Without a Face, Dracula and Baby Jane but I think they're all great and worthy inclusions to the list. Must rewatch EWOAF since it's been a while, might have made my list if I'd seen it in the last decade.
Not seen many Crimson Peak defenders. I love Del Toro but this isn't for me and I found really disappointing. Would love to hear someone wax lyrical on it though just to hear what they get from it.
Scream 4 is a pretty good movie. I don't think it's Top 100 good myself, but I get it.
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I made a whole ballyhoo about horror fandom having all sorts and being generous to movies to that aren't for me.
I really, really want to be generous to films that I don't inherently enjoy or find scary.
I want to embrace the breadth and scope of what horror is and can be, even when it doesn't intersect with my own tastes. I accept that people have different life experiences and different qualities they look for and times they are exposed to films.
But even with all that.
With the best will in all worlds.
Old being in the vicinity of this list is utterly, utterly insane.
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I wouldn't hesitate in calling Coraline and COTW horror.
Hellboy I would agree is not horror.
I understand nobody else is ranking The Devils and I've ranked it very highly. I would proffer it as a masterpiece, and also would suggest the below article and the fact it has been on Shudder as evidence it is sufficiently within the horror genre to be classed as horror more than any other genre. Witchfinder General is generally considered horror and it, like The Devils, contains no supernatural horror elements beyond the stylistic overemphasis of genuine historic traits and events to demonstrate grotesque societal horrors of the past.
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Halloween Kills is getting the most slating on my social media timelines of anything for a long time. Which, I suppose, means that at least lots of people are watching it. People who I never see write about movies are commenting on how awful they think it is. Which is inherently indicative of great success.
I don't know what people are expecting though. Like, there's a very, very narrow range of things that can happen in a Halloween sequel.
Last Duel is a worrying development. Looks like there's a whole genre there that's going to be TV only for a long time.
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24 minutes ago, Eric Safin said:
And the Brosnan films all try to position themselves as a more forward-thinking Bond, even getting spelled out at one point by Goldeneye. But despite all the deconstruction, the film still...basically plays out with a lot of the sexist aspects of the character and series.
I can't think of anything in the Brosnan era that isn't just "Hot man meets hot girl and they're horny for each other and have sex that they both enjoy, then a period of time later hot man meets another hot girl...."
Which doesn't strike me as particularly sexist. The women don't seem devalued or without agency in those films, which was the case in some earlier entries. It might be repetitive to you and therefore not the sort of thing you want in your blockbuster movies (they aren't the sort of thing I want either) but not sexist per se.
By the way: just to be clear even if I'm disagreeing with you here, I don't want to dismiss your approach or arguments. I have no issue with discussing socio-political aspects of movies and think it's good to do so, so long as we keep from overly censorious conclusions.
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4 minutes ago, Chicago said:
It depends on the audience. In the UK people don't talk about being offended by a James bond movie. I can get behind the old Sean Connery movies being problematic by the way he pretty much forced women into bed with him but the Brosnan movies were just him having hamless fun after saving the day. And you'd really have to be nit picking to pick a bone with the Craig Era movies,
Reread. I was making a whimsical joke based on your typo, not proffering an actual commentary on any Bond movies.
For what it's worth I am not a fan of Bond simply because I'm not a fan of action movies in general, but I find any and all popular long running franchises interesting and worth of study regardless of whether I enjoy them, whether that's the MCU or the Carry On films.
Also for what it's worth I find the only truly 'problematic' moment in terms of gender dynamics in a Bond movie is the scene with Honor Blackman in Goldfinger. I find that genuinely uncomfortable and unwatchable and wouldn't want it to be repeated. I wouldn't want the movie blacklisted in someway, but its the only one where I think my perception of the movie itself is tainted by something within it. Bond can have as many women as he wants per film, but the one thing you don't mess around with is consent. Other than that while there's stuff that isn't to my taste and I might personally find simplistic/populist for myself, it's not something I'd ever want to take away from others who enjoy that sort of thing.
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14 minutes ago, Chicago said:
Imagine finding offence in the Craig or Bronson era movies lol.
Fortunately we don't make Bond movies for pussies Eric
I think a Bronson Bond era would be pretty extreme, even for Bond.
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27 minutes ago, wildphantom said:
to be fair, they’ve managed to reinvent him for new audiences for 60 years, over 25 films, so I think Bond has earned the benefit of the doubt he’ll be just fine.
Nobody does it better.
My argument - which seems to have been misinterpreted - was that the nature of the last three reinventions were very similar to each other, and predicated on the same contemporaneous perception of the franchise.
Whoever comes next will be the first person to be launched into the role since 1973 whose debut will not be able to be positioned as 'grounding the films compared to what came before'.
Even if you dismiss the idea that this is going to be difficult, or represents a challenge for the producers, can you not understand the notion that this dynamic is - at the very least - interesting?
I do not think the franchise is dead. Or dying. Just as Doctor Who is neither dead nor dying despite it being much further along the tracks of the dynamic I was discussing. I don't think that's a perception anyone actually has on this thread.
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I think it's going to be very difficult to move Bond forward from here. Not because of the BO of this film because that international market is excellent but because the gritty-reboot factor is going to be impossible to enact and they're gong to have to think a bit more out of the box in terms of where they take the tone from here.
All three of the last New-Bond launches have been done as a 'gritty reboot' of the franchise on the basis this represents a deviation from what came before. With Dalton it was true, Brosnan got away with it because Goldeneye came after a considerable hiatus and the popular consciousness was still more dominated by Moore than Dalton, Craig got away with it because Brosnan's last 2 movies were increasingly whimsical in tone with a poorly received final film broadly seen as too silly.
But the constant distancing-from-the-past is a dangerous game as best manifested by the contemporary perception of Brosnan's era. It has been wild to see the difference between how Brosnan's era was perceived at the time (very positive) with how it has been increasingly seen in the Craig era (where it seems to have been retrospectively seen more and more negatively by fandom and more importantly general audiences). Throwing your own legacy under the bus either in fandom (to prioritise how amazing the current Bond is seen as) or outside it (to appear contemporary and moving with the times) is going to catch up with a series eventually.
To summarise, we are now in a scenario where of the last 11 Bond films, 9 have leaned 'gritty and serious' and only 2 have leaned 'adventurous and fun'. And of the 2 'adventurous and fun' movies, one of them is seen as being awful and the other is unfairly best known for a supposedly silly Bond girl, despite having one of the best female characters in any Bond movie. I think that is a shame, and runs the risk of ending up stripping the movies of a key element of their appeal.
I don't think it's outrageous to suggest that the next three Bond movies could really benefit from being much more 'standard' movies with an emphasis on the template, fun locations, silly villains with ostentatious bases and a lighter tone. The Austin Powers special. Pure luxury movies. I think that's the only direction to go from where we are. But firstly this risks being accused of 'mcu-ifying' the movies in some quarters and secondly given the norm that has been set with the Craig era, I can't quite see how that won't alienate much of the new audience from the last 14 years.
It's going to be extremely hard to move on from the Craig era I think. They need to think outside the box, which is a curious project for a series that's whole success is largely predicated on being in the box.
The Doctor Who parallels are considerable. David Tennant was near impossible to follow. Moffatt initially managed it, but only by repeatedly iterating that Matt Smiths' Doctor and his companions were EVEN MORE IMPORTANT than the last, but that just kind of kicked the can down the road and eventually found its way to Capaldi where despite his being brilliant the audience just ran out of juice, and Who has ended up in reboot purgatory, with perceptions it peaked long ago, ever since.
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36 minutes ago, titanic2187 said:
Back then people were way more receptive to the more serious tone of story telling. But with Covid-19 and a lot more troublesome issues out there, light fun film now tend to vow audience more than usual, probably explain why FG, JC, SC or Venom 2 were able to deliver impressive run but NTTD's run went mostly boring. Probably another reason to worry about Dune.
I'd argue Dune is pretty fundamentally different from the era of TDK and Skyfall.
Yes, the adopted tone of those films was serious but that was the trick. They weren't actually. The genius/trick of both The Dark Knight and Skyfall was to make the audience feel as though they were watching something with weight and complexity when they were actually experiencing a far more standard cartoon/spy film than they thought they were. Both the central conceits that make TDK and Skyfall supposedly complex (that the former acts as a robust crime thriller with more verisimilitude than the average superhero movie and that the latter deviates from the norm and is a part sombre meditation on Bond's place in pop culture itself) fall apart on even a modicum of scrutiny....but because they worked well as baseline entertainment pieces and they hit the zeitgeist at the perfect angle the audience never wanted to give that scrutiny because they were having a great time and wanted to engage in the conceit they were having a 'serious' experience as well.
And I'd argue that you are right in saying now is not the time for films that make themselves seem needlessly serious and pretend to have more weight than they actually have. And that films that play that card wouldn't do so well now.
But that's not what Dune is. Dune, if it is even vaguely in line with the book and/or Villeneuve's usual approach, actually HAS the weight and complexity to go with its tone. And actually HAS something nuanced and of note to talk to its audience about. So I think it has a better chance.
Bond's going to do just fine anyway because of international, but sure if they had it back and had foresight it would probably be more in line with the current moment to go for a balls to the wall fun silly Bond film in the Moonraker vein. But just not possible to have predicted.
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3 hours ago, baumer said:
Here's the review I wrote for Mothman almost 20 years ago. It's long, but you might find it interesting.
I agree the chapstick scene was as eerie as they come.
Some people, perhaps most people go through life not really wondering about much. They go to work, punch the clock and then go home and do it all again the next day. But what about the ostensibly small percentage of people that seem to think, like Neo from the Matrix did, that there is just something not quite right with the world we inhabit? These people have a slightly askewed perspective of what is right, what is wrong and how it all comes together. These are the people that are always asking why? Why does something happen and in the greater scheme of things, how does it all matter? Is there really a reason for everything or do some things just happen....because?
The Mothman Prophecies is a riveting story about how some people seem just slightly ahead of the rest of us. It is a story of trusting your feelings and not going mad or getting committed in the process. And finally it is one of the scariest films I have ever seen. Make no mistake about that.
Based on true events.
I read an article that stated that this is a film that Hollywood actually had to tone down. In most cases, when film makers get a hold of material, they have to beef it up to make it more palpable for an audience. But this is just the opposite. Mark Pellington had to simmer some of the events in the film because he felt that if they actually filmed what was purportedly claimed, the audience would not believe the absurdity those events. If that is the case, it frightens me to think what was left out because as it stands, this film is on the brink of utter temerity. There is a head first slide into the bizarre and the film never fails to literally chill your bones. No film that I can think of, and that includes my favourites like Jaws, Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street, has made me feel as helpless, insignificant or as small as this film does.
Richard Gere plays John Klein, which one can only assume is really a character based on the novelist John A. Keel, who wrote about the events the film is based on. He is a Washington Post reporter who has just bought a new house with his wife, whom he loves very much. After a horrible car accident, his wife is hospitalized and just before she dies, she draws numerous pictures of what can only be described as an evil looking moth like creature, or perhaps even the Angel of Death. She begs the question to John, "You didn't see it did you?" Which begs the question to us, why not?
Soon after, John ends up in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, and has no recollection of arriving there. Here he meets Sgt. Connie Parker, played by Laura Linney and Gordon and Denise Smallwood, two of the locals. Soon after he arrives, strange things begin to happen and shortly he and Connie become entangled in an imbroglio with mysterious implications. Many of the locals claim they have seen something similar to what John's wife drew just before her death. And Gordon, played with pure twilight zonesque manerisms by Will Patton, seems to be the most affected by this phenomenon. He begins to hear voices, predicts future disasters, and finally claims to have met a mysterious figure. All the while Klein begins to see and hear unexplainable things. And here in, in my opinion, lies the key to the film.
Mark Pellington, John A. Keel and screenwriter Richard Hatem, seem to explore the subliminal irrational workings of the unknown. There are too many subtle, yet distinct elements that show up in the film. But they are not at the surface, they are just beneath. They're in front of our eyes the whole time, but only if you look hard enough. Much of this film deals with paranormal activities and the paranoid revelations of the people in one town. But it doesn't stop there. Klein is from a town six hours away and eventually he seeks the opinion of a man in Chicago who wrote a book that claims he felt the same things. So there are people that have experienced these unexplainable phenoms all over the country. And this is where the film goes off into a level that I have never seen before.
In order for people to have seen this figure or to be able to comprehend it, the film suggests that there has to be an open mind. As an old proverb once said, "the mind is like a parachute, it only works if you open it." Klein seems to have his eyes and mind wide open after his wife's death. He hasn't quite let go of her and this somehow enables him to communicate with whatever it is that is out there. There are times when whatever it is seems ripe with duplicity but more times than not, whatever this figure says, what he predicts, what he prophecises, it comes true. Klein's wife's death marks the nascency of his exploration into the abnormal.
The theory of the unknown is what is dissected in such infintismal but succinct ways, that on a first viewing, you may not recognize them. We hear stories about people being committed to psyche hospitals because of their failed attempted interpretations. We hear of people that claim they are being watched by a higher being, but feeling this is not really God-like and not really evil. It is just an entity. We see people predict future disasters, we see dreams that prophecize death. And all the while, these people are looked upon as being pariahs. It is much easier to get up, go to work and watch television than it is to think and perhaps accept the fact that there is something just beyond our control that lurks in murky places in our minds. There is even further sublime evidence that the director and writers feel this way. There are constant anomalous images filmed with an ethereal glance. These are images that we now take for granted without batting an eyelash. Things like phones, televisions, pictures and electricity are all given to us in metaphoric and literal glimpses. The creators of this film seem to be telling us that if we can believe in the use of technology, technology like capturing a moment in time on a piece of paper or if we can receive someone's voice transmitting hours away through a few cords and wires, then why is it preposterously inconceivable that Dark Angels or Mothmen really do exist? Perhaps, like the film tells us, they only exist to those of us that can open our stagnant minds a little more than the next person.
More times than can be counted, horror films insult us with loud computer generated noises and blood that seeps from the walls and CG monsters that chase characters that no one cares about. It is easier to make a horror movie like the modern version of the Haunting or the modern version of 13 Ghosts. Those are paint by number horror flicks that require no thought and no effort. But when you get a master like Shyamalan and now Pellington, creators that are intransigent in their beliefs and vision, it creates pictures that not only scare you to your very soul, they create pictures that open your eyes and minds to whole other possibilities. Mark Pellington has now proven to me that he is a master. Arlington Road was a surprising film that left you paralyzed with fear and your mind spewing questions long after the curtains came up. The Mothman Prophecies (especially for horror fans) will invoke discussions long after the lights come on. I realize this review may be a little long but this is the tip of the iceberg when it comes all that can be discussed in the film. There is a whole other religious element to the movie that hasn't even been explored. For instance, notice that both major events in the film happen on Christmas Eve. Why?
One final note to critics that lambaste this film for all of it's so called short comings. True, this film does not offer an explanation or a true conclusion to what took place. But isn't that just the perfect note for it to end on? According to the prophet-like character, Alexander Leek, you are not supposed to understand this phenom. He tells Klein that you will go mad trying to figure it out. This is the only way to end the film. In a lesser film with an inferior director and writer, this film would have culminated with Klein and Connie finding some ancient manuscript in the basement of the library that tells them how to destroy it. They would have went to hallowed ground and summoned it and gotten rid of it. But this is not the tenth sequel of Friday the 13th and this certainly isn't ( with all due respect to Miner and Cunningham) Steve Miner and Sean Cunningham. This is an astute director teamed with a cunning and observant writer who believe in the pulchritude and darkness of the story and give it the respect that it deserves. This is not only one of the best horror films I have ever seen, it is one of the best films I have experienced in my 30 years. This is the pinnacle of film making from all parties involved.
10 out of 10.....A MASTERPIECE BY A MASTER OF MANIPULATION
***One final note. I just wanted to give special mention to the entire sound crew who did such a brilliant job with this film. Pellington and Hatem collaborated beautifully to give me one of the most harrowing experiences I have been privy to in a theater, but the film would not have been quite as pulse pounding if it weren't for the sound team. Kelly Cabral, Pud Cusack, Claude Letessier, David Parker, Ross Simpson and Mark Jan Wlodarkiewicz working with musical composers Tom Hajdu, Andy Milburn and Jeff Rona created some of the creepiest sounds and musical overtures in quite some time. When you think of great music and sounds from the horror genre, you think of Carpenter's eerie piano piece from Halloween, Charles Bernstein's dream-like haunting score from Nightmare On Elm Street and John Williams ominous cello from Jaws. This is on par with all of those. And even though this team of musicians may never know it, your work is appreciated by all of who love horror films. Thanks.Really great stuff, and aligns with my thoughts on the film very well. It manages to be somewhere between spiritual and cosmic horror without being definitively either, and the sense of smallness is absolutely hammered home.
SpoilerThe two things that make it eeriest of all I think, the two things that takes it away from even spiritual or cosmic horror.....is firstly the lack of objective - or at least understandable objective, and secondly the lack of clarity regarding the agency of the entity, whether it was ever actually responsible for anything or simply reporting on it....in which case it circles back to the first point, making it even eerier.
There's nothing else that's ever done that, to my knowledge, and there are very few viable claims of true uniqueness in horror.
Maybe, MAYBE the closest thing to an equivalent would be the Doctor Who episode Midnight. That's the only near parallel on those two fronts.
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12 hours ago, baumer said:
An interesting list no doubt. Glad to see Inside make your list at number 39. It was one of craziest and most gory films I've seen. Also liked seeing Mothman on your list. Not a very big Candyman fan, but there are plenty who are. Love seeing Jaws in your top 3 as well.
Thanks friend.
Inside is a very well made piece. I have a big of a bugbear about films from the 2003-2015 era that have a bleak tone which telegraphs a downbeat/gutpunch ending to the point that IMO it actually removes the tension since one knows the worst possible thing will happen. I think
SpoilerEden Lake
is a really good example of this - an otherwise well made film but that tonally seemed so determined to be miserable any stakes were removed for me. Inside (and Martyrs) manage to bypass this issue for me by retaining stakes and tension all the way through,
Spoilerdespite their endings being bleak
.
The phone/chapstick scene in Mothman Prophecies is one of the personally scariest scenes I’ve ever seen. It hits all my subjective personal buttons in what I find scary. It’s one of the few scenes where it doesn’t fade away a single time for me in repeat viewings. It absolutely makes my skin crawl every time. The escalation of going from
Spoilera stalker situation to a supernatural situation
just using dialogue is for me nearly as perfect a technical piece of sleight-of-hand horror writing as the management of switching-pronouns-without-you-comsciously-noticing in Jaws’ Indianapolis speech. In terms of subjective things I personally always find scary when I watch, only the end of Session 9 and some of the scenes in Borderlands compare. In terms of personal fear impact on first watch, it’s up there with Suspiria, Shining and Event Horizon.
Your list reminds me there is always more to see. I’ve never seen Gates of Hell, Ils, Witchboard, Silver Bullet or The Initiation and will definitely check them out.
I really like Autopsy of Jane Doe. Nearly on my list also. A rewatch and it might make it. Wolf Creek, Stir of Echoes, High Tension, Arachnophobia, Gremlins, Bay of Blood and the first Evil Dead would all be in my top 125ish if we went that far.
We have some more overt deviations, but its pretty clear why that is: I’m not a slasher or splatter guy and once I’ve burned through the pre-originator (Peeping Tom), The mainstream Americanisation (BC), the perfection and pop culturification of the form (Halloween) and the commentary on it (Scream) I’m kind of done with them on any list of top horrors. I like big concepts, I prioritise originality and risks and big ideas and I like atmosphere; and horror fandom when I was younger was dominated with slasher and slasher villains that I (rightly or wrongly) perceived as the opposite of those traits and I had little innate interest in, inuring me against them further. As I say above, I’m trying to be more generous these days about it all. There was a meaningful fandom culture that is rightly precious to many with memories of pizza, the video store, a love of practical effects and sharing cool kills with friends. It’s cool, it’s just not my culture.
Interestingly, I can’t help but notice that nobody has included Silence of the Lambs yet.
SpoilerAnd quite right too.
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Discourse around horror films by horror fans is fascinating. And sometimes very frustrating.
If a horror fan doesn't like a horror film they are prone to hyperbolic dismissal of it. Because horror films you don't like become functionally purposeless and as such are kind of annoying. Just like it's affective sibling of comedy - nothing more annoying than a comedy film you don't find funny. Dramas and superhero films don't have that issue, since they aren't so mono-focused in their purpose. And where comedies at least have only one purpose that we all agree on, horror films have divers purpose and different spectators want different things from their horror films (theme exploration/atmosphere/sadism/voyeurism/jumps/humour/familiarity) and so judge them on wildly different scales and bases.
I think it's why comedies and horrors do so badly in terms of award seasons, and why the few ones that ARE approved in such manner aren't even necessarily the best ones. And why so many classics have crappy imdb scores.
I've tried to be much more generous to horror films I don't personally like in the last few years.
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This weekend really comes across as shackles coming off in both the US and the UK. Albeit with different titles. The general public needed this catharsis clearly.
Among other things, I think keeping Venom 2 short was a genius move.
Box Office Theory's Top 100 Horror Movies: Vol. 2 | #1 has been revealed!
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Posted
Right….lots of the things.
Us is beautifully shot in places, features a phenomenal central performance, plus good support performances and the first hour in general is pretty strong. On the other I am in the quarters that says the film completely falls to pieces in the second half and the movie is kind of broken as a result. Between the two Peele films plus the tightly controlled Candyman remake thats a firm 3/3 for films that have increasingly messy endings and I think having burned so bright he’s one, maybe two, incoherent endings away from the M Night treatment post-Lady in the Water.
The Lighthouse is excellent and only didn’t make my list due to recency adjustment and the fact I only watched it once. Defoe is one of the 5-10 leading actors in the world and has been for 2 decades. He should easily have received more awards recognition for this. In a crowded field, Eggers is my most promising director in any genre tight now.
I have a complicated relationship with Raimi films, and I rate both Evil Dead II and the Remake quite a bit over the original Evil Dead, nevertheless could never complain about it being in a list like this. It’s important and ever-rewatchable.
Intriguing as to how and why House got into the conversation in the last few years. Seem to have been a youtube and vitality thing. I don’t have a problem with it. It’s a good, fun movie with high watchability which probably explains why it’s stuck. I don’t rate it as highly myself but if something like this is going to blow up, this is as good as any.
The Conjuring, as I say with Conjuring 2, has clearly done amazingly well to generate the popularity it has. It isn’t my thing by any means and it’s rather generic for my tastes but it’s probably that aggregation of what makes supernatural horror mechanisms work that have caused it to be so popular.
Glad to hear I Walked with a Zombie nearly made the list. Absolutely seminal/essential IMO.
Evil Dead II is a blast and just pips the remake for my favourite of the franchise. Raimi’s eclectic traits and directorial creativity benefit him here to the max, it’s the exact right tone for the cast and it’s a whole bunch of fun.
Aliens is my line-in-the-sand of “not a horror movie”. If the remit forewent Jurassic Park (which it specifically did, and Jurassic Park is universally not considered a horror film) then I would always argue it should forego Aliens since Jurassic Park is, in every aspect of its structure, far more of a horror film than Aliens.
I can’t dissociate Eraserhead with “Pretentious student film” in my emotional and visceral responses to it. It’s almost certainly not the film itself’s fault and entirely the fault of the kind of people I have met in my life who obsess over Eraserhead. I do like Lynch, it’s just sometimes life experiences override the ability to evaluate a film. I have similar relationships with the bands Muse and Manic Street Preachers.
Bride of Frankenstein is excellent. I honestly can’t remember if it was in my list but it probably should have been if it wasn’t.
Night of the Hunter is now rightly considered a classic both on this forum and elsewhere. It’s a well deserved accomplishment for Charles Laughton and the rest of the people who made them movie who, like with Peeping Tom, spend decades having their masterpiece trashed.