"Wherever the red dot goes, ya bang!" Friday the 13th Part VI is my favorite, and the fact it was the first one I watched might have something to do with that. But I think horror franchises can work when they focus more on being fun than genuinely scary, as long as it's handled properly.

I'm two movies into my annual Nightmare on Elm Street extravaganza which means I have Dream Warriors next, where Freddy made more wisecracks than before. Then it's on to The Dream Master, which wasn't even trying to be scary but is still one of my favorites.

The first one I saw was actually Jason Goes to Hell. We were late to the game. My mom was a horror fan, but preferred Stephen King, George Romero, and John Carpenter to the slasher franchises. As well as remakes of stuff she grew up with, because the 80's was the last time horror remakes actually had any value.

I'm considering the Nightmares next, but want to get a Blu-Ray set of the Chucky movies as the new set includes Cult of Chucky, and I don't have them on Blu-Ray.

I used to have Dream Warriors on VHS and it included a music video from Dokken. "We're the Dream Wharreeeeooorrrrss" where Freddy wakes up from a nightmare in the end, and his dream was the video ha ha ha. Ridiculous.

When you watch these movies all together, they have quite a bit more value than it seems on the surface. All of them, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, Child's Play, and Halloween (the Big 4 of the Slashers if you will) have some decent coherent storylines, and practically almost all of them around the 3-6 film mark include some kind of arc. The Nightmare arc was mostly 3, 4, 5, and then 6 (Freddy's Dead), like Jason Goes to Hell, just kind of leaped out on their own, arc-free. Nightmare 5 is the weakest and most cartoonish of that franchise, though from my view. Very few slayings, all of them silly, and the overall was weaker.

Over the weekend, pretty hungover: tried to make it through "Vice," an awful rip-off of Blade Runner/Westworld, quit about halfway through. Gotta be nice to be Bruce Willis - he appears to be able to arrange for a deal where he gets paid to look concerned and utter a few lines, and further arranges for all of his scenes to be shot in one location over the course of one day.

Made it through "The Reaping," but barely. Completely nonsensical 10 plagues horror nonsense. The most disturbing thing in the movie was "The Governor's" Southern accent, years before he perfected it for The Walking Dead.

Watched "A Time To Kill," another Grisham-penned tale about a rookie small-town Southern lawyer who stands up for the little guy. Pretty stupid from a legal standpoint, but entertaining nonetheless.

And finally, "Our Souls At Night," an actually good film. Recommended if you can dig some old folks heartwarmery.

I watched one of the more odd movies I've ever seen: From Noon Till Three (1976) starring Charles Bronson and [his wife in real life] Jill Ireland. It's a western/comedy with a pretty standard setup but then goes in a very unexpected and quite zany direction. (The whole thing is somewhat zany, but it gets progressively more so as the movie unfolds.) Basically one of five bank robbers stays behind at a gorgeous widow's house on the outskirts of town because his horse broke its leg. Naturally, bickering then romance ensue, but then it just gets odd. I recommend it if you're looking for something fun and different. I think much of my enjoyment came from being surprised, so I don't recommend reading up on its plot much or watching a trailer or anything.

I also got The Thing on Blu-Ray and showed it to my wife for the first time. So good. The Blu-Ray is noticeably better than the DVD too, though I think they may have cut some footage? I remember more stop-motion action of the Blair-Monster, but I could be wrong.

super excited, but I think we're being seriously red herring-ed

Cult of Chucky was solid and I love Fiona Dourif, love that Don Mancini can keep getting the same talent back together, but it felt incomplete. Just as things were reaching a fever pitch it ended and teased a sequel.

Aw nuts, I was gearing up to get the 7-film Blu-Ray set. Dammit all!

I'll probably still get it. It'll be a few years before they can crank out Chucky 8.

Watched "Cult of Chucky" myself last evening. I was pleasantly surprised - how is it that these movies are getting better around the seventh and eighth installments? One thing amiss was the frequency and quality of Chucky's quips, but other than that, pretty darn entertaining.

Finished the first 8, or "real" Friday the 13th movies last night. Then watched an October favorite: Fright Night (the original, that remake doesn't exist).

Jason Takes Manhattan was one of the first I saw of the franchise, and it's definitely the weakest of the first eight movies, but still better than Jason Goes to Hell or Jason X. Indeed, when it ended, I was about to watch Jason Goes to Hell, but knowing how drastically different the series went killed my motivation. Felt like it would spoil the whole thing, you know?

Fright Night is one my absolute favorites. I love pretty much everything about it, and it's one of four I am pretty much guaranteed to watch each and every October. The other three being American Werewolf in London, Carpenter's The Thing, and Creepshow.

Did you feel it needed to be almost 3 hours long?

That is the main thing that is making me hesitant to go see it. If I'm going to sit and focus for 3 hours, I want to make damn sure it's worth it.

There is clearly a lot of intentional misdirecting going on in the trailer. But never the less, I'm super excited. The footage of Finn fighting Captain Phasma looked fucking incredible.

I actually didn't really mind the length. I wouldn't say that it was a breeze to watch (I did describe it as dense and cryptic, after all), but I was definitely surprised when I checked my cell phone at the end of the movie and saw that almost three hours had flown past. It felt like a regular two hour movie to me.

I just came back from my second viewing of Blade Runner 2049. I saw it a few days ago in 3D (which adds absolutely nothing anyway), but the 3D quality here in Tunisia has always been shit, and here it seemed even worse. Sometimes I had to take off my glasses to see better. I didn't realize how shitty it was until today, after I saw it in a regular 2D format, and in a very good cinema with nice image quality. We're lucky now I guess that we have some of the biggest movies available in cinemas here at the same time as the worldwide release, it was something unthikable a few years ago.

Anyway I really, really loved it. The visuals are fucking epic. They actually reminded me of Beksinki's paintings (particularly this one), like somehow bringing them to life, which is beyond awesome. I like how Villeneuve dared to expand beyond what we have seen in the first Blade Runner, exploring new things and ideas, showing other sides of the city and a lot more. I was also surprised how "fast" time seemed to go by. You really don't notice it's nearly three hours length passing.
Of course I have some minor complaints with the plot but I don't think they're big enough to give me a negative feel about the whole thing.

We're lucky to have directors like Villeneuve at their peak now. I'm already excited about his next project.

I'm watching the Turin Horse right now. I've seen this film so many times but I just love it. The reciprocating process of life. The harsh realities of an amoral life. This film describes Nihilism in every sense. 9.7/10

Bela Tarr may actually be the greatest living director.

Blade Runner 2049 was unexpectedly good. Loved everything about it except for two things:
- The music at the end of the orphanage scene. Not sure what was going through Hans Zimmer's head, but goddamn it seemed like he fell asleep on the BIG DRUM button. The scene itself is already well-stretched out, and the fucking noise was so loud and ridiculous that the whole thing became grating as fuck. Less is more, goddamn it.
- The on/off musical scene. Also too drawn out and completely unnecessary, but hey at least there's no constant BWOOOOO in the background.

Otherwise, fantastic movie overall. Very well thought-out too. Shame that it bombed so badly at the box office. Fuck superhero movies and fuck Star Wars.

Alejandro González Iñárritu might be the greatest living director. The Revenant was one of the best directed movies I've ever seen. Well let's just say that these two are in the same league. I would consider the Turin Horse to be better than The Revenant.

Do you know of any directors that equal the talent of Bela Tarr?

He's still alive, but unfortunately no longer making any movies. Or did he change his mind?

It hasnt opened in China or Japan yet and I can see it doing huge there. I am surprised by the budget considering its R.

I wish Villenueve's previous movies had gotten bigger. This is his weakest one so far easily. Still solid but yeah.

I tried to watch Turin Horse a few years back, couldn't finish it but it was definitely intriguing. May try it again sometime.

The Fury - A weird old Brian DePalma movie about two psychic youths. There's a lot of coming-of-age style awkwardness, and a company that wants to exploit them - it's pretty standard for this, but not too bad. I found a lot of this slightly too long and without enough real exciting moments to hook me in, but I also wasn't totally bored. Good characters and a palpable atmosphere carried it through, and the final act was a lot of fun.

I refuse to believe that Blade Runner could be any worse than Enemy, probably one of the worst movies I've seen this decade.

I thought that was a great movie so I'd disagree with you there.

Did you like Identity too? These "it's all in their head, so that's why I can show you weird, implausible and unexplainable shit without being arthouse" movies are just profoundly lazy and cynical. I genuinely cannot understand how someone could walk away from a movie that, by the director's own admission, took place entirely inside the main character's head, and think to him or herself, "wow, what a totally worthwhile movie!" It's exactly one nanometer from "and then I woke up and it was all a dream," which is universally agreed upon as being the single worst way to end anything. How "outgrowths of an individual's psyche" gets a pass more often than not just leaves me scratching my head.

Nope, Identity was bad and lame. Enemy I found cool and immersive enough that it really worked. I know you don't think anyone can ever look at any movie differently from you but come on.

Life sucked though. Really lazy writing, stupid decisions by the characters

Darkeningday has a chip installed in his body that sends pain signals directly into his brain whenever someone's thoughts on anything differ even slightly from his

Watched a film from, I think, 1995 called Blink. It was about a woman who got eye surgery that gave her sight again. It had a lot of tropes of mid-90's thrillers, including brazen sex saxophone during those scenes. I was expecting something supernatural like The Eyes of Laura Mars, but that wasn't it at all. Instead, the woman who just got her sight back (and it was not very good sight) ended up being a witness to a murder and the bulk of the story revolved around the detective working with her, and banging her, while trying to salvage his case. My girlfriend remembered it being scarier, and it had a couple clever scenes, but this wasn't a horror/thriller movie. More like a detective thriller/drama. Not great, but it dashed my predictions and was generally enjoyable.

I thought the pacing could have been a bit faster/smoother, and the "her vision" shots were not necessarily believable. I get what they were trying to do, but it didn't strike me as realistic. I think the filmmakers just thought it looked cool.

Considering that it's a sequel to one of the greatest movies of all time (the Final Cut version, at least) and that it didn't outright suck and actually largely maintained the spirit of the original 35 years on while expanding on it, I'd say it's a pretty fucking amazing job he did. Which is great, because I lived in fear thinking of the many ways Ridley Scott could've fucked it all up like he did with the David Alien franchise reboots. I'm down with a sequel if Villeneuve and Fancher stay, if there'll ever be one that is.

There were a lot of very impressive things about it, namely the visuals and directing style being close to the original yet tastefully updated for modern standards. But it just wasn't that great of a story and didn't seem to have all that much to say that the original didn't already say. It was kind of overly simple underneath all the veneer of the effects and visuals.

I just think his previous films like Sicario were light years better. Not to mention Arrival, which is much closer in genre.

That plot reminds me of a similar-sounding movie I saw some years ago called Mute Witness about a mute (doi) woman working on a movie set who witnesses a snuff movie killing. I only remember so much of it, but I do remember it being tonally inconsistent, with some scenes being genuinely suspenseful, and others bordering on surreal comedy.

Could you explain why though? What's your reasoning for liking an "it's all just a representation of a battle in his own head" movie. I'm genuinely curious to see your rationale.

I didn't mind the story one bit, and I found lots of little subtle things interspersed throughout the movie to think about. I might convince myself to go watch it again.

Maybe it's because I went with low expectations the first time...

Well this is bound to be some kind of trope I never considered. The "imperfect witness" story.


Got my son a day early since he doesn't have school this or next Friday. So we dove back into some Halloween movie time. Tonight it was Invasion of the Body Snatchers 1978 and Creepshow. Two personal favorites of mine. He seemed to enjoy both, but said Creepshow was more fun, which, yes, it totally is. It's in the tagline, after all.

https://www.filmaffinity.com/en/search.php?stype=director&sn&stext=B%C3%A9la%20Tarr



Should I see it at cinemas or wait for the DVD?

The music alone is requiring of an IMAX 2D screening, and that's to say the visuals are both immense and spectacular.

If I had a really good screen (something like 4K HDR 120 Hz), then I wouldn't bother going to cinemas for any movie, save for social occasions, maybe.

I haven't seen Enemy, but Jacob's Ladder is essentially that and it's arguably the best horror movie ever made. The reason the "it was all a dream" twist is so reviled is because it retroactively makes the entire plot pointless and makes the audience feel stupid for getting invested. But if the conflict is an internal emotional/psychological conflict, and the "dream" is a metaphor for that, and its resolution has a lasting effect on the dreamer, the dream has a point. A Christmas Carol is another great example of this, with Scrooge "dreaming" but confronting his own character faults and changing as a result.

Again, I haven't seen Enemy, but there's nothing necessarily wrong with "it's all just a representation of a battle in his own head." A lot of classic stories have been told using that template.

That is essentially what Enemy was doing, FSM, and it was so well directed, psychedelic and immersive that it sucked you in completely. Check it out sometime. I think you could find stuff to appreciate in it.

An American Werewolf In London - I liked it. Fun stuff... it had creepy atmospherics and some haunting dream sequences, and the way all these ghosts were telling him to kill himself before he became a werewolf again was pretty fucking dark. But it was also balanced out by a lot of humor and lighthearted scenes which worked pretty well to endear you to the characters and David's plight - the romance felt cliche though. I would've liked more horror as opposed to comedy in this, as it was hard to really glean much dread or terror when you get scenes of him running through the street naked and grabbing a woman's coat to cover himself. But as a movie it was entertaining as hell and I'd watch it again.

Also this is a hilarious, horrific mind-fuck that the movie frankly never recovers from in terms of quality:





There probably were some things I didn't initially pick up on - I'll probably rewatch it when I can get it on DVD with subtitles.

But the main disappointment for me story-wise was

Definitely at the cinema. I have to say, I was quite stoned when I went to see it, so that made it even more impressive. The cinema I went to (the second time) was small, so I had to sit at the front row, which was really close to the huge screen. Before the movie started I was annoyed by being so close, but when it started it was an incredibly long "holy shit!" moment. I was literally moving my head to see stuff that is at the edge of the screen (stuff that isn't important at all, but really cool to look at), and that greatly helped in getting totally immersed and sucked in. At times there are a lot of details where you can easily get lost (the city), sometimes not so much, but the fog and all of those weird lights will make it seem as if they were engulfing you too, and not just the characters.

Actually I'm now thinking about seeing it a third time. If the 3D in that second cinema is as good as the 2D then it could very well be worth it.

I was surprised to see people on the internet say it's not doing well at the box office, which is a shame. Villeneuve had total freedom to do whatever he wanted here, but now I'm afraid if there's going to be another one it would be more... hollywoodish?

I REALLY like my setup...
http://viviendoapesardelacrisis.blogspot.com.es/2013/05/actualizacion-de-red-lan-de-casa.html
...but maybe I should go to a cinema.

Thanks, guys!