Yeah, I mean, the incredible monster design and effects included, that blood test scene is the most iconic in the whole movie with good reason. Just masterpiece horror right there.

The Thing is, I think, the best "normal" horror movie ever made, by which I mean non-surreal. Everything that happens actually happens exactly as it's shown, no hallucinations or dream-logic metaphors or whatever. In the Mouth of Madness is one of the best surreal horror movies, but for my money, Jacob's Ladder, The Shining, and Lost Highway are better.

Yes, it was the lowest, but if you consider "about a minute" to be "way more screentime," I'd hate to see what it looks like when you delve into hyperbole.

The point is that the lower screentime for Godzilla is nothing to bitch about. It's petty. Previous movies have had low screentime, and it's also missing an element from the 1954 film to 2014--namely, in '54, it was just Godzilla. In 2014, he shares the screen with two other large monsters, which add to the creature time and effects time.

I'm a snazzy chart on Godzilla screentime.

It's also nothing to bitch about because not showing monsters, or using them selectively has been a large part of horror and monster films since the very beginning. Here's another example: Jaws only has 4 minutes of screentime for the entirety of the first movie.

The remake is okay, but it's clear it was rushed out (they did so to beat a competing production trying to remake the movie). The acting is way more inconsistent, the night scenes are unrealistically lit, and the atmosphere is overall weaker. Tony Todd is a great saving grace, but the bulk of the movie is "enjoyable but meh" to me. I did a report on it for some class in college (I forget which segment of filmmaking it was, they were interspersed with animation courses), so I am completely an expert. I enjoy the original far more. There is a bleak, hopelessness to it, and it also just feels fresher, in a sense.



I won't apologize for my "delicate sensibilities" hyperbole, as I totally intended to do that hyperbole, ha ha! Yeah, I realize it's not all Jigsaw, just as it's not always Jason in Friday the 13th. A lot of slasher films exist without the "sexy teenagers" elements, although that is fully a fitting trope as it is overused. Nothing is more blatant than Slumber Party Massacre. By the way, one of the sequels to this movie was wholesale ripped off from/or was ripped off for use in a different, but similarly named slasher film. I don't remember what the fuck it was, but I watched it and went, "isn't this the Slumber Party Massacre stuff?" Yeah, it was totally stolen for a different film. Like, filmed scenes were literally reused.

Anyway, I acknowledge that Saw does some things differently, but the bulk of the film is its slasher core. We're watching it for creative and zany kills. We tend to be championing the bad guy. People were being killed and judged for their sins/transgressions/corruption? Classic slasher film stuff. That's the whole subtext of "the virgin lives, the kids who have sex die" from general Slasher films. You've perhaps seen it, but the best deconstruction-slasher movie I've seen is Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, which over-analyzes the slasher genre infinitely better than Scream ever did. And it's funnier.

So, I can see where someone would classify Saw outside of general slashers, but the way I see it, that franchise is equal parts slasher and torture porn, two subgenres of horror not known for their subtlety.

As far as Lovecraftian cinema goes, the one I seriously need to track down is the HPLHS's black'n'white adaptation of The Whisperer In Darkness...

hah, I love it when they do those.

"it also drools way too much."

Godzilla 2014 is also nearly half an hour longer than the original movie, which means that Godzilla appears in a much larger percentage of the latter movie. You have to take things like this into account. Also, who cares that there are two other monsters in it? The movie is called Godzilla, and that's who I want to see. Besides, the MUTOs didn't have enough personality to carry that much of the movie.

Edit: Your point about Jaws is a good one, though. I'd argue that the characters and the interplay between them is much more interesting in Jaws than in Godzilla 2014, so the short screen-time the shark gets isn't nearly as much of a problem. That, and Jaws has lots of tension working in its favor, which makes sense, since it's a thriller, and one of the best movies of that genre ever made. I don't mean to give the impression that I dislike Godzilla 2014; it's a pretty good movie, and it'd rate it around a 7/10. But as far as Godzilla movies go, it's in the middle of the pack. I will say that it does not have the least amount of screen-time for Godzilla of all the movies; that 'honor' goes to Godzilla 1998, which is notable for not featuring the titular monster at all.

About to watch The Red Pill "documentary." Should be worth a laugh?

Anyone debased themselves enough to watch this?

Saw Fire Walk With Me at a local theater and really enjoyed it. Still, it got kind of butchered in editing. When I came home I watched the deleted scenes on the youtubes, and why the fuck didn't they keep them? Where is the director's cut? David Bowie's part especially got destroyed, but also some of BOB's best lines.

Something donned on me while we were watching the second 90's Gamera movie today, which had some lengthy scenes of giant monsters monstering around. The longer we see the big monsters on-screen, the weaker they seem to become as believably threatening monsters. Watching Gamera and "the big one" slap around for an extended period started to feel hollow. Now, a good argument could be made for the overall direction of this film, which sprang from scene to scene at an absurdly quick pace, but there is a weakening of the monster characters themselves. That noted, there was a moment during the monster fight where it felt like it was stagnating just to add monster action to the runtime.

The monster needs to be offscreen for a while, but your point on Jaws fits--the humans need to be useful to the plot. Godzilla 2014's characters are no match for the cast of Jaws (few films had such a solid cast for the non-monster scenes), but they are far from the worst I've seen. I read an analysis at Cracked once that claimed Godzilla 2014 would have been better if the son had died and the father (Bryan Cranston) had survived and went on to be the hero. They made a good case for it, that may well have been correct.

Despite the sloppy, hectic way Gamera 2 (Legion) plowed through its scenes, the human characters played an active role in the story, in the sense that Gamera was up against a kind of dual threat he couldn't defeat, so humans had to be active in that effort to help out. Characters themselves, however, were rather bland, so a smart idea in the script had some shoddy execution.

I think the 2014 Godzilla gets way more hate than it deserves, like a lot of things these days just fucking in general. Cynicism used to be a lot more fun before everybody started doing it all the fucking time about every fucking thing.

At any rate, the film was respectful to the character and legacy, Toho even loved it from my understanding, and for the most part, it is an enjoyable film that is well executed. Would I have loved to see Godzilla and the monsters more? Of course. But after today (so this is some convenient timing for this conversation), I finally have a better understanding of why showing these monsters less is important to the overall film. It really felt like they were just padding screentime for the monsters for large chunks of the film. The fight between Gamera and "the big Legion enemy" felt dull, and lacked impact, like watching two fancy lads slap at each other with no resolution except for both of them becoming winded. For a movie that sped through its script as though friction does not exist, the fights seemed to meander on way too long with too little improvement. It dons on me, as well, that I've seen my share of older Godzilla and Gamera films that suffered from too damn much screentime for the creatures. It's kind of like the point I was making about gratuitous violence and gore in horror films earlier. At some point, the impact of this stuff is lessened to the point of banality.

Ultimately, I can give a pass on perhaps too little screentime if the overall film remains fairly strong. In my opinion, overall, the 2014 Godzilla is a strong film, and works positively in the limited screentime of the beasties. The movie left me wanting more--more of that Godzilla, more of that action, more of that style, and improved if they could. That's a good thing, as far as I'm concerned. Better than having too much time squandered on meaningless creature-slapfests where I start yawning and thinking about other things I'd rather be doing.

Guardians of the Galaxy 2 was pretty solid. Cool action, lots of funny bits of course, and many feels. Not my favorite Marvel movie but a fun watch.

RE: NOTLD

- I found the remake to be much better written because there were notable changes, I appreciated Barbara’s character. Your choice on which is better but having the stronger co-lead meant there stood a chance for better dialogue and interactions, it would be expected that one would survive. It may sound terrible of me but Barbara deserved to die in the original, she was completely useless. In the remake she added a voice of reason, plans of action and the spirit to achieve goals. I also liked how at the start she was very much like her 1968 counterpart but grew to strength. Even if you do not like it, I think you would agree that it takes more acting skill to play the strong 1990 version than the catatonic ‘68.
- Lets not bullshit here either, while the effects were never the focus of the original anyway, a horror film still has to contain some level of shock/fright value in the body count. This can be achieved in a variety of ways but due to the era - movies were not overly gory in ‘68 - and lack of funds, the original has laughable effects. The effects were clearly better, even if the opening fight in the cemetery has a blatant dummy when Johnny dies hitting his head on the stone.

- There were 3 aspects of the film I disliked though and detracted from it overall since, by all means, this movie has its flaws:

1. The pseudo happy ending. Seeing Ben survive only to be tragically killed the next day was far more effective of a climax. I do not always need resolution to a story and part of the journey feels fruitless when the main character dies but that was the point. You may have survived the night but all that awaits you from the next day onward is an eventual zombie apocalypse. I understand and respect what everyone involved was trying to achieve, but really, the film suffers from very low quality by comparison.
2. The constant screaming by Judy. I understand the fear factor but it got annoying and was worse than the catatonic Barbara since she was silent. I was glad when she died but that leads to the final aspect…
3. The way Judy and Tom die here is just awful. The original did it better in that it was much more accidental, with natural elements playing a role. In the remake it is just stupid. WHO SHOOTS - ESPECIALLY POINT BLANK - AT A DAMN GAS PUMP? This is an example though of why I dismiss so many horror films where the situation is not based on some perceptible reality.

I realize I, like everyone else, have never been in the exact same situation as in Night of the Living Dead. Despite that fact, I can assert - with 100% confidence - that I would never shoot a bloody gas pump at point blank range. No amount of fear would ever make me go FULL RETARD.
- When the premise of your story is a zombie apocalypse - meaning it is 100% bullshit fiction with no basis in any kind of reality - then you can gladly move the plot along by having your characters(?) go FULL RETARD. How seriously can you really be taken such a story? This is not 12 Angry Men, Saving Private Ryan or Patton... As I stated several posts ago, this is not to imply that “stupid” films like Night of the Living Dead should not exist, but that it should NEVER be more revered than films that attempt to remain grounded in reality, both in premise and reaction.
- Would I be scared if placed in the exact same situation as Barbara? Of course I would but it is a different type of fear than, say, Saw. Most of the time in Saw you have 90 seconds to do something or die, therefore it is intense and disturbing. In NOTLD the “bad guys” are unthinking corpses that move so slow that they are yelled at for taking too long by molasses hitching a ride on a snail who is old.
- I do not grasp how one would remain so terrified that they could not think rationally. Do people act stupid in most horror films? Yes but that usually is because they have an obvious ticking clock that is always never enough time. In NOTLD 1990, Barbara repeated the line I said many times when watching the original - “Look at how slow the walk, we could walk by right them and be fine.” - - - Where is the logic twisting, FULL RETARD GOING, terror in that?

RE: SAW

But that is hardly the same thing. You are crediting F13 for 2 films without its stock villain but I am talking about the villain manipulating the minds of people to turn them evil whereas Jason exists just to use a machete.And I never wrote otherwise. Since you are harping on this again though I would like to point out that of the 7 Saw films, only part 3 had any nudity and that was both very brief and necessary for keeping the PLAUSIBILITY of that scene. Would Danica have frozen to death in the freezer if she had been fully clothed?
- Saw also has no "sexy teenagers" and most of the characters - even the protagonists - look rugged and, most of the time, unattractive.- I realize the gimmick was killer makes his victims kill themselves in zany ways but that never took me out of the story. I rather enjoyed the 7+ hours of film in Saw’s 2 - 6 that had nothing to do with people being killed. Like when the main villain was mentally and emotionally manipulating his protégé to join his evil and sadistic ways. Not only has no other horror franchise villain had that story arc but it was not done in some over the top way.
- Over the top would be the villain summoning a million undead souls so as to create mindless protégés by some set of convoluted supernatural rules. Subtle would be tying one man to a chair where too much movement would fire the shotgun that is point blank to his face, in a realistic apparatus. If you wish to call that over the top then fine, I can only call whatever horror movie example you put forth where a villain is recruiting a fellow murderer as bloody stupid.So what. There is a reason no one besides hardcore horror fans remembers the color of grass in a random scene of Night of The Demons part whatever. Everyone knows the biggest market for horror is the “bad guy.” Everyone knows Freddy Krueger, not everyone knows Ron Grady.Yet Saw has many despicable people (sexually active kid) live while good people (virgin) are terrorized, maimed or kill. In the original Saw, Adam suffered the worst fate. Did everything he could to survive and was buried alive in complete darkness where no one can hear the screams. Was he a cartoon villain trying to take over the world? Was he Hitler? Jack the Ripper? Donald Trump? He was a photographer trying to make a living who had never harmed anyone. Adam was so innocent (virgin) that he could not bring himself to kill someone who was not a threat to him but was told he had to. He killed Zepp because Zepp was about to kill Dr. Gordon. Adam did everything to survive and suffered one of the worst deaths of all the films.
That is fine about the slasher but I never agreed about the torture porn. I hope you will humor me here:

- Empryeal may vehemently disagree but the character development I wrote of before still counts. Eric Mathews was still a well developed character who felt like a real person. He was not “the stoners only there to die in a creative and zany way in Friday the 13th 3D,” he was a person. A man who had suffered enough already and only wants to live. How did he deserve to die? Whatever wrongs he had done he paid for and then some. Because he had depth you wanted him to survive, which is why it is much more tragic to hear his quote in Saw 4, “Please… Why Don’t you just kill me? I don’t want to play anymore.”
- He had reached his lowest, he was George Bailey ready to leap off the bridge in It’s A Wonderful Life, or Solomon Northup breaking down and joining in on the religious hymn Roll Jordan Roll in 12 Years A Slave.
- The pain he had went through made it much more intense when Art Blank says - in Saw 4 - “You better hope he does not come through that door.” Before this, Eric was a broken man but once he was given just the tiniest of chances to survive, the instinct kicked in. Hope was there and why he was so panicked, how he fought so hard to survive, only to have his death caused by a friend. Just like with the bleak outlook with Ben in the original NOTLD, Eric had no happy resolution.

- Watch the final 17 minutes of Saw 4, starting as soon as Eric is loading his gun and notices the ice blocks - 78:30 - and watch the climax unfold. It is by the far the most exciting in any of the films. Several plot points converge together organically and the pacing is top notch. It is like that of an action movie, the camera angles are creative, the rapid movements of the characters contrasted with one character who would logically be moving slow in the situation. Like combining Raimi’s creative and frantic use of camera work but with a Carpenter scope and emphasis for creatively timed transitions. How the dominoes fall is very clever and perfectly timed. In the theaters when it came out most of the audience was engaged and a few even yelled at Rigg as he reached Eric in the room, “Don’t open the door!” just as Eric was yelling those exact words. Why? Because it was easy to place yourself in the situation and you would expect such a narrative to be fast paced and hectic.
- Finally, in those final 17 minutes, I’d like to point out exactly what happens to each character. We see 3 people (Art, Eric and Jeff) die while Rigg succumbs to his gunshot wound off screen and 2 survive. Of the 3 onscreen deaths, Jeff and Art were gunshots but nothing gratuitous. Art died by a headshot but with virtually no gore and NEVER showed the would. Instead it shifts directly to Rigg and his cassette tape. Jeff was shot twice in the chest by Strahm but it was not FULL RETARD and overkill like with body parts blowing off. It is not torturous and he falls over dead. Yes, it does then show 3 other people dead but none of them died in that movie and it does not even show any of the death scenes as a flashback. Eric of course had his head crushed by the ice but as terrible as it is, for Saw on a whole as well as narrative, that is actually merciful.

- If you wish to prove me wrong here, perhaps explain to me how I am seeing this film incorrectly, I am willing to read anything you write but you will see that I just proved it was not torture porn. If anything it is Action/Horror. There is almost ZERO blood or extreme deaths in the most memorable moment of any film, the climax.

Um. So is this one of the greatest pieces of music ever createdas?or what
It is for me...

Resident Hazard mentioning Sleepaway Camp had me rewatching 1 and 2 recently! The first movie is an absolute classic, one of my favorites of the genre. I got the ending spoiled for me, but it was still pretty shocking. Special effects were great too, they hold up to this day. I was surprised that a lot of the scenes genuinely freaked me out, too. I think it was because of great sound design, great camera work, and my bee phobia.

Unhappy Campers kinda sucked though, in my opinion. Unfunny black comedy, eesh. Character development absolutely tanked; everyone was stupid, but worst of all was Angela turning from a somewhat sympathetic character to one that's just totally abhorrent. There's a moral argument to be had (like the one above me) if slasher movies are being responsible or righteous when they imply obnoxious, promiscuous, or unlawful people deserve graphic, disproportionate retribution, but the argument becomes impossible to justify when the killer is just a turbo douche with no motivation for their actions besides "they swear a lot" or "they sleep naked" (seriously). Sleepaway Camp 2 wasn't meant to be analyzed, and was supposed to be a more lighthearted "comedy" slasher - I get that much - but the series should've never gone in that direction in the first place. I've not seen 3 or the legendarily bad 4, but I don't have much interest if they're anything like 2.

The only good thing about that movie was the Doomsday for the Deceiver easter egg.

Sleepaway Camp 1 is indeed a classic, with one of the better twists in the genre. If you didn't like the second movie, you won't like the third. They're nearly identical.

The 4th is something to behold, though. Not just bad, but unbelievably bad. Movies that are "so bad, they're good" are rare, amazing creatures. Like Birdemic or The Room or Plan 9 From Outer Space. What makes them work is someone behind the camera really trying their best to make something good and just failing catastrophically. This is why Sharknado is unwatchable garbage--they tried to make it that way. Sleepaway Camp 4 is something else... It's hard to tell if anyone took it seriously, if they understood what they were doing, if they understood the audience, or anything about it. But it is entertaining.

Another film in the "so horrible it's great" camp? Hellgate (1989). There's one person among the entire cast who seems like they even know what acting is supposed to look like (Horshack himself, Ron Palillo), there are some interesting ideas that could be explored in the hands of a competent crew, and it's never boring. With MST3K: The Return being a hit, I'd love for the new crew to take this on.

So I finally watched Get Out the other night. Non spoiler review: I thought it was decent. It wasn’t a bad movie, though I don’t think it was a particularly great movie either. There was quite a bit about the movie that I liked. The acting was pretty solid throughout, cinematography and such totally adequate and in some instances (such as the opening scene) very good, pacing was great, and overall it was quite entertaining. For the most part, there was a great attention to detail which I enjoyed. Some of the dialog was great, particularly how throughout the film white people try to acknowledge the main character’s “blackness” in ways that make them seem not-racist. (“I would’ve voted for Obama a third time if I could,” etc.) My main gripes are plot and script. Granted, part of my disappointment stems from having watched the trailer which basically tells the entire story. So if you haven’t watched the trailer yet and plan to watch the movie, I highly recommend just going straight for the movie and skipping the trailer. Despite that, the plot was extremely generic and one I’ve seen numerous times over in many other films. Its gimmick was that it tacked race issues too which seems to have been enough for the critics to separate it from the rest of similar movies. As a suspense/horror/thriller flick, it was decent enough though certainly nothing special. Quite average I’d say. As a socio-political commentary, I think it was also pretty generic and possibly held back by its plot. I think it could’ve been a much better movie had Peele gone all-in for either horror OR social commentary. But what we got was something sort of in between that IMO wasn’t especially strong in either. Also, I thought the humor fell pretty flat. With more clever writing, the humor could’ve really elevated the movie. I read an interview with him and he sounded like a very sharp and thoughtful guy, though the commentary he gave on the alternate ending was almost comically like that of a freshman film student haha. That being said, this was his first movie as writer/director and considering that, he did a pretty fantastic job. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on him and expect in time he’ll make some really great flicks.

This is what I meant when I said to keep in mind that it took place in 1968. Women's lib was still a grassroots thing, and this well-to-do woman (judging by her accent and attire, a total WASP) had just watched her brother get murdered by a man who was dead but still very much walking. She went catatonic. It's something that happens to people in shock (and is actually gone over in the World War Z book, where these types are referred to as "Quislings"). If you're going to say that she's a strike against the original without understanding the context of the character (how she represents mainstream American culture at the time) then we're going to be talking about how films reflect the time they're made.

I will agree in preferring Barbara in NOTLD '90 over the catatonic original, but that's side-stepping the purpose of each character. Barbara '68 was the stereotypical WASP woman and Barbara '90 has the benefits of fiction growing with the times (Coffy, Ripley, and Sarah Connor). You should prefer Barbara '90 as a character, but that doesn't work as a real strike against Barbara '68.

The original's effects caused people to vomit upon release as nothing that graphic had ever been put to film. Again, keep in mind that 1968 was a very, very different era than 1990, and that the original NOTLD was instrumental in the allowance of gore in feature films. This is a criticism akin to saying Final Fantasy VII isn't as good a game as Final Fantasy XIII-2 because of graphical limitations.

Here's where I, again, say that I agree with grounding a story, as I think it makes what unfolds that much more believable and hooks an audience in with greater ease. That said, if I were as staunch in that criteria as you were? I wouldn't be defending the Saw series on a "realism" level. It's more grounded than F13, NOES, and other supernatural-tinged horror fare, but it's still a cartoon compared to Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer.

Replying specifically to the bold portion (emphasis mine), I've seen this one used a lot after Dawn '04 and 28DL introduced the sprinter zombie. It's funny how few people survive encounters with the Romero-style "slow" zombies, isn't it? Equally as funny as how zombie tales featuring slower zombies make it a point that it is man's own folly that proves to be his undoing and not the visible, easily-dealt-with threat? It's almost like slow zombies are used to criticize social and political issues on top of the inevitability of death.

There wasn't any, and that was the point. The rest of the survivors were too worried about whether they should listen to Ben or Cooper, focusing on saving their own hides (Judy), or just their own bravado that they overlooked the obvious: you can literally avoid the problem with tremendous ease.

Jumping ahead to the "it's not torture porn" conclusion...

"Torture porn" is a derisive remark placed on modern-day exploitation horror that place most of their focus on the suffering of its protagonist(s) at the hands of the film's antagonist(s). Here is a compilation of each Saw trailer for the original series.

Disregarding the one for the original thrown in there (as it was for a theatrical re-release and edited together with the benefit of hindsight), what is the focus on each advertisement? The traps devised by Jigsaw (and co.) to torture his target(s). The selling point of the series has always been what kind of traps and torture methods will be utilized, not on the struggle of the characters or the mythos surrounding Jigsaw and his followers. That the series was able to craft an elaborate story linking each entry together is admirable, true, but the focus is on the promise of torture and bloodshed.

With this in mind, how are they not torture porn?

As a film, Kerrick, I agree with the assessment. It's above-average, at best, and elevated by timing and performances. Daniel Kaluuya has an incredible future ahead of him, Allison Williams gives an incredible performance, and there's no such thing as a bad performance from Catherine Keener, Bradley Whitford, or Stephen Root. There are a lot of subtle things throughout it commenting on race and various forms of racism, stuff that doesn't get talked about too often in mainstream cinema, and that's a big reason for the hype: it is rare we get a socially conscious film, be it horror or otherwise, that deals with race in a nuanced fashion. Peele also proved he can make a really good movie on his first go, so if nothing else? It serves as a taste of things to come.

About that spoiler...

Fully agreed.



I considered this, but it still just felt a little too much to me. But the more I think back... the more it makes sense I suppose. Thanks!

Get Out probably could have gone further with its story and the horror elements and what not - it was sort of middle-ground in everything it did, not pushing the scares or the comedy or the commentary to the forefront so much as keeping them all pretty even-handed. I like that about it, but I can kind of see why people are complaining... but personally I try not to look at what I expected from a film and just at what it is. I thought it was really good.

It's also just such a relief to get films like this over awful stuff like The Disappointments Room or the Texas Chainsaw remakes, for reference to two things I've reviewed lately... not to say anything like we should love it because it doesn't suck ass, but even so, it's just good to have *good* horror.

That's valid. It would've been easy for it to have been too preachy, too funny, etc. Another possible factor in my disappointment could be that I saw it quite a while after it was released and having received such unanimous praise across the board. My expectations were probably higher than they should've been.

There are a ton of absolute-trash movies out there, especially within the horror genre. So when you find something good, it's pretty special. Kinda like black metal I suppose haha.

So, I watched last year's Ghostbusters movie and... kinda liked it? Like, yeah, it's not exactly mind-blowing or anything, but I honestly had a lot more fun with it than I was expecting. Some of the jokes do fall flat, and it's a bit more cartoony than the original (and not in a good way), but overall it was an enjoyable ride. I was perfectly able to buy the cast as a bunch of goofy friends trying to save the world, and I liked the villain too. So, not bad at all, and this is coming from someone who off-handedly dismissed it when it first came out.

Also, Kate McKinnon as Jillian Holtzmann is incredibly funny and awesome and badass and hot and I want to marry the fuckin' woman.

Man, I loved Get Out. I also saw it wayyyy after it was a big thing, with a lot of hype going in, but it just really worked for me. The cinematography was on point, but to me the real stand-out was the acting and direction. The plot, despite the original premise, was executed in a pretty "generic" way, I'll grant you that, and the horror parts weren't as intense as other things I've seen (so, this ain't The VVitch), but that's not the kind of movie it's even trying to be, so I'm fine with that.

I can't say I know what it's like to watch this movie from a black perspective, but I really, really liked the social commentary in this. I really liked that Peele chose I really liked how deftly and subtly Peele drew the distinction between the vitality of black culture and harmful stereotypes. I fuckin' love that Rod was a TSA agent. I *really* love that

Plus, it was funny!

I'm stoked to get all kinds of stoned and watch At the Mountains of Madness. Don't fail me John Carpenter, you and I generally have a good time in Antartica

You mean the 1995 John Carpenter movie, In the Mouth of Madness?

If you think there's gonna be some Antarctica, you're in for a bad time.

I suppose you could just mess with the cable connection to get some static effects, maybe turn the brightness all the way up.

I wanted to chime in on this bit, mostly. It's clear Luver666 is judging NotLD 68 by the standards and changes in much more modern films, which is generally a poor way to judge various forms of art, literature, or media. For the most part, considerations should be made of the era.

Saying Barbara went "full retard" strikes me as rather ignorant. For instance: Do you know what PTSD is? Do you understand that people can psychologically break when confronted with horrifying, threatening, or unusual situations? I hate to beat this drum, but during my time in the military, we were repeatedly put in stressful training in order to, hopefully, head off this kind of mental shock, but we still heard more than enough stories of it happening. One that I recall was of a convoy being fired on, and when it was all finally over, one young soldier was found still in the Humvee, hands frozen to the steering wheel, muscles locked up out of pure terror. That person had psychologically broken, even well after going through all that stressful training we had for months.

We frequently see these kinds of panicked, shocked, trembling, psychologically broken people in movies and cynically go, "they're annoying. Get over it, the zombies are too slow, blah blah blah." Realistically, that would be several people in any situation. One of the points of the 1968 NotLD is that people are going to be your biggest threat, and they will be internal. Either they will fight for leadership, they will make poor decisions out of fear or anger, what have you. The original film encapsulates a wide range of these different states. We sit on our couch and scoff, but some of those scoffers would be the first to break if the shit really hit the fan, and all the tough talk in the world would evaporate.

Barbara is shocked and catatonic, gradually getting some nerve back only to have it utterly reversed when she sees her brother among the undead. Mr. Cooper is a coward, operating on the flight response. He wants to run and hide and he will do anything to save his family. Mrs. Cooper loathes her husband, and is more concerned about the well-being of their daughter, unwilling to let go. The young couple were the idealistic youth, eager to follow a strong leader, but able to modify their plan if a better one comes along. Ben is the straight man, the one who realizes how bad things are, and he is the fight response, to contrast Mr. Cooper's flight response. And in the context of the 1960's, as a black man, he has to fight for every fucking thing he has, while Mr. Cooper has an easy life. Mr. Cooper has probably not experienced real hardship or issues, much the same as Barbara, so both of them break in different ways. Ben has seen hardship. He does not back down. The idealistic youth admire his strength, which is why they choose to follow him.

The remake does not explore these characterizations to quite the same capacity or understanding. They are not as strong, and while they may feel tropey in the original, they work as an overall stronger cast, especially where drama is created.

Finally, the sprinter zombies were popularized in 28 Days Later, but the first were actually all the way back in (I think) 1982 with Return of the Living Dead. They could also talk in that one, and destroying the brain didn't kill them. It undid a lot of zombie tropes as established by Romero.

I want the new MST3K to slow down the jokes so they, once again, feel like they're watching the movie with us instead of reading off a fucking script.

That gripe noted, I have not seen Hellgate, but one, ahem, "director" I'd love to see on MST3K is Neil Breen.

Here, check this out if you haven't heard of him:



If that doesn't work, clicky here to be whisked away to YouTube.

I will have to look for Hellgate. It sounds right up my alley.

'85, actually, but the sprinter craze really begins with Dawn '04 and 28DL. At least they have their reasons for sprinters. 28DL has "Infected," a twist on the zombie trope, and Zack Snyder's reasoning for Dawn '04 is that zombies are dead, feel no pain, and wouldn't be held back by rigor mortis.

Oh right, '85. I didn't feel like looking it up.

That Dawn remake was meh to me. The "feel no pain" excuse is stupid. Rigor Mortis isn't because corpses feel pain. It's not super arthritis that affects the dead. It's physical muscle stiffening. Which is beside the point that as soon as we die, decay begins, and muscle deteriorates, so quick movements and feats of strength are outside the realm of the zombie. Zack Snyder does not understand logic (obviously). Sounds like he threw that out there as a lazy excuse to justify the running, when the real reason was because he didn't know how to build tension otherwise.

The sprinters make way more sense in 28 Days Later.

- You said? I thought I was responding to Resident Hazard.
- Despite your words, I never placed ‘90 Barbara ahead because of the WLM. I deliberately avoided that detail since it matters in no way to my point. You setting up a straw man?
- The reasons I gave for ‘90 Barbara superiority was:

1. Dialogue
2. Interactions
3. Strength
4. Leadership

- It had nothing to do with being a woman, on any level. By going catatonic, ‘68 Barbara simply became dependent on someone else to survive.
- And that would be stressful, no question, enough to make a person behave strangely but keep in mind that Barbara does not know what you as the viewer does. She is stuck in a fictional loop every time any Old World Monkey observed her there in the cemetery. You, the viewer, knows the enemy for that scene was a zombie but what reason would Barbara have to think that?
- She was not running and screaming in the car before said encounter, was only annoyed. She was reacting not to, “OH shit, this is the start of a horror subgenre, rewriting the term zombie.” She was reacting to what she had to have assumed at that point was, at worst, a crazy old man. After all, he acted with coherent abstract thought by looking for the brick to shatter the car window. Or it was just bad acting??
- Since the opening ride was meant to establish the siblings, the only way you can justify either Barbara or Johnny believing it was a recently buried corpse would be to establish some kind of superstitious belief. You would also have to detail that they thought superstitiously. Most people, even in 1968 and in a setting with the dead, would not assume reanimated dead body, they would try to find some rationalization.
- You know more than the character, which is why you assume the, very broad - and convenient - excuse of…
- I’d never say that everyone reacts the same way, especially a situation no one could plausibly be in. However, if you take what I wrote above about not knowing it is the undead, there was no reason to conclude her arc that way. Simple, ‘68 Barbara was not a well written character. People get caught up in their own deeper meaning but the reason you have to defend the ‘68 version so much is because IT was NOT a well-written character.
- You are not imparting wisdom here, no shit that films reflect their eras; both in the technological and social evolutions. The fact that the ‘68 Barbara has ITS defenders should suggest evidence against IT.
- I have never seen Barbara as a woman, besides the obvious fact that Judith O’Dea and Patricia Tallman are both women, because she could have been a stray or family duck and just as useless. Both actresses do admirably but in no way - mostly because of flatness and era - does Judith beat Patricia, everything in fleeing the cemetery up to Ben arriving at the house. In other words, Patricia carried the film until Ben's arrival and, because of better(see: dynamic) writing, slowly became co-leads.
- I should because it is a character, at least enough of one to substantiate an emotion in a horror movie. ‘68 served her purpose fine, that is all she was, there to bridge the situation and setting from its start, to the introduction of the real main character, Ben.

So? 1925 Phantom of the Opera and 2006 Saw 3 had old world monkeys faint in theaters while Passion of the Christ is rumored to have made a murderer confess. Also, a bunch of old world monkeys laugh consistently at Adam Sandler. Making your audience vomit is a positive reaction for horror?
- That is not horror, that is either internal poisoning or trying too hard to deep throat, and hardly makes it worthy of significant praise.
- Yes but comparing eras in this way serves no real purpose. Everything is a product of its time because everything ages. I was 1 in ’68 and 23 in ‘90 - if you gave a fuck to know that - but so what? I always keep that in mind because it is a fact that no rational mind would forget. “Everything evolves over time!”
So? The original Saw was instrumental in permitting torture porn in films. Those small anecdotes do not change the quality of the art. Led Zeppelin were very influential to rock music but were, objectively, slapdash in performance.
- There needs to be more than just a realistic setup, the reactions are also very important. You can have a realistic premise and the characters still act stupid. Do you remember the opening spoof of Scary Movie? When Carmen Electra looks at the signs and chooses to go towards the obvious death direction?
- And if you had been following along, I NEVER wrote that any Saw was 100% realistic. What I DID write instead was that the premise of each film was etched in reality. Could two or three people really kidnap two others and put them in a situation where they might have to maim themselves? YES THAT IS 100% POSSIBLE.
- Because the situation is capable of rational interpretation, one can conclude they would have gone up and not down, or left and not right, or ran and not walked, but your uninformed opinion changes nothing.
- In conclusion each Saw film was labeled as Slasher - which is what sparked this entire exchange - but the reason it is above a slasher film is because, unlike in slahsers, Saw at least TRIES TO BE REALISTIC.

- Which I found the narrative to be inept as fuck.
- There is nothing funny about death, nothing at all.- I would not call it funny, I would call it inept writing. The reason mans downfall is his own folly is because the writers DID NOT WRITE CHARACTERS.
- I would be surprised if they did not just tell the participants to act afraid and then behave really damn stupid, that counts as character depth. Right? Right?
- Or it is just a really stupid film that you are reading a fuck ton more into?- Like the rest of your post, you really missed the points I made. So I guess I will try again:

- Even if your only point about how the film is sold/marketed had to do with my point, so what? The original NOTLD and original SAW both started subgenres of horror that the respective creators ever perceived to happen, but both originators did not shy away from their respective labels. I am sure Romero has had more reasons to smile for the zombie influence he accidentally spearheaded. If Saw is guilty of conceding to certain tropes, again, so what?
- I wrote about the last 17 minutes of Saw 4, the entire last act. Saw 4 was paced very much like an action film, the pacing was hectic. Yes, the believability did begin to diminish with Saw 4 but this post is in comparison to just NOTLD and I can believe Saw 4’s premise before I could NOTLD. At least Saw 4 is based on perceptible reality.
- What the film delivered was a climax with very little blood, gore, deaths or traps. There are, literally, three traps shown in the climax of Saw 4. Eric’s ice cubes, Hoffman’s imminent electrocution chair and Art’s spine crusher. While it makes sense not to see Hoffman’s due to the story but Art’s device never went off and Eric’s skull crushing was quick. No agonizing 90 seconds of torture and screaming and only 1 trap, for a grand total of the 17 minute climax.
- I was not writing anything about the marketing but the film itself. The description you gave above is extremely obtuse because that sum up MOST horror films/franchises in the most basic way.

I'm not doing him justice with my paraphrasing, it's been years since I watched it with commentary on, but he makes a fairly convincing argument. If the muscles deteriorate then the zombie's still going to keep pushing forward, coming after you on stumps if need be.

I'll be editing in a response to Luvers666 above.

EDIT:

That's the beauty of a public forum and conversation: anybody can jump in if they have something to say.

Not at all, actually. I'm giving reasons WHY '90 Barbara was given better dialogue, made stronger, etc. Women in 1968 weren't as empowered as women in 1990. As such, '90 Barbara is instantly elevated because WLM happened outside of film and, within the realm of film, because WLM directly influenced characters like Coffy, Ellen Ripley, and Sarah Connor.

...which was kinda the point. As Resident_Hazard explained in a post above, each character in NOTLD '68 represents part of American culture at the time. Barbara '68 (has a better ring to it this way) is the typical well-off middle-class WASP whose life has just been completely torn apart by what she's witnessed and endured. Barbara '90, with the benefit of 22 years worth of cultural shifts and strong female characters in film, is more "take charge." Barbara '90 is a better character specifically BECAUSE of how she contradicts Barbara '68, but that doesn't mean you can write Barbara '68 off when they represent two different things.

NOTLD '90 is Barbara's story, through and through. NOTLD '68 is more about the circumstances and how Romero/Russo were able to play different characters of different classes off of each other. Barbara '90 is the hero, Barbara '68 is a side character used to introduce the story.

As for the "catatonic character is poorly written," I won't exactly argue that she's the weakest part of the original, but Resident_Hazard (new bestie?) gave us a first-hand story where somebody trained to deal with the most stressful of situations went catatonic. It's something that happens.

...huh? That somebody would defend something proves that it needs defending? Dude, ANYTHING can be argued for/against.

If you take her sex out of it then you're taking away what makes the characters work. Again, let's go back to WLM, and then let's also point out that George Romero has used his work to criticize socio-political ideas since he started making features (and that these criticisms are why his classics are still relevant a generation or two later). Hell, Barbara '90 taking off her dress and putting on a pair of jeans and boots is entirely tied to the idea of how women's lib altered expectations of women in the mainstream.

When you're criticizing the quality of special effects from a low-budget film made 50 years ago? Yeah, bringing up how those effects were seen at the time is important. And cut this "old world monkeys" crap.

...are you serious? Like, you're not just trolling, but legitimately don't understand why horror, a genre where the goal is to fill its audience with unease, would pride itself on acts of revulsion?

It's 100% worthy of significant praise if your special effects, a visual cue and nothing more, can make somebody's stomach churn. That Psycho had people looking over their shoulders when showering isn't noteworthy? That Jaws led to a decrease in family trips to the beach isn't noteworthy?


You agree earlier that art is a product of its era and then question whether the era has consequence over the art.

Whatever happened to "Saw isn't torture porn"?

...I...no. Not touching this one.

So is Batman. Point?

You're right. No slasher film ever tried to be realistic because the only slasher films that exist are supernatural slashers like F13 and NOES. NOT. ONE.

Diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks, but the humor I was speaking of is found not in the death but in the irony that a slow, lumbering, easily defeated enemy STILL gets its job done.

Or because the point of the story is that we can solve most (if not all) problems by putting aside pesky differences and actually working together, but that would be delving into Romero's Marxist tendencies and I just don't feel like doing that right now.

Considering that there's been 40-something years worth of film analysis on Romero's zombie films and NOTLD is one of the few horror films to be accepted into the Library of Congress (and here is a quick analysis on why it's important culturally)? No, you're just interested in surface-level stuff. It's cool. There's a popular horror series that is almost entirely surface-level and falls apart once deeper thought is applied to it. I think it's called Saw?

For my grand finale, I'm including my quote that you've attempted to rebuke.

Not quite, but okay, I'm along the for the ride.

1. Neither zombies nor torture porn were new when NOTLD and Saw came out, respectively. They merely modified their sub-genres and solidified them.
2. It's not that Saw is guilty of conceding to certain tropes, it's that very little of the series does much with said tropes.

Which is a poor metric for critiquing film. One uses an abstract concept to illustrate very real fears, the other, while more believable in nature, offers nothing else to the viewer who enjoys thinking about the meaning of it.

So, in 17 minutes, we have three elaborate deaths, what the series is known for, and yet the traps were not the draw?

...HUH?!

Most horror is sold on the terror that its concept offers. Supernatural horror speaks to those with religious/spiritual beliefs stronger but can also resonate with atheist/secular viewers because they often draw from the "sins of the past" motif. Saw, as a series, offers little more than increasingly elaborate deaths. They are Tecmo's Deception in a film medium.

No, I get that point. In a sense it works. We've seen time and time again that eviscerated, bottom-less, smashed zombies will continue to keep targeting their prey. An interesting point briefly shown in NotLD 90 is that the zombification is heavily linked to the central nervous system, as a zombie with it's spine shattered is shown to have it's legs made useless, but it continues to try to get to prey until killed by Tony Todd. I agree that the, for lack of a better term, biological drive to attack prey will keep them motivated and moving. This was actually carried over, in a sense, from Day of the Dead where Frankenstein showed the nervous system to be of primary importance.

At any rate, my point was that the zombie would not be able to physically move that fast anyway. Rotting, damaged muscle tissue and all that. At any rate, old argument, to be sure, and admittedly, I enjoy aspects of fast zombies if they're used well.

I really overlook them in Return of the Living Dead, simply because that series rewrote everything in the "mythology" as it were and forged ahead on it's own (eventually making several completely forgettable films). In that, it's clear that every cell is revitalized in some capacity, which explains why even brainless or severed body parts can continue to move. In that regard, the faster movements can work.

Fair enough, though, if you don't remember all of the points from the commentary, it would be pointless for me to prod it much further, ha ha.


[EDIT]
I feel like I should note something: I am likely hard on Snyder for a variety of reasons. Snyder is one of four modern directors who exist with style over substance: J.J. Abrams, Zack Snyder, Michael Bay, and Roland Emmerich.

I like something from each of these guys, and as an admitted Transformers fan, will see value in those iffy movies that others would not (wooo robots!), while still being highly critical of Hollywood's failure to see the Transformers as characters instead of fucking props. Hopefully that starts changing a bit as Hasbro has taken over more creative control. All of these guys have amazing special effects budgets and they know how to fill the screen with flash, pizzazz, explosions, destruction, and impressive set-pieces. All four also excel at butchering source material (Abrams especially concerning Trek), plots filled with more holes than a sponge, and thinking action scenes make up for garbage dialog and piss-poor character development. These guys are all linked to something I love, though. I'm a Star Trek fan. I enjoyed Lost. I'm a huge Transformers fan. I love Stargate. I love Watchmen and Dawn of the Dead was not a terrible remake, all things considered. But I am also going to be quick to criticize all of these guys.

Aye, old hat, discussed to death over the last decade-plus. I mean, it's not like a zombie would even be able to exist anyway.

One thing a friend and I came up with writing a zombie story in HS was that fresh corpses would be sprinters, then rigor mortis sets in and they shamble, then that breaks down and they'd be able to (eventually) sprint again. I'm not sure if any zombie flick has actually delved into that, but it feels like something Jonathan Maberry would write.

ROTLD is what kicked my horror fandom into high gear. Saw parts of it when I was 8 and I fell for the "based on a true story" opening scroll and was terrified for weeks of Tarman (making ROTLD and Child's Play 2 the only horror films to every truly scare me), then I watched it again when I was 11/12 and absolutely fell in love with it. It has, IMO, the best zombie effects I've ever seen, and is such a perfect balance of humor and legitimate horror that it deserves to be essential viewing.

EDIT:
Snyder deserves all the scorn he receives, as do Bay and Emmerich and Abrams. Of these four, I at least have an incredible begrudging respect for Bay and Abrams, but for totally different reasons.

Bay makes Bay movies. They're all the same. Constant action, EXPLOSIONS~, wise-cracking protagonist(s) and sidekick(s), and weak plots that exist only to lead to the next insane action sequence. Some of them even turned out to be quite good, mostly The Rock (I don't care for Pain & Gain but that's a personal preference), but there's always that unique Michael Bay flare. He may churn out crap, but at least it's distinct.

Abrams is a bit on the flipside, as he's fantastic as creating a nostalgic mood. Super 8 fails in the third act and feels rushed to get to an unsatisfying conclusion, but it feels like a movie that would've come out in the '80s. I'm way more into TFA than most here, and it's all because it FELT like a Star Wars movie. Even the shyte of his Star Trek lens flare bonanza at least felt like an updated take on '60s sci-fi. He fails when it comes to story but excels when it comes to major moments feeling like they're major moments.

I'm not ignoring you, I just have very little interest in Saw as a whole, and have little to discuss on it. You are very clearly a big fan of the franchise, as your monstrous defenses of it indicate. I stated my piece on them; i.e., that they had some decent ideas, they were different at the time they came out, and they are ultimately torture porn (even Wikipedia lists them as such). But that's about it. I will likely give them a more balanced viewing at some point, but not any time soon. I am keeping it in mind, just to be fair.

As much as you are a fan of Saw, that is how much I am a fan of Romero's Dead movies, especially the original trilogy of Night-Dawn-Day. I look forward to when my son is old enough to see the second and third. I've already shown him the original, and he loved it. I have watched them to death. I wrote a detailed analysis comparing the original 68 version to the 90 version for a college class. I actually got to pick them. I was given the Psycho movies to analyze (original and remake), but after our instructor discussed them in class, I requested something else feeling it would have been redundant.


Also, when I did my original listing of "horror franchises," I completely forgot Candyman. Way to go, me. I forgot the franchise starring the black guy. Turns out I'm racist grandpa.

I also consider RotLD essential viewing. The effects and action are still great, and fuck it, I love the music, too. That movie is pure fun, something I think a lot of modern horror movies lose by trying too fucking hard to be serious and dark. Horror works best with some element of fun. Ha, I always forget it opens with a crawl that it's based on a true story!

The ones to truly terrify me as a kid were one of the It's Alive films, Cujo, and Pet Semetary. It didn't help that my grandmother's house had a high bed for the undead kid to hide under, the attic door that the mom swung from, and above the bed, a huge painting of a horrifying looking Saint Bernard. Fucking horror house. Hated sleeping in that room.

I wrote a blog about how zombie stories are fundamentally unrealistic and the entire apocalypse would self-defeat at some point anyway. The reason Walking Dead takes place in the south is so the zombies aren't all wiped out by winter. One winter later, and everyone in the north is largely zombie-free. They'll freeze solid, then be picked apart by scavenging animals, destroyed by wandering humans doing clean-up, or killed off by the elements. They're a room-temperature threat. And rotting the whole time. I like your take, though--the timeline of running to shambling. I think that could really work.




Agreed on Super 8. It was the closes Abrams ever came to capturing the wonder of great 80's films like Close Encounters, E.T., or Goonies. Things like that. I do enjoy that movie. Frankly, this is why I enjoyed Stranger Things--not because of 80's nostalgia, but because that show understood exactly why those films worked in the 80's. A lot of these directors seem to think it's all aliens and fantastical stories. Stranger Things understood it needed great characters, a great mystery, and how to put that together.

I'll give this to Bay: Despite the Transformers being used as props, he at least took them seriously. Transformers works best when it's fucking dark. When it's violent. Because at it's core, they're war stories, and that seems to fit his explodey nature. And he's carried it over in sequels. The Transformers are seen as threats, they are dangerous aliens, they could be hiding among us. In many ways, he should be able to capitalize on the kind of tension that made The Thing and They Live so great (he falls short, however), but he helped forge a unique universe for the franchise, took it seriously, and ran with it. End results vary, but at least he seems to care about it.

I'll give him that.

Yes, that was well thought out for sure.



Is there some stereotype of Blacks and TSA that I'm unaware of? I've done a fair bit of flying in the past couple of years (having married a citizen of Slovakia) and at least out here in California, the TSA seem to have a pretty broad mix of nationalities. Actually my wife and I both felt the whole TSA thing was pretty forced (though it'd make more sense if there's some stereotype that we're just both ignorant to) and she mentioned how she wouldn't be surprised if it was some government-sponsored/conspired attempt to alter the general public's disdain/mistrust of TSA for better people-management. Once I thought about that for a bit, it seemed pretty plausible but then again, I think I lean more towards general distrust of our government than perhaps most do...





I guess I'm the odd one out on this - since most seem to agree with you - but I just didn't find the humor very effective at all and thought that was the weakest part of the script. Eh, to each his own.

I'm a poser

I wasn't paying attention very well and expected something else til I saw the opening credits. It was good though, had more legit jump scares and badass abominable monsters.

Now I wish there was an At the Mountains of Madness movie.