Last movie watched...

[Hawkmumbler]

Except he is responsible. In every way. There is no empirical reading of the situation where he ISN'T responsible.

SPIRAL (2000)

Odd one this. Adapted under supervision from original manga creator Junji Ito, its at times nail gratingly creepy with moments of holistic brutality iconic of the author, yet the ponderous, atmospheric town that inhabited the pages of Uzumaki doesn't translate to the third dimension. Everything is tinted green, not unlike the sweaty, claustrophobic works of Luigi Cozzi, but in a more sterile medium making the whole thing feel a bit too clinical for its horrors to truly land.

I have high expectations for the upcoming animated adaptation of Uzumaki, however. That looks incredibly lush.

[pictsy]

Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI

I can see why this is many peoples favourite.  The tonal shift to be more comedic is certainly welcome, but it still manages to keep it stale with a return to the lake.  He really needs to get away from that lake.  Maybe take a cruise or something.  The humour is ok but it's not really parody or satire or anything.  It's just got jokes now.  I'm ok with this.  Regardless, it's not much of an improvement that it shines above the rest and got a little dull towards the end like all of these movies do.

Oh and Jason is some sort of reanimated corpse.  I don't want to say zombie because there isn't much that's zombie about him other than rising from the grave.  Well, I knew that was going to happen but it is funny how it doesn't really change anything.  Now if the films doubled down on the supernatural element that would be even more of a shift.  That said, the franchise is certainly evolving.  This is a vastly different film to the first.

Next up, Jason plans a prank for prom involving pigs blood... what could go wrong?

[pictsy]

Friday the 13th Part VII The New Blood

I think the real crutch of the series that has held it back is the need for Jason to kill teens, preferably besides a lake.  I find one of the weakest aspects so far are the elements I have heard talk of the most over the years.  The kills.  It's a dead weight on the franchise because it just blends together.  At this point even Jason has given up, no long throwing dead bodies through windows but just jumping through them himself.  The last film played things for laughs, but this film highlights why it is a problem.  There was an interesting idea for a story here.  But there had to be teens so there could be the body count and the kills. 

It plays out like all the others.  A mixed bag with pacing issues and a tendency to drag on at the end.  Part 3D stood out as being particularly bad, but now I just can't remember it because everything has become blur.  Will the telekinesis help this one stand out?  Only time well tell.  It ends up not adding much to the film anyway.

I will say that the Jason costume and make-up for this one is the best yet.  Kane Hodder somehow makes Jason seem very angry in this film.  Almost like he is really pissed off and resentful at being resurrected again.  Sure, I can feel his pain, but it's a pretty stark contrast from what came before (and we've had Jason go from being afraid of a chainsaw to casually batting one away with a machete).

Next up, Babe: Pig in the City

[milstar]

Except he is responsible. In every way. There is no empirical reading of the situation where he ISN'T responsible.

You give him too much blame. The director's job isn't to rig the stunts and perform sfxs.

[Hawkmumbler]

"The proximity of the helicopter to the special effects explosions was due to the failure to establish direct communications and coordination between the pilot, who was in command of the helicopter operation, and the film director, who was in charge of the filming operation."
-NTSC AAR, 30/10/84

[Funt Solo]

I had considered debating the point, but I figured I was never going to influence Hawkmumbler's position, and realized that there was no value in splitting hairs on a topic I didn't give a flying f*ck about until a couple of days ago. Plus, derailing the "Last movie watched..." thread over a decades old tragedy seemed not to be in-keeping with the value of this thread as a mostly very positive area of the board for a light chinwag.

So, with all due respect, may I suggest that a new thread would be appropriate for any further discussion of that particular topic.

[Daveycandlish]

Changing the subject...

saw The Addams Family 2 at the cinema today and thoroughly enjoyed it. The animation is based on Charles Addams' original drawings, it's an all-star cast and it has gags in there for all ages. Take the kids (if you have them) but you can expect a laugh for yourself, too (not many kids will get the Carrie at the Prom gag). Worth 90 minutes of your time.

[Colin YNWA]

Another one for The Green Knight.

Now I watched it on telly, which goes against everything you hear, as its said to be a visual treat. And it is, just in a predictable way. All lush light, natural gnarls. jagged shapes and wind sweep all sorts. All back light and dramatic... it felt predictable in its visual wonder. I imgaine in the cinema however predictable or not the visual wonder would have won out. My lose.

What isn't lost is the brilliant use of a simple classic tale. Its incredibly well done and while I might have lost a sense of the purpose of some bits, it hangs together vignettes supremely to draw you along however and invite you back for future viewings.

Again the time switch ending is predictable, but who cares when its done so well with some glorious visual storytelling. And then the actual ending is nicely dangling.... and then the end credit ending is even more intriguing, especially given the previous time switch we got.

An indulgent treat this one and well worth a go.

[Hawkmumbler]

It is an enticing bit that the film ends [spoiler]just as old green lad is about to commit Gawain to the trial of three swings.[/spoiler] Leaving it entirely ambiguous just how much it adheres to the original prose poem.

[pictsy]

Friday the 13th Part VIII Jason takes Manhattan

Oh wow this film is shit.  It is, by far, the worst instalment so far.  It was an endurance to get through it.  It is such an utter mess and pretty boring.  I am utterly confused at all the choices that were made for this film and there are some terrible and confusing scenes.  Can Jason turn invisible or literally teleport now?  That's a thing that seems to happen.  More than once.  Why is Jason, the indiscriminate murderer, suddenly being discriminating in his murders once he makes it to the big city?  Why does he turn into a child at the end and seemingly then left in the sewer?  Did he turn into a dead child?  Weirdest ending yet.  Why was New York even written into this film?  Did Jason really drown in the lake like the first film says?  What the fuck is going on?  How old is Jason really?  Why am I now being made to questioning the time line of this franchise?

I didn't have a good time.  It's a piece of crap.  This film made me regret doing this marathon.

Next up, Anyone up for delicious corpse heart?  Yummers!

[pictsy]

Jason Goes To Hell - The Final Friday

What movie franchise was I watching again?  I'm not going to knock this film for being so drastically different.  It's pretty consistent with how engaging it is.  It is still a mess, however.  I did wonder at first whether this was meant to be a stand alone film that had the Jason brand stamped on it to get bums in seats at the cinema.  Apparently that isn't the case.  Jason looks terrible during the couple of minutes he's on screen.

Next up, Space.  The final frontier.  (The only one of these films I had seen previously)

[repoman]

Jason X is a lot of fun.  I really like it.

I had a mixed weekend of film watching.

Stowaway - Amazingly this film manages to end too abruptly and yet also feel like it's about three hours too long.  The concept is okay and should set up a fun 'The Martian'-esque science 'em up film.  But instead it's just achingly dull.

Four Rooms - I gave up about five minutes into the second segment.  This is one of the worst things I've ever watched.

Halloween 3 - Recently I tried to watch all the Halloweens but skipped 3 as I was just doing the Michael Myers storyline.  It was fucking awful.  I used to rate Halloween 2 but even that seemed plodding and cliched.  I think I bailed after Halloween 5.  They'd gotten really bad by then.  I saw H20 in the cinema (it was rubbish) and I caught that one a couple of years back (also rubbish).

But I really enjoyed Halloween 3.  It's incredibly daft and makes little to no sense but it is fun to watch, has some incredibly silly kills in it and it feels more Carpenter-esque than the original.

The Descent - I really liked this 15 years ago so I don't know why I've waited this long to rewatch.  Much like Blair Witch, the idea of just being there without some sort of malevolent presence is enough.  Fuck every bit of going into caves.  Throw in those things and it's even scarier.  Liked it a lot.

[pictsy]

Jason X

I'm not sure what it says about the franchise that this is one of, if not the best instalment.  It's not a good film, but it stands above many others in terms of being watchable.  I always kind of liked the beginning of the film as well.  I don't have much to say about it because the film is pretty unremarkable taken on it's own terms.

My experience with watching this franchise has not been fun.  It started fine, but I hoped I'd be enjoying it more as it went on and I just didn't.  I really don't recommend doing this.  The first film was a surprise.  It was amazing, but it did feel like a decent horror film.  Those involved had a good grasp on what they needed to do to build tension.  It's dumb, sure, but I did find it tense for the most part.  After that it's just variations on a theme and that gets really tedious.

I wasn't expecting to have the same experience I had with the Elm Street films (a clearly superior franchise), but I wasn't expecting it to become a chore.  If this had ended with Part IV then I'd have better things to say, but it really ended up being an exercise in flogging a dead horse.

I regret my life choices.

[Barrington Boots]

My experience with watching this franchise has not been fun.  It started fine, but I hoped I'd be enjoying it more as it went on and I just didn't.  I really don't recommend doing this.  The first film was a surprise.  It was amazing, but it did feel like a decent horror film.  Those involved had a good grasp on what they needed to do to build tension.  It's dumb, sure, but I did find it tense for the most part.  After that it's just variations on a theme and that gets really tedious.

Kudos to you for doing this Pictsy. I have a boxset of the Friday films and have on occasion thought about doing this myself, but reason always wins through and reading your reviews reminds me I made the right choice.

I really like the first two films - the first one is definitely the best imo as it was made to stand alone but I really like II. VI is a laugh, and I like the first half of X - the opening with Cronenburg is brilliant, and the scene with the liquid nitrogen - but most of the others are so poor and they really do embody a crap franchise - cheaply made rubbish films with no real plot or ideas churned out one after another.
I always think 'yeah, I love Friday 13th' and I still think classic (Kane Hodder) Jason is probably the gold standard for iconic slasher baddies in terms of look and pure menace, but the franchise as a whole really is pants.

[pictsy]

I think the sad thing is there were good ideas to be found in the series.  They just weren't explored because dead teens and lakes are more important than interesting and enjoyable films.  There is almost a running theme of those suffering trauma, but it's never explored.  It's just window dressing and nothing comes of it.  The franchise lacks follow through and just falls back onto "safe" ground by just being lazy and repeating itself over and over again despite clear attempts to give life back to the franchise. 

4 tries to end it.  5 had an idea of changing it up, but 6 abandons it.  6 changes the tone, but 7 abandons that.  8 abandons what lingering quality is left.  9 abandons it's grip on reality.

I really agree that Kane Hodder's Jason is a gold standard in terms of look because I think it is that and not the films that keeps it in the public consciousness.  To the extent I was sure that a Machete was Jason's weapon of choice.  It isn't.  At all.  He has no weapon of choice.  It's just what ever is lying about.  And failing that, Jason will just squeeze your head until your eyes pop out for those awesome 3D effects.  Jason has transcended the films and is his own cultural iconography set apart from them, in my opinion.