The Horror Movie Thread

[TheRyno]

After learning that the Wizard of Gore remake is being released to DVD under the "Dimension Extreme" imprint, it got me to wondering about all the other horror movies that have been released lately. It seems that there have been a ton of them in the past year alone between Dimension Extreme, After Dark Horrorfest and other DVD imprints and I've been wondering if they're any good. I've been meaning to pick up Diary of the Dead and Teeth lately and, from what I've heard, Frontier(s) sounds pretty good.

So yeah, basically I've just been wanting to see some good horror movies lately but I'm not really sure what to plunk the money down for. But to stimulate some actual conversation, think about this: Do you think these constant DVD releases are almost a revival of the horror video scene of the 80's?

[Gabriel]

Horror is my favorite of all film genres. I absolutely love it to death.

Teeth was a very good film, but the pacing put a lot of people off, and it's not really that much of a horror film. Still, as you can tell from my signature, one of my favorite films of recent times.

Diary of the Dead was also a very good film. It's basically Cloverfield, but with Zombies, and less destruction. I personally found it to be a fairly exciting film that shows that George Romero is anything but a has-been.

Other newer stuff though... Dark Floors was a very good popcorn flick. Nothing to write home about, but definately worth the $5 or the couple of hours you'd put into it.

I also really enjoyed The Ruins. Again, not so much in the traditional horror sense, but a very good film nonetheless.

Also...did you find out when Wizard of Gore is being released, or just that it is?

[TheRyno]

Also...did you find out when Wizard of Gore is being released, or just that it is?

August 19th

I love horror too but I haven't been able to keep track of it as much as I used to. But now, I just spent the past half hour or so at BloodyDisgusting.com. Right now, I'm reading an article about Midnight Meat Train ( ). Not only is it a horror movie with a gay porno title directed by the director of Versus (one of my favorite movies ever) but it has Vinnie Jones as the bad guy and Quentin "Rampage" Jackson (aka Master Chief Wif Gold Teef). This movie has awesome written all over it.

[Gabriel]

The Midnight Meat Train is part of Clive Barker's Books of Blood. If you're at all into reading, and haven't read it yet, do so. It is magnificent.

The movie looks pretty good. Strays a little here and there from the original plot, but I can get over that. Also, Vinnie Jones won't be speaking, which will make his acting all the better.

They are also doing a bunch of adaptations from the Books of Blood in the near future, so that's another reason to read some Clive Barker.

The red band trailer for Mirrors makes it look like a damn fine movie as well. Disturbing, bloody and creepy as hell.

[Synjynpsychobitch]

I have Frontiers, Diary of the Dead, Teeth, Midnight Meat Train (Love me some Clive Barker!), Inside, Baghead, Behind the Mask:The Rise of Leslie Veron, Who Could Kill a Child, Vistor Q, Calvaire and Going to Pieces:The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film, among many others queued on Netflix. I've also started rewatching many of my favorites such as Carnival of Souls, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and all things Dario Argento.

The Signal- I liked it a lot. I was already clued in that it was three parts by three different directors, so the differences in the 'transmissions' didn't bother me. I loved the second part best, for it's gently mocking the often preposterous situtions and dialogue we get in many horror films. I loved the dark humor of it. The best acting was in part three, but it was the weakest of the 'transmissions", overall. All in all not a bad low budget film.

Hands down the short of the family in suv, in the special features section had me howling. I would love to see them do websodes of Terminus, where different directors put their spin on what happened to the inhabitants after they got the crazy. They could start their own cottage industry with this. I can see Terminus books, comics, video games, roleplaying games, the possibilites are endless.

The Strangers- Actually not bad for a big buget film. It wasn't nearly as good to me as Them, but I wasn't expecting much and came out not upset on paying full ticket price to watch it. All in all I enjoyed it, but it's not one I will rush to rewatch anytime soon.

The Ruins - I was expecting something on the level of Tourista, which I hated. This was actually very well done for a suspense horror film. My only complaint was I wanted there to be just a little more action.

Three Extremes- I love J-horror and Takasi Miike is one of my favorite directors, so I queued this up to watch. When I realized that one of the tales was directed by Park Chan-Wook (The Vengence Trilogy) I was even more excited to see it. It wasn't what I wanted it to be. Don't get me wrong, some of it was somewhat disturbing, especially Fruit Chan's Dumplings, but there wasn't much extreme about it. What we got was three very well told stories with some unsettling qualities, but nothing awesomely extreme. Miike's story was beautifully shot and sureal, but was the least unsettling of the three. I think I came away very disappointed.

I reallly hate remakes, but this sorta intrigues me because Clive Barker is on board.

Hellraiser to be Remade

It wasn't until I read this Barker on Hellraiser Remake, that I even gave a second thought about seeing it.

Edited July 12, 2008 by Synjynpsychobitch

[RoyWill Rumble]

I <3 you.

Anyway, Frontiers is absolutely fucking brilliant. Seriously, it's one of the best movies I've seen in the past while, horror or not.

I agree on Teeth. I finally got around to seeing it after wanting to see it for so long, and I loved it. It's just fun. It's funny as fuck, too.

Haute Tension/High Tension is great. I felt the gore was a bit much at times in the sense that it got to pointless gore, but it was still a good movie. I won't deny that.

That Clive Barker movie has me excited. He's been really miss, but he could certainly revive his career with this movie.

Wolf Creek needs to be seen. That movie is fucking superb.

Diary of the Dead was so awesome to me. George A. Romero is one of my favourite directors ever and the man can do no wrong, because I realize his movies are fucking zombie movies and just take them for what they are.

As far as Asian stuff:

This will be kind of all over, and some not so much horror as gore, but still, they're awesome.

Ichi The Killer (not so much horror, but disturbing at times, violent as fuck)

The Audition (horror for the menfolk, really?)

Old Boy (not horror at all, but come on, this movie is fucking awesome)

Battle Royale (obvious)

Suicide Club (fucked up, again, not horror, but fucked up)

Versus if you haven't seen it is fucking great, too.

Martyrs looks like it ought to be rad. Not Asian, but French. They seem to be coming up with great movies lately.

I've heard that Dance of the Dead is hilarious, on-par with Shaun of the Dead. That's A LOT to live up to, though. I haven't seen it personally, but it's got a solid rating from bloody-disgusting.com

Dead Man's Shoes I've heard is awesome, too. I haven't been able to find it, though. Not exactly a horror.

I second Leslie Vernon, too. That was a fun movie.

That's all I've got right now.

Edited July 12, 2008 by Will.

[Gabriel]

Clive Barker is an author, and he mostly just sells the rights to his stuff, to be made into films. They attach his name so that people know what to expect, sorta. Most of the time, he has little or nothing to do with the product we get as a film.

That's why the films that are based on his stories are hit or miss. Someone could pitch him a great idea of how to bring something to the silver screen, and then deliver something completely different and totally awful. Once you have the rights, you can turn it into whatever you want.

[RoyWill Rumble]

Clive Barker is an author, and he mostly just sells the rights to his stuff, to be made into films. They attach his name so that people know what to expect, sorta. Most of the time, he has little or nothing to do with the product we get as a film.

That's why the films that are based on his stories are hit or miss. Someone could pitch him a great idea of how to bring something to the silver screen, and then deliver something completely different and totally awful. Once you have the rights, you can turn it into whatever you want.

Oh, I know the situation. I meant more so 'let's hope he revives his career where he doesn't just sell his shit becaue he needs a payday and he sells his shit to make a good movie'.

[Gabriel]

Clive Barker is an author, and he mostly just sells the rights to his stuff, to be made into films. They attach his name so that people know what to expect, sorta. Most of the time, he has little or nothing to do with the product we get as a film.

That's why the films that are based on his stories are hit or miss. Someone could pitch him a great idea of how to bring something to the silver screen, and then deliver something completely different and totally awful. Once you have the rights, you can turn it into whatever you want.

Oh, I know the situation. I meant more so 'let's hope he revives his career where he doesn't just sell his shit becaue he needs a payday and he sells his shit to make a good movie'.

Ah, well, he doesn't need the money. He recently released an awesome novel, Mister B Gone. Check it out if you haven't. It's a little anitclimactic, but it's a hell of a read.

Along with that, he's writing the final novel to involve Pinhead. That's right, he's killing him off.

He's doing extremely well, so he doesn't need the cash. Which means that we can probably safely assume that any films coming out with his name attached won't be utter shit.

[slain]

Sweet! I inspired something!?

But yeah. I don't get the chance to see many independent horror movies, and when I do, they're not usually very good. There are a lot of Asian horrors that I really need to see, and as soon as I get a job, I'm going to buy shit loads of them. I've heard good things about The Signal, so I might check that out if the video store has it.

EDIT: The remake of The Wizard Of Gore doesn't seem too bad. The more I read about it, them more I want to see it. No matter what people thought of the original, I think it's a very underrated classic.

Edited July 12, 2008 by slain

[Toe]

I find Hellraiser to be a very overrated film. It is not scary or frightening to me, it all just seems cheesy. The sequels don't even deserve a mention.

I hate the horror genre so much. Too much torture-porn and asian influenced movies. The latter is the worst - there are like a million movies with pale little asian kids and wet looking girls twitching down hallways, it all just looks dumb.

[Gabriel]

Hellraiser worked much better as a novella than as a film. That being said, if you're not expecting anything from it, it's a decent psychological film. The sequels steered into mindfuck territory, and then torture porn, and never really kept to the formula that Barker made work in the first place.

[RoyWill Rumble]

I find Hellraiser to be a very overrated film. It is not scary or frightening to me, it all just seems cheesy. The sequels don't even deserve a mention.

I hate the horror genre so much. Too much torture-porn and asian influenced movies. The latter is the worst - there are like a million movies with pale little asian kids and wet looking girls twitching down hallways, it all just looks dumb.

This opinion is well-informed.

[Gabriel]

To be fair... we've seen American remakes of more than a dozen Japanese flicks, and they all turn out pretty much the same. The American remakes I mean, not the Japanese films. I never watched any of the originals, so I wouldn't have an informed opinion on the subject.

[GhostMachine]

The only Clive Barker movies I thought were any good were Lord of Illusion and Nightbreed, and the latter doesn't hold up after multiple viewings.

Hellraiser really should have ended after II or III.

[RoyWill Rumble]

To be fair... we've seen American remakes of more than a dozen Japanese flicks, and they all turn out pretty much the same. The American remakes I mean, not the Japanese films. I never watched any of the originals, so I wouldn't have an informed opinion on the subject.

That's because American remakes are generally remakes of the same types of Japanese horror movies. Plus, the whole 'creepy little girl' thing in Asian horror movies, is fortunately enough, over.

And America started it all with The Shining anyway.

[TheRyno]

I find Hellraiser to be a very overrated film. It is not scary or frightening to me, it all just seems cheesy. The sequels don't even deserve a mention.

I hate the horror genre so much. Too much torture-porn and asian influenced movies. The latter is the worst - there are like a million movies with pale little asian kids and wet looking girls twitching down hallways, it all just looks dumb.

This opinion is well-informed.

Well, considering all the stuff that's been released in mainstream theaters...he's kinda right. I can honestly say I've never seen a Japanese remake. Even so, some of the originals are pretty meh. I bought Ju-On once and was bored out of my mind. The only real redeeming quality of it was that one of the girls was really cute.

See, that's why I'm hoping that all these straight-to-DVD movies will somehow revitalize the genre instead of reducing it to popcorn fodder for fifteen year olds. Even though the budgets are bigger (for the most part), it still reminds me of the 80's video scene where directors could pretty much do whatever they want.

[TheRyno]

I have Frontiers, Diary of the Dead, Teeth, Midnight Meat Train (Love me some Clive Barker!), Inside, Baghead, Behind the Mask:The Rise of Leslie Veron, Who Could Kill a Child, Vistor Q, Calvaire and Going to Pieces:The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film, among many others queued on Netflix. I've also started rewatching many of my favorites such as Carnival of Souls, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and all things Dario Argento.

How is Visitor Q? Between that and the Dead Or Alive movies, they're the Takashii Miike movies that I've wanted to see for years but never got to.

By the way, even though it isn't horror, check out Park Chan-wook's JSA, if you haven't already. I just picked it up a month or so ago (for $2 at Gamestop, no less) and it was awesome. I'm not sure if it edges out Sympathy For Mr. Vengance as my favorite movie of his yet but it's close.

[GhostMachine]

I wonder if there's a chance for American remakes of Versus or Machine Girl?.....

I hope not.

*edit* I'm still mad at myself for not picking up Versus the ONE time I found it at Wal-Mart several months back.

Edited July 12, 2008 by GhostMachine

[TheRyno]

If someone tries to remake those movies, I'm gonna punch them. Those movies are fine the way they are.

By the way, if you can, pick up Ultimate Versus. Basically they just added some new/extended fight scenes but they're badass as hell.

Also, even though I have it on DVD, I'm still pretty pumped to see Machine Girl at this convention I'm going to in August.