Watched Kung Fury and loved every second of it. I giggled like a little girl.

Also watched The Veil, which for a random horror movie on Netflix wasn't all too bad. A horror/supernatural flick based on the premise of a religious cult and the aftermath of it. If you're super bored and half 90 minutes to kill toss it on.

What the fuck are you talking about? I'm not trying to be edgy. Jesus. I don't like a director and a series whose purpose is to be edgy, so that makes me edgy? How does that make sense? Is falling back on internet argot all you can do?

Hey, if the shoe fits, don't fix it.

*a director and a series whose purpose is to be edgy*

Very enlightening post, both of you. Thanks.

I thought The Veil was about average for Netflix horror, but there were two major things I really appreciated about it.

First, the Jonestown-like mass suicide happened 20 or 30 years before the events of the movie, so it avoided the issue of building to a climax that everybody could see coming. That was my problem with The Sacrament.

Also, the movie is about a documentary crew visiting the site of a tragedy, yet they somehow resisted the temptation to make the entire thing found footage!

Agreed! When they first arrived to the site I wasn't really all that engaged, but it quickly roped me in and I enjoyed how it all played out.

Speaking of documentary-style films, have any of you seen Man Bites Dog? I'm watching it right now. It's pretty twisted. It reminds me a little of American Psycho, in that the main character outwardly is a well-dressed, well-spoken, well-to-do guy, but he's actually a demented murderer. It's done in a documentary style.

It was pretty well-made, a lot better than most shockumentaries, not that it's a competitive genre. I think it's most notable for being the shlockiest movie in the Criterion Collection, lol.

I liked Man Bites Dog. It felt very amateurish and "real", not making the killer into a Hannibal Lecter or Patrick Bateman larger-than-life dramatic type, but more of a regular guy who's sometimes full of shit and sometimes looks stupid. Who also murders people. At the same time, it had just the right amount of awfulness to it such that it never became too funny or too comfortable. The movie threads that needle in a way that makes it seem easy.

I feel like if it were made today, it would either be too self-aware and wink-wink funny, or too edgy and dark and found footage style.

Yeah, it's a pretty startling movie, but it's weirdly engrossing. It really does thread the needle a certain way.

Speaking of movies that make you uncomfortable... hey look, another Star Trek Beyond trailer than no one asked for!


Hey, at least it's better than the first trailer.

Abrams fucked up every single Star Trek movie he's done. He did way better with Star Wars. At least he's not directing this Star Trek movie, but I don't have my hopes up.

Don't worry, he's been replaced with someone a lot more qualified; Justin Lin, with such deep, philosophical character pieces under his belt like The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Fast & Furious, Fast Five and, surprisingly enough, Fast & Furious 6.

Clearly the perfect man for the job, rather than someone like Charlie Brooker or Alex Garland or even James Gunn.

great! another sci-fi movie with daddy issues, stoners discussing death, spaceships falling out of the sky and a mid-credits smartypants scene... I made a mental note to go see it next time I feel like shoving fish forks over my eyelids! :/

I also watched Momentum http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3181776/ pure garbage. there's quite a few seconds of Olga's derrière, if you're so inclined, otherwise a waste of money.

.

Tetsuo is a must.

The Voices - really goofy comedy with Ryan Reynolds as this loner weirdo who starts killing women he works with and talks to his cat and dog. I thought this was kind of low brow, but it did have a kind of wit to it and never went quite as stupid as I thought it would be at the beginning. It's a very black comedy and it worked as that, with a kind of lightheartedly irreverent humor. I don't know if it needed to go more serious later on by revealing some more backstory, but it wasn't bad - it seemed to be trying at times to go for more of a realistic look at a serial killer's mind, but it never went all the way with that and always had some goofy stuff in there too, so it wasn't affecting in that way. Pretty fun flick for the genre, though not essential.

I imagine you must be referring to Tetsuo: The Iron Man, and in that case, yeah, great stuff. Unsettling, surreal, and revolting in the best way possible.

l

All those listed are worth checking out (Noroi is easily my fav "found footage" film), but also check out some of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's stuff. Kairo is pretty essential, but Cure is my personal favorite of his. Charisma is pretty slow for awhile, but about halfway through it gets real interesting.

Also, going into classic elitist mode, Onibaba (1964) is an absolute must. Fantastic horror film. Though not horror, Ugetsu (1953) eventually veers into creepy atmospheric supernatural mode, and the film itself is a rightful masterpiece.

RoboCop 3 - Finally watched this, just to get it over with. As expected, the movie had plenty of problems. The basic story was similar to Avatar, as RoboCop eventually helps the people that his bosses want him to evict, and nobody likes Avatar for its plot. With a PG-13 rating, they of course couldn't show any of the over-the-top violence the series is known for. But even R-rated blood and gore wouldn't have totally redeemed the action scenes. The Robo-JetPack effects were distractingly fake looking, and the anticipated showdown with the robotic swordsman was very anti-climactic.

And despite all my complaints, I still think RoboCop 2 was even worse. 3 didn't have anything that made me cringe quite as bad as 2's worst moments, like the lecture to the evil Little League team.

If you like the Tetsuo flicks, Miike's Full Metal Yakuza is a must. Not sure if this is a spoiler or anything but that kicking the head across the city scene is great.

Watched Maniac the other night and it is A really good serial killer movie. The guy has serious mommy issues. You should check it out.

The guy playing the maniac is great, but the movie's last half is terrible.

He was really good. He wrote the story and helped write the screenplay.

Watchmen - Jesus fucking Christ, what a pretentious, over long bore. Holy fuck.

Yeah, that one is terrible. I went to see it the weekend it dropped with my uncle and cousin. Thank god I didn't pay for it. This movie had zero substance, and I had forgotten the whole thing the next day.

I thought it was pretty decent. Definitely not nearly as bad as you two did.

Empyreal... stop making me like you! Did you watch the Director's Cut? It's even worse!

I watched whichever one Netflix sent me that was 2 hours, 41 minutes. I dunno. I love the comics, but the movie was so long and so boring. It just didn't convey the story well at all. It wasn't really a story that lent itself to film much - the way Zack Snyder filmed this, cramming in all the flashbacks and time jumps, made the movie feel bloated and directionless, whereas in the book you could read it at your own pace and it worked, because reading and watching a movie are two different things.

I can't really say how it would hold up on its own, given I read the comic a bunch of times before seeing it, but Zack Snyder was the totally wrong person to direct. His visual style was totally at odds with how the comic presented itself, i.e. not slick or "cool" in the least, but as straight as possible.

One of my thoughts watching it was that the long-winded, flashback-oriented narrative may have worked better today as a Netflix TV show or something, split up into hour-long increments. That may have made it much more bearable to sit through.

Yeah, I definitely agree with that. The comic was broken up into issues after all, and each had its own small climax and resolution, which would've worked great for a miniseries. Honestly, any of the big Vertigo titles would be awesome for that - Sandman, Transmetropolitan, Y the Last Man, Shade the Changing Man - all would work great in that format. They're already doing Preacher that way and apparently the pilot was promising.

Got around to The Witch - what a fantastic movie. Reminded me a lot of Black Death from a couple of years ago, though I liked this one more. Acting was super on-point, great camera work and sound design, classic story that can't really go wrong....basically just a really great movie and one of the best recent horror movies I've seen, hands down, along with It Follows.

Hail Satan, etc.

Apparently the guy who directed the Witch is working on another movie called The Knight (could you imagine that kind of atmosphere in a medieval setting?) plus a remake of Nosferatu. Fucking excited.

Yeah count me way the hell in on both of those. The Witch is really an astonishing movie by a first time director.

Yeah, that's the theatrical cut. The Director's Cut is over 3 hours! And apparently there's another cut that's 215 minutes long... I guess Zack Snyder fancies himself to be Oliver Stone.

The 215 minute cut integrates the animated Tales Of The Black Freighter short into the movie, in several short pieces throughout.

The Witch is a really great movie. I really can't think of a thing I didn't like about it. Gotta disagree about It Follows, though, which was a total piece of shit featuring a bunch of idiots mumbling at each other for more than nine seconds, which is how long that movie should've lasted.