Last movie watched...

[Recrewt]

Well, I stand by what I said - but I did also get around to watching Hellraiser II: Hellbound, which is a vastly superior film in almost every way.

Unfortunately this newfound goodwill towards the series led to me watching Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth, which saw standards plummet again. Felt more like a 90's made-for-tv movie than anything else. I got about halfway through but then decided life is probably too short and called my dalliance with this series done.

Hellraiser 2 is a good movie but to me it just feels like it tries to punch above its weight too much.  Trying to depict hell is always going to be tough but I would have thought eternal damnation involved a bit more than lots of empty corridors and a maze.  That said, I thought they did well with Franks room and those bodies writhing under the bloody sheets were seriously disturbing.

You are right though, it dives off a cliff for Hellraiser 3 and what few of the others I have seen are not much better. 

[Dark Jimbo]

On the 'advice' of this forum I gave Halloween III a spin - not something I'd ever been fussed about seeing beforehand, as I've never really been blown away by previous Halloween efforts (I was dissapointing, VI and H20 were both shit and I haven't seen the others).

Not too impressed at first - it looks cheap as chips and the masks weren't really convincing as a country-wide phenomenon ('In three striking designs!' Wow! Three whole different designs, you say?) Nigel Kneale's influence is immediately obvious though as soon as the protagonists arrive at Santa Mira - it's altogether very 'Quatermass II' with its suspicious factory and sinister workforce dominating a small town. And I'm glad I stuck with it as the film keeps on picking up from here, really. The more we learn of the strange events the more intriguing things get, and Cochran is a superb baddie - avuncular, gregarious and pleasant, even when events come crashing down around his ears towards the end, he's great fun to watch. And I feared a cop-out ending but the film kept the courage of its convictions right to the end. Pretty good stuff all round.

[willthemightyW]

In the spirit of all things Halloween and John Carpenter, I watched THE FOG for the first time, and decided it's really quite good. I'd heard a lot about how weak the villain/threat was and how much it detracted from the film, but I thought it worked just fine. The ending felt like a bit of an anticlimax though, except for the bit with Adrienne Barbeau on the roof being kinda tense. So yeah, was a good'n.

Will

[Professor Bear]

Psycho - which I have never seen before.  I was aware of the "twist" from popular culture, seen at least one of the sequels, watched the recent prequel series Bates Motel, and then the shot-for-shot Gus Van Sant remake so clearly I have come at this from entirely the wrong direction, but this was pretty good all the same.  There's some stuff in the original that just didn't work in the remake, like the shockingly young-looking Anthony Perkins' nervously bobbing adam's apple in shadowy close-ups (obviously not present in the remake as the new actor in the role was physically different from Perkins) and his version of Norman's occasionally absurd body language like when the extent of his nutbar tendancies is finally revealed and he just stands there shrieking as the theme stabs over and over before awkwardly lunging for the kill - the actor in the remake whose name sadly escapes me came off as a twitchy and underwhelming slasher, but Perkins really convinces as a dork who just happens to be a complete fucking nutter when a mental switch is thrown, like when he just runs straight at that poor detective and stabs him up right in the middle of what looks like it's going to be a much longer scene...  In being so dated, the film also hides one of its biggest cultural nuances, in that it's a story about a particular bogeyman of what was then a much larger country full of faraway places and a constant stream of new myths and legends even well into the 20th century, much as we're still seeing new bogeymen like that guy in the photograph accidentally taken when someone slipped back into the house trying not to wake their room-mate, or the butcher who sells strange meat, the Nigerian prince who would like your Paypal details, or those burglars who take everything from a house except the toothbrushes and a disposable camera, and so on - Psycho is of the mythical Americana forming just as the culture around it did, the story of the madman at the side of the road who preys on lost girls and unwary travelers, a forebear of the likes of The Hitcher, Jeepers Creepers or The Hills Have Eyes, certainly, but descended from older tales still and transplanted to a time when crossing from one end of the land still involved stops in strange and unfamiliar places not marked on maps, and as such it's actually quite easy to miss that the Bates Motel is more or less on the edge of town and the whole story takes place within the reach of a single community.  A film well deserving of its place in cinematic and cultural lore.

Next up: The Birds, because yes, I have not seen that, either.

[GrinningChimera]

Escape From New York

After seeing this http://www.fright-rags.com/escape-from-new-york-limited-edition-box-set-p-940.html earlier today, and not being able to justify buying it (times are tough) I thought I'd torture myself by watching it. I'm gonna be humming this damn theme song all night now. While it's not a good looking movie by any means, it will always be a classic. Still waiting for the next installment J.C!

[Frank]

the actor in the remake whose name sadly escapes me

It's odd to think that anyone ever considered Vince Vaughan a real actor. I like to think fans of his more recent work might pick up Van Sant's film, expecting it to be comedy remake like Starsky & Hutch or a film about a slobby, easy going everyman who inherits a rundown motel and has to turn its fortunes around to win the affections of a hot young girl - If you can dodge a knife, you can dodge a ball.

[Mardroid]

I disliked Hellraiser too. Not so much due to the acting I just found the main characters dislikable. Now having such characters is fine in a film, but I think I need one that I can relate too and they only turned up in the end. I agree that the effects were brilliant and the film did pick up later though.

I did rather like the second and third films though. The second was a more interesting developed film, and I liked the themes of redemption, and dichotomy etc in the third. (The third is the one with the man who would become Pin-Head's daughter as the main focus, right? The one with that weird pillar of pain? I guess I can see why many disliked it. It was a departure from the others, but I like a bit of a moral line and heart in a film filled with nastiness. The whole reason I dislike the first is mainly due to to the shere sense of perversion and shallowness. I seem to remember finding the he fourth film quite a interesting too. A period prequel, if I remember correctly.

Last film I saw was Thor: The Dark World.

An enjoyable romp. Some plot holes (or maybe I just missed something) but it is as fun and actually very funny in places. The 'sort of' Captain America cameo made me laugh. It was nice to expand on the Norse worlds stuff too.[spoiler] As for the dark elf villains, a curious take having them in those flying vessels. The sequel film take on this seems to be really blurring the line between science and magic. Not a bad thing All - in - all, although I think I prefer Hellboy 2's take on the Dark Elves more.

The aether thing? Meh. Works I guess although I can't help thinking such a world destroying MacGuffin (or maguffin whatever the word is) would have been more destructive in one to one combat. [/spoiler]

But it was good fun, as I said. I didn't think much of the title character's role although he is likeable enough. It seemed to be the supposedly supporting characters that carried this, although Thor was good for the action hammer stuff, which is ultimately what he is about.

Best character: probably Loki. Now there is a complex character. I wonder if he is getting a bit overused what with The Avengers too, but he really supplies the laughs. "I think you missed a column."

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

In keeping with the season, I watched Rosemary's Baby for the first time. It was a good movie, a bit like a nativity play for Hallowe'en. I found it light on the scares, but it did give me a sense of creepy unease. Chauvinistic, but not entirely because it was a product of its time, I think that was kind of what they were aiming for.

[TordelBack]

I like to think fans of his more recent work might pick up Van Sant's film, expecting it to be comedy remake like Starsky & Hutch or a film about a slobby, easy going everyman who inherits a rundown motel and has to turn its fortunes around to win the affections of a hot young girl - If you can dodge a knife, you can dodge a ball.

Dodgeball is a fun film. There, I said it.  Please don't make a scene.

I quite enjoyed the Psycho remake, I just can't quite imagine the effect of seeing it before the original - would have I lasted until the end without morbid curiosity to sustain me?  Probably the best thing about it were the anachronisms in the dialogue, which added to the unsettling atmosphere in a vaguely David Lynch sort of way.

[Colin YNWA]

Dodgeball is a fun film. There, I said it.  Please don't make a scene.

I'll see you and raise. Dodgeball is a bloomi ' fantastic film.

[shaolin_monkey]

Dodgeball is a fun film. There, I said it.  Please don't make a scene.

I'll see you and raise. Dodgeball is a bloomi ' fantastic film.

Thank you Chuck Norris!

[Tiplodocus]

RESIDENT EVIL.

Milla Jovovich chews gum and kicks ass in a more enjoyable than it has a right to be video game adaption.
Was watching woth Tiby Teen Tips so it was seen through fresh eyes; lots of suspense and zombies even if not a lot of gross gore.

I'll go on a limb and say Anderson's best ( though I like Magnolia ;o) ).

Milla looks fantastic throughout.

[Professor Bear]

The Birds.  I don't quite know what to make of this - on one hand there's the roots of a lot of contemporary horror movies in the way it takes so long to build up and puts a rather dull romance and uninteresting characters front and center, but on the other it feels meandering and some of it is unintentionally frustrating, like that bit where the bloke is trying to close a window and the birds are pecking at him and all I could think was "YES I GET IT CLOSE THE WINDOW ALREADY" or that bit where the woman wanders up into a room full for birds for some reason and just stays there while they peck at her and all I could think was "JUST LEAVE THE ROOM" and for a film that doesn't half like to take forever to do things and over-eggs scenes, it doesn't half end abruptly with no resolution.  There's a bit where some cars blow up and it keeps flashing back to Tippi Hedren in different poses, too, and it's pretty funny because it just looks like a clumsy gif off the web, but I really just found it boring more than anything.

[Frank]

The Birds.  I don't quite know what to make of this

This amusingly foreign gentleman does.

... or that bit where the woman wanders up into a room full for birds for some reason and just stays there while they peck at her and all I could think was "JUST LEAVE THE ROOM"

The answer to that is even more disturbing than you can imagine.

[shaolin_monkey]

... or that bit where the woman wanders up into a room full for birds for some reason and just stays there while they peck at her and all I could think was "JUST LEAVE THE ROOM"

The answer to that is even more disturbing than you can imagine.

Ferkin 'ell - talk about Psycho!