rsmurphy wrote: Sun Oct 22, 2023 10:15 am ^ good flick. Trippy! Yow is great with anything in his hands. I wasn't the biggest fan of Southbound but I enjoyed his performance.

Re-watched His House the other night and it still completely rules. So heavy, depressing, legitimately frightening, and topical with the world's deplorable treatment of migrants, and how in the case of His House it could lead to migrants doing terrible things to survive. Add an African witch (apeth) to the stew and you've got scary shit afoot. I liked the ending much better on the second watch. Looking forward to what the director, Remi Weeks, accomplishes in the future. As an aside, Savageland and Most Beautiful Island are two horror films dealing with the plight of migrants worth your time.

El Conde was a recent watch that was quite entertaining. It's satire which reimagines Pinochet as a centuries-old vampire who wants to end his life, and his ruthless children looking to inherit his wealth. Gorgeous-looking film shot in b&w. Gory. Funny. Recommended.

Have you seen Atlantics? It is more an art house drama with horror elements than it is a full-on horror, but it deals with the folks that are left behind or lost. The director, Mati Diop, is the niece of Djibril Diop Mambety of Touki Bouki and Hyenas fame and was a main actor in Claire Denis' 35 Shots of Rum. There are definite stylistic ties to both Mambety and Denis in it.


In the vein of South American horror with allegorical tales of a dictatorial past, you might also like History of the Occult. It is a low budget but imaginative paranoid thriller/cosmic horror mashup that reimagines Argentina's tumultuous 80s as a supernatural conspiracy. There are some funny bits like the commercial about the vacation destination of the Malvinas and the line about soap star Andrea del Boca being the lead in The Exorcist that point to things being slightly off.


I'd also recommend the action/African folk horror film Saloum. I was really surprised by this one.

^ all added to the watchlist. thank you for the suggestions as I haven't seen any of those features!

When Evil Lurks is good but a tad over hyped imo. It is brutal, relentless, and grim, but I didn't get the creeps as much as I did with the director's first film, Terrified, which is super spooky. I do appreciate how in both the director pulls no punches when it comes to children. That's a warning!

Rewatched The Harbinger from Andy Mitton, and it's more heartbreaking and scary than I initially remembered. It definitely gets more under the skin on a repeated viewing. The nightmare sequences are calm, understated, and seamless when switching between reality and dreamworld. So powerful and terrifying. It's also weird watching a proper COVID film much after the fact. I'm aware that we are still deep in it, but watching how the world initially changed at the start of it feels like ages ago (maybe that's the true horror). Respect to the two leads, Emily Davis and the delightfully-named Gabby Beans who nailed expressions of terror and grief. My favorite line comes from Emily's character, Mavis, who laments once she figures out what is happening: "this is so cruel." I will be forever shocked that Smile overshadowed this gem. The harbinger will fuck-up your existence completely.

Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor just dropped. The first one is comfort food and has no right to be as scary as it is. The sequel sucked big time, and the third is just abysmal. Gotta keep the money train rolling, though, and I'll get onboard tonight. Online scuttlebutt is said to be a return to form, but they all say that!

Terrified.



Visibly low budget, not-great acting, and has some corny elements, but it turns out to be very effective because it has it where it counts in horror movies: the atmosphere. I've reminded myself, with that description, of Pyewacket, which is another banger.



Edit: Damn, the poster above me mentioned Terrified lol. I literally just finished watching it, hilarious. Glad to find out the director has another movie out, though.

^ I LOVED Terrified. Spooky shit. The dead kid was great and I loved how the director elevated standard haunted house w/paranormal investigating fare to span across a handful of homes instead of keeping it to just one. Great atmosphere and suspense.

I also loved Pyewacket. Horror movies with metal flavoring tend to get corny in their portrayal of metal fans. Pyewacket is very solid and creepy. Talking about metal-tinged horror flicks The Devil's Candy is also great, and from what I can remember Hellbender was entertaining. I didn't dig Leave; big ol meh.

I need to finish Saloum. That one was getting good. Has Beyond the Black Rainbow been mentioned? If you liked Altered States or the fitst half of Mandy...

^ ^ Yeah, the dead kid sequence was just phenomenal.

Seconding Beyond the Black Rainbow, much preferred it to Mandy. Reminded me of the underrated (by Carpenter standards) Prince of Darkness.

People in this thread might be interested in this:



It's wild that an also-ran pile of crap from 1987 somehow gets an 80 min doc made about it in 2023, featuring all the key creatives who all earnestly talk about it like it was some kind of achievement. It's heartening, though, because there are plenty of films that other people would think were piles of crap that I'd love to see such docs about.

The new Hell House creeped me the fuck out. Easily the best one since the first, imo.

mrcancelled wrote: Mon Oct 30, 2023 10:04 pm The new Hell House creeped me the fuck out. Easily the best one since the first, imo.

I dug it! After 2 & 3 I was thinking how much more can they exploit the whole creepy clown vibe, but apparently there is still some air left in those clown car tires. They creeped me out more than a few times, but a big one was when it went to take Chase as it started...walking 🫣

Not bad to deliver a few chills before the witching hour.

I have watched some real crap this October but two really stood out as memorable: Possessor (2020, Brandon Cronenberg) and You Won’t Be Alone (2022, Goran Stolevski). The latter of these is a pretty touching story of a witch who wants a normal life in pre-industrial Macedonia. The VVitch is an obvious comparison point but this is less archetypal and more like an epic lyric poem.