Movies: Horror Movie Discussion

[CDJ]

A Quiet Place: Day One

Lupita doesn’t miss. Honestly it’s kinda sweet/cute for an apocalyptic horror movie. Solid movie, nothing spectacular. Definitely worth a watch though, especially if you’ve seen the other ones.

7.5/10

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

X, Pearl, MaXXXine (Ti West, 2022, 2022, 2024) – I'd already commented on the first part of the trilogy, and finally got to see the two other films. The three films are considered pastiches of aesthetics associated to the time periods they picture (I still think The House of the Devil was a far better pastiche than any of these films). As said previously, X works fine but has too many concrete intertextual links to be efficient as a simple pastiche. Pearl is too presented as a pastiche (the opening credits are pretty cool), but set in 1918 it shies away from the period's aesthetics and turns towards what you'd picture thinking about the later Technicolor or 60s DeLuxe Color extravaganza (in other words: kitsch – sometimes cute, but mostly overdone). MaXXXine has many great ideas and sometimes nails to perfection a certain atmosphere of early 80s flicks, but again, way too many concrete intertextual relations tend to make the pastiche flirt with parody (it sure made me want to watch Crimes of Passion again). Had it been made in the 80s, it would have been an amazing example of postmodernity in film, but now it just echoes an obnoxious trend with overloads of references and “clins d'oeil”. I can't say I appreciated the intertextual crescendo of the trilogy, it progresses towards more references, more reflexivity, more auto-reflexivity, more definite mise-en-abyme (the last film announces that there will be a movie made about Maxine – the film we are watching?), only to end up as a maybe-somewhat-better version of countless other “meta”-horror offerings. The first film breached its narrative to bring in the idea of incest through an improbable allusion to a porn “classic”, cranking up the malaise of old Pearl molesting her sleeping younger double (and per extension, also establishing a freudian primal scene later on) – and that allusion also echoes into Pearl, with Pearl, the actual farmer's daughter, bathing in front of her paralyzed father – but most other allusions are devoid of this type of significant return. It doesn't mean they're all empty allusions, I think the Psycho allusion in X reinforces the motherly affiliation between Pearl and Maxine, and that the Betty Davies reference invites to read the Maxine character through the lens of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? But with so many allusions and references just for show, it cheapens the whole thing. On a thematic level, I really would have liked some of the (often great) ideas to be better fleshed out. I think X plays nicely with the ideas of film monstration and the precedence of sight/gaze in horror and porn spectatorship, but the next two films only graze ideas that could have been gold mines (more frustratingly so for me, some more freudian concepts that are flirted with: projection in Pearl, and the return of the repressed through images of the past in MaXXXine). Maybe these films were just too close to my tastes and had no chance of really being satisfying to me. I'm sure a younger me would have been more impressed. I had X at 4.5 previously, I think I'd push it at 5/10, with Pearl at 4.5/10, and MaXXXine at 4/10.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Terrifier 2 (Leone, 2022) – The first film was a surprise to me as I thought I'd hate it and ended up enjoying it as a very cool pastiche of 80s gore films (the amateurism wasn't pastiched, it was very real, but the end result was the same). This sequel is exactly what I feared the first one would be. It's still amateurish (not as clumsy in direction and spatial construction, but the acting is probably worse), but it's also a complete borefest – the last 45 minutes feel like a lifetime. The supernatural elements undo any possible efficiency and what remains of horror is a bad actor doing pantomime (him fake-laughing at people in pain is half the film) and a few pretty good abject scenes. I used to show Ruins to students as an example of abjection – the gore in that film induces all the unconscious body reactions triggered by abjection (which is, in its simplest term, being confronted to your body being meat). The scene in Terrifier 2 with the mutilated girl calling out for her mommy would have make it to my gore class for sure as it got ME (!) laughing from the abject (it's a normal reaction that can get pretty annoying when you see a horror film in theater, one I normally don't have – some effects will make me chuckle a bit, but out of appreciation, not out of abjection... something like The Boys use the abject as a pure comedic element, nullifying its disturbing effect, which is also pretty interesting). Just for that scene, I'll push it from 2.5 to 3/10.

 

[Osprey]

Yeah, I thought that Terrifier 2 was nearly an hour too long. It's as if the writer/director listened to the criticism of the first movie that it had too little plot and so added nearly an hour to the runtime of the sequel to compensate, instead of just adding more plot to the same runtime. There's no need for a horror movie, especially a slasher, to be much longer than 90 minutes, IMO. The plots never support it and too much horror gets a little exhausting. For the last 45 minutes of the movie, I just wanted it to end.

 

[shadow1]

The Howling: Reborn (2011) - 2/10

A loner high school senior has an encounter with a werewolf and begins experiencing changes in his life.

Landon Liboiron stars as Will, an unremarkable high schooler on the verge of graduation. He's infatuated with fellow student Eliana (Lindsey Shaw), but is too afraid to pursue her due to his low popularity. Will's ordinary life begins changing rapidly after he attends a strange party and has a near-miss with a deadly werewolf...

The Howling: Reborn was directed by Joe Nimziki, and written by Nimziki and James Robert Johnston. Nimziki - a first-time director who mostly worked as a script doctor - wrote this eighth Howling entry as a love story with horror elements, which concerned producers. However, after the massive success of Twilight (2008), a hit movie that also features werewolves, producers were convinced with the direction. How does The Howling: Reborn fare?

Do I really have to review this one? Oh alright...

The Howling: Reborn, as alluded to, is a Twilight clone. Just like that film, Reborn's characters are high schoolers in a love story that crosses into the supernatural realm. Additionally, this movie has the same super washed-out visual look used in Twilight, and also features the heavy use of V.O. like Twilight. I have never seen any of the Twilight movies, but because of their cultural impact in the 2010s, everyone old enough has some level of familiarity with the franchise. And let me tell you, there is no way anyone can watch this movie and not think "Twilight" the entire run time.

So, Team Will, or Team... Will (ugh). Obviously, I was not the target demographic for this movie, but that begs the question: who was? The Howling brand is much more likely to attract fans of its own series than fans of Twilight. The only way that wouldn't be true is if the strategy was to dupe people, like how mockbuster studio The Asylum releases similarly titled movies to blockbuster movies, like AVH: Alien vs. Hunter (2007) or Ape vs. Monster (2021). Reborn's title isn't similar at all to Twilight's, but the trailer clearly targeted at the same audience. That brings up another question: why is this movie rated R? Yes, it is easily one of the tamest rated R movies I have ever seen (even tamer than Howling III, which was rated PG-13). But if the goal was to target teenagers, did producers think moms and dads were going to buy a rated-R movie for their 12-year-old daughter? Why didn't they water down the gorier bits to secure a PG-13 rating? What were they thinking?

Being a shameful Twilight rip-off puts this movie in the hole before it even begins. But any hope of Reborn being an objectively decent movie goes out the window pretty quickly thanks to its writing. Everything is so cookie-cutter, with tropey characters like the high school bully, or the film nerd best friend who knows all about werewolves. I feel really bad for the performers in this one because there is some truly cringe dialogue that is trying to be edgy... likely in order to appeal to the young audience I mentioned earlier. Dialogue aside, all of our characters are completely one-dimensional, with Will's only goal in life seeming to be getting a girlfriend. The motivations of the antagonists make zero sense, especially if you sit there and really think out their strategy (which you will, after you're done questioning this film's marketing strategy, because you definitely won't care about what's happening on screen).

I'll try to avoid spoiling it because it's a bit later in the movie (yeah, like you're actually going to watch this), but one sequence in particular was really the cherry on top for me and sums up what a crap fest this movie is: Will and Eliana corner the bad guys, but one of our protagonists runs off, while the other attacks the villains but never checks to see if they're dead. Then, while trying to find each other, one of our heroes is attacked by a werewolf. Then, Will and Eliana reunite and are on the verge of having sex (with deadly monsters still clearly around), but get into an argument and separate again. This happens in the span of 5 or 6 minutes; it's pure insanity.

As for the werewolves, as far as I can tell, they're not great. Sometimes they don't look bad, but other times they look very rubbery. Some of the antagonists are shirtless men, so I think they tried to make the werewolves less hairy overall, but it hurts the illusion because at times you can really tell they're wearing suits. I used the phrase "as far as I can tell" a second ago because The Howling: Reborn has severe shaky cam during the werewolf sequences. It was an unfortunate trend at the time, and it further lowers the quality of this already bad movie.

More importantly, a lot of the movie doesn't have werewolves in it. A major plot point of this film is how the werewolves have super strength and healing abilities while in their "human" form. Of course, this was done to keep the eye candy actors and actresses on screen as much as possible, but it begs the question: if they already have their powers, what's the point in changing into a werewolf at all?

Overall, The Howling: Reborn is The Asylum version of Twilight. I'm well aware it's called "show business" and not "show art", but it's still disgraceful to see a name-brand (okay...maybe more of a store-brand) horror franchise cannibalized and turned into a soulless cash grab. The Howling: Reborn, which was released direct-to-video, had a reported earnings of $180,871 on IMDb.

---

That wraps up The Howling series. The 2017 movie called "The Howling" has no association with this franchise or the Brandner novels, and seems to have a Sharks of the Corn (2021) level budget.

My final thought on the series is that I liked it, and but there was a big lack of cohesion. Not only was there almost no continuity, with the fourth movie rebooting the franchise entirely, but it was rare for successive movies to even be produced in the same country (Reborn was a Canadian production, for example). The werewolf rules weren't even consistent: some movies they needed a full moon to transform, other movies they didn't; in some movies a werewolf bite would turn victims into a werewolf, in other movies it wouldn't.

I thought this franchise was severely lacking in "safe" movies. I'm not a mindless zombie who wants the same thing every time (okay, there's an argument to be made based on my obsession with the Friday the 13th movies). But seriously, it felt like almost every sequel in this series swung for the fences with a really bizarre plot...and as you could tell from my scores, there weren't a lot of home runs. The Howling movies desperately could've used a Halloween 4 (1988), if you will. "We've got a werewolf, let's have it stalk some people in a spooky location" is so much better than "We've got a werewolf, let's put in it a drama and make it have children" or "We've got a werewolf, let's turn it into a monkey!".

My ranking:

1. The Howling (1981) - Decent story with superb special effects
2. Howling V: The Rebirth (1989) - Great concept with a flawed execution
3. Howling VI: The Freaks (1991) - Has some flaws but overall pretty decent
4. Howling III: The Marsupials (1987) - A fever dream of a movie that I kinda like
5. The Howling: New Moon Rising (1995) - Anyone else would have this dead last, but I am fascinated
6. Howling IV: The Original Nightmare (1988) - Almost the same exact movie as The Howling, but with worse everything
7. Howling II: ...Your Sister Is a Werewolf (1985) - Your Sister Is a Gorilla
8. The Howling: Reborn (2011) - The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 3 - Team Clive Turner

 

[shadow1]

One Missed Call (2003) - 4/10

A group of friends begin receiving voicemails from their future selves with audio of their deaths.

Ko Shibasaki stars as Yumi, a college student whose friends begin dying around her in mysterious fashion after receiving voicemails from their future selves. After getting a voicemail of her own dated two days in the future, Yumi teams up with Yamashita (Shinichi Tsutsumi), a detective who has been studying these bizarre deaths after one of them claimed a family member. The two work together to find who, or what, is tormenting them...

One Missed Call was directed by Takashi Miike, and written by Minako Daira. The film was based on a novel of the same name ("Chakushin Ari") by Yasushi Akimoto. How does it fare?

Frickin' blows. I already reviewed this movie a couple years ago, but couldn't remember much about it. And even though my score is unchanged, I was way too nice with my previous review. Let's call One Missed Call what it is: unabashedly a Ringu (1998) clone. In addition to the gimmick being extremely similar, the film follows so many of the same story beats that you'll be dying to watch the far superior Ringu instead.

Okay, what makes Ringu so much better than this? If I said everything, it wouldn't be a lie. But specifically, the video gimmick is much better than the phone gimmick in One Missed Call. This movie does a poor job of establishing its gimmick early on, and then relies so heavily on it that it becomes tedious rather than unsettling. Aside from one effective scene in the middle of the movie, One Missed Call fundamentally doesn't understand how to be creepy. So many of the scares are a fake-out jump scare, which only succeed in waking you up once your eyelids start to feel heavy. And they will wake you up - the sound in this film is so quiet you'll have to turn your TV way up, but the jump scare audio is mixed so high it could wake the dead.

In addition to the lack of scares, the story is a mess. After the first death, the narrative is spoon-fed to the audience, thanks to a random school student who somehow knows why people are dying after receiving voicemails. Once the "why" is established, our one-dimensional protagonists spend the rest of the movie trying to figure out the "who".

And they do so unbelievably quickly; it's complete insanity. Our characters find a literal needle in a haystack and make a connection that should've taken months (or years) in a matter of hours, and we're supposed to buy it. It's not even possible to spoil it, but still erring on the side of caution, here's an apples-to-apples scenario: you hear a specific car horn, somehow recognize it as a Honda Civic, go to the local Rent-A-Car and find all the people who rented Civics, and from that information somehow figure out that me, @shadow1, is your killer. None of this is told to us breadcrumb-style like Ringu, by the way. One Missed Call simply jams its solution down the audience's throat and expects us to care.

Which we don't. Between the insanely slow pacing and (most of the time) extremely quiet audio, it takes actual concentration to pay attention to this movie. There's simply no hook: the characters stink, the gimmick is misused, it's not scary, and the mystery is a total mess.

Overall, I am not a fan of One Missed Call... to say the least. I could see some people enjoying this movie if they enjoy boredom can look past the shortcomings of the story, and are able to buy into the ringing phone gimmick more than I could. However, I think this film has some serious flaws. I might be a hack though: both IMDb (6.2) and Letterboxd (3.2/5) have significantly higher scores than my (generous) rating of a 4/10. Obviously, take this review with a grain of salt. One Missed Call earned $17.6M against its $1.7M budget.

 

[Rodgerwilco]

Watched Hereditary by Ari Aster the other day. Still not fully sure what I'm really thinking about this. First impression was that the ending sucked and I didn't like how it wrapped up. The creepy and unsettling feeling throughout the film created a great atmosphere and all that, but I'm really not into the demonic type of stuff in general.

I watched a bit of a deep-dive video on it and gained some more appreciation for the cinematography of the movie, but I'm still not sold on it. May read up on it and watch it again to see if I'm missing something, as some of the people I've seen discuss the movie mention it as one of the best horror movies in recent cinema.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

One Missed Call (2003) - 4/10
I might be a hack though: both IMDb (6.2) and Letterboxd (3.2/5) have significantly higher scores than my (generous) rating of a 4/10. Obviously, take this review with a grain of salt. One Missed Call earned $17.6M against its $1.7M budget.

I don't think I have seen it, but the inflated rating probably comes from Miike being a huge thing at the time. This came out the same year as Gozu, and 2 years after Visitor Q - two pretty interesting films. 2 years after Ishi the Killer too, probably his most popular film.

 

[shadow1]

I don't think I have seen it, but the inflated rating probably comes from Miike being a huge thing at the time. This came out the same year as Gozu, and 2 years after Visitor Q - two pretty interesting films. 2 years after Ishi the Killer too, probably his most popular film.

You are right, there are some very compelling reviews on IMDb about how One Missed Call is a misunderstood masterpiece from Miike.

...they didn't compel me to bump up my 4-star rating, but I'm sure they compelled someone!

 

[shadow1]

One Missed Call 2 (2005) - 6/10

A reporter, restaurant worker, and teacher investigate deadly voicemails.

Asaka Seto stars as Takako, a journalist who has been tracking unexplainable voicemail-related deaths across Japan. Following a strange death at a restaurant, Takako interviews part-time worker Naoto (Yu Yoshizawa) and his kindergarten teacher girlfriend Kyoko (Mimula) to learn if the incident is related. After a friend of Kyoto's is attacked, the trio begins receiving voicemails of their own and have to act fast to avoid a deadly fate. Takako's sources lead the group to Taiwain, where they believe they can track down the source of the voicemails...

One Missed Call 2 was directed by Renpei Tsukamoto and written by Minako Daira. Like its 2003 predecessor, One Missed Call 2 draws from the written works of Chakushin Ari. How does it fare?

It's better and more than its predecessor, while also suffering some of the same issues... along with some of its own. One Missed Call 2 follows the continuity of One Missed Call, with several characters returning, but in smaller roles. This time around we focus on a new cast of characters, and that's really for the better. The characters in One Missed Call were as one-dimensional as it gets, and it was impossible to get invested in them, aside from the basic "they're good people so we don't want to see them die." One Missed Call 2 fixes that, giving us characters that have some depth and are more relatable.

The biggest thing One Missed Call 2 gets right is a better use of the "deadly voicemail" concept. The movie knows how to be scary and actually gave me goosebumps during one scene, which almost never happens to this severely desensitized reviewer. I couldn't find any budget information for One Missed Call 2 (or anything related to the production honestly), but it very clearly has a higher budget than One Missed Call. There's a lot more set variety and better production value, which in unison with the better characters and scares add up to a better product than the original.

I've been referencing the first movie so much during this review because One Missed Call 2 relies heavily on the story of that film, to its detriment. I found it easy to get invested in this movie's plot, but the lore behind the voicemail deaths is a confusing mess. One Missed Call 2 does little to make it more accessible, instead making the lore even more tedious by building on top of it.

Even if you can move past the convoluted explanation behind the killer phones, the film has issues of its own. An hour and 45 minutes it's overly long for a horror movie, but One Missed Call 2 starts to overstay its welcome towards the end of the movie. Things really begin to drag, and some events that occur are so melodramatic it started to take me out of the movie. Fortunately, One Missed Call 2 rebounded, as its ending was the most effective and memorable part of the movie.

Overall, One Missed Call 2 is a sequel that's comfortably better than its predecessor while also being flawed. The film has enough issues that I considered rating it a "5", but one or two scenes creeped me out, which isn't easy to do. Plus I was a little mean when reviewing the first one . As mentioned, I couldn't find any budget information for One Missed Call 2, but IMDb reports it earned $12.3M worldwide.

 

[End on a Hinote]

Longlegs - 7/10

After many years of brutal Nicholas Cage performance, he made up for it big time with this one. IMO he should get an Oscar nomination for this great, creepy performance.

As for the film, was a solid one but lost me a little bit once it got into the super natural. I prefer my horror movie to be more on the realistic side, which makes them more eerie. Good film nonetheless.

 

[shadow1]

One Missed Call: Final (2006) - 6/10

Students on a class trip die one by one after receiving a cursed phone message.

Meisa Kuroki stars as Emeri, who along with her classmates has traveled to Busan, South Korea on a field trip. She meets up with her deaf-mute long-distance boyfriend Jin-woo (Jang Keun-suk), but the trip has an ominous feeling because of the recent hanging of one of Emeri's classmates. That feeling becomes a reality when the students begin receiving photos of their future deaths, which begin coming true...

One Missed Call: Final was directed by Manabu Aso and written by Minako Daira and Shiro Kuroi. As hinted in the title, this film marked the third and final One Missed Call film to come out of Japan. How does it fare?

Pretty good! You know, I watch a lot of bad horror movies. Often with those films, things start off okay, the wheels progressively fall off, and then I'm on this site trying to shine up a 4/10. On top of that, I can usually see the downward spiral coming from a mile away. 20 minutes into this movie, I had it pegged: Emeri is the only sympathetic character, all of her idiot classmates will die, and the movie will hinge on how good their deaths are (and it wasn't looking promising early on).

Wrong. Idiot. What looks like a straightforward supernatural slasher subverted my expectations every step of the way. Unlike One Missed Call (2003) and One Missed Call 2 (2005), One Missed Call: Final tells you right away who's pulling the strings on these calls. That led me to believe this film wouldn't be a mystery, but it is. Though not a whodunit, Final has lots of twists and turns along the way that felt natural and satisfying.

Information is fed to the audience breadcrumb style, which is why I kept pleasantly finding myself to be wrong. Every time I came up with a valid criticism, the film would cleverly address it, which shows you how good the writing of Minako Daira and Shiro Kuroi were. As such, in my opinion, this was the easiest movie in the franchise to watch. It was more consistently entertaining than the first two movies, both of which had parts where they dragged (significantly in the case of the first film).

Sadly, just like the Final flipping my expectations, it's my duty as a reviewer to give this film its lumps, so this review is about to head south. Some of the death scenes, especially early on, are pretty cheesy. As much as I liked the writing and the pacing of this movie, I'm sad to report that the ending is pretty rough. Partially because it's cheesy, partially because it's an unsatisfying conclusion. I have to reiterate that my opinion of the first One Missed Call is not the consensus. I do not like the lore of that film, and One Missed Call: Final tries to shoehorn it in, to its detriment. If you liked that movie, you may have a different opinion. Based on my own, I think both One Missed Call 2 and this film are decent movies that are weighed down by being tied to the original.

Overall, One Missed Call: Final is a satisfying conclusion to the Japanese run of the One Missed Call series. It goes at things differently than its predecessors in a way that feels fresh, but the film hampers itself by trying to be like them. I couldn't find any budget information for One Missed Call: Final, but IMDb reports it earned $6.7M worldwide.

 

[Nakatomi]

House of the Devil (2009) - I think Ti West knows how to make a film. I enjoyed the aesthetic. But overall I was left with a big, fat meh. I don't think I could recommend this to anyone. Maybe 4 out of 10.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

House of the Devil (2009) - I think Ti West knows how to make a film. I enjoyed the aesthetic. But overall I was left with a big, fat meh. I don't think I could recommend this to anyone. Maybe 4 out of 10.

Oh. That's my favorite of his.

 

[izzy]

Longlegs - 7/10

After many years of brutal Nicholas Cage performance, he made up for it big time with this one. IMO he should get an Oscar nomination for this great, creepy performance.

As for the film, was a solid one but lost me a little bit once it got into the super natural. I prefer my horror movie to be more on the realistic side, which makes them more eerie. Good film nonetheless.

Not wanting to flip off topic, but he's had some decent roles lately, he just takes almost anything thrown his way that interests him

He absolutely kills it in Pig and in terms of horror, his style absolutely upped the quality of Color out of Space and Mandy

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Not wanting to flip off topic, but he's had some decent roles lately, he just takes almost anything thrown his way that interests him

He absolutely kills it in Pig and in terms of horror, his style absolutely upped the quality of Color out of Space and Mandy

Oh I meant to reply to that post saying exactly this but forgot. 100%.

 

[CDJ]

Not wanting to flip off topic, but he's had some decent roles lately, he just takes almost anything thrown his way that interests him

He absolutely kills it in Pig and in terms of horror, his style absolutely upped the quality of Color out of Space and Mandy

Heck he was terrific in Dream Scenario too (imo). The movie was just weird as hell

 

[izzy]

Just watched Abigail and it was a lot more fun and entertaining than I was even expecting

not a masterpiece or anything, but these two seem to be very good at making movies outside of trying to push endless continuations for existing series

 

[Blackhawkswincup]

Not wanting to flip off topic, but he's had some decent roles lately, he just takes almost anything thrown his way that interests him

He absolutely kills it in Pig and in terms of horror, his style absolutely upped the quality of Color out of Space and Mandy

He was taking a ton of roles including in terrible straight to DVD films to make $ because he was had put himself in absurd debt

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/10/cra...ought-with-150-million.html?__source=Facebook

 

[izzy]

Quiet Place Day One kinda sucked

a lot of inconsistencies of what the creatures can and can’t hear. A lot of nothing happening. A lot of what happens and is explained during the beginning of the outbreak makes the first two movies kind of stupid in regards to how they were surviving.

acting almost saved it.

and it annoyed me with how many fake outs there were with the cat. i dont need that kind of stress in my life lol