Lurker > v_charon

Taking a quick look over my notes before we go watch Godzilla Minus One; to complete what I wanted to do, we'll need to watch (at minimum... discounting any releases in December) 22 films from the various streaming platforms. Most are now on Prime. Again, this is only the "included with Prime" ones. There are several I would like to see that are Prime+ features that you need to pay a few dollars for, and it doesn't count anything on Tubi either. I'll probably set a hard stop time for myself that will be in the first week or so of January to "complete" my 2023 horror rankings. I will make an effort to make the 2024 list even larger by getting an earlier start on than I did this year, but that means I can't waste too much time next year watching stuff from 2023.

We'll be only 2 away from 100 films after tonight, so 100 is definitely already being surpassed so I don't have any sort of cool looking number I can think of to shoot for. I was pretty amazed what trying to do this opened my eyes to though; previous years of just watching the mainstream titles in theaters seems pretty closed minded looking back now.

Yeah that movie looks... a little dreadful. 2024 really gonna get off to "a start" with that one.

Year is winding down, one more month to go. We've watched two new movies recently from 2023:

Blood: Checked this out on Hulu. Pretty solid offering. It's a well-acted bit of "how far will you go for your kids" bit of dramatic horror. The ending is pretty shocking, considering that even in this genre a lot of films shy away from such a downer ending with the forced murder of your own child. Plus repeating the bedtime rhyme right before, yeesh. The only real knock against it is the main character can be... rather unlikable, but eventually I understood perhaps she was intended to be. There's also a little issue of "can law enforcement really be this inept?". But I've watched a lot of true crime, and I guess the answer to that in reality is in fact, "yes".

Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor: I was told I could watch this even though I am unfamiliar with the series as a whole and haven't seen the rest of the franchise. I really liked this one thought; great found footage horror film. I'm not sure if the others are of the same caliber (quick research leads me to believe this is the best film in the franchise, generally regarded as such at least). I enjoyed the documentary style cuts; really well done and felt very authentic to the effect they were going for. This one also had a lot of really good horror bits that got me on the edge of my seat and had my skin tingling, pretty surprising win with this one.

We're planning to see Godzilla Minus One tomorrow night. I don't normally regard Godzilla much in the way of horror, but apparently this one is meant to be scary and a return to the original roots of the franchise, where it's much darker and foreboding of a tale. It's being billed as horror, so I guess I'll treat it as such and check it out. It has stellar reviews from both audiences and critics so far.

Two starters down now but still okay. It's great to see KAT step up and be the leader again when he has to do it.

It's hilarious but I can't really abide by all the blame on Monty he does. The Pistons are atrocious but I don't think it's the coach. He can only do so much, he can't force the players to play or do it for them. Coaches already have it rough, I don't think they need anymore dogpiling because at the end of the day, they're the only ones that can get fired.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiXyIlZTMRc

I swear Ant better not be injured. The fact he came back out is a good sign I guess, they're just calling it a hip contusion but geez that was a brutal fall.

Wizards vs. Pistons. Yikes.

Stoppable Force vs Movable Object for sure.

I'd have preferred not losing that game at home to the Kings, but at least we bounced back. Granted it was against one of the worst teams in the league, but you have to win those games and sometimes we have a history of not doing that.

Still a chance at the tournament; can still possibly even win the group if the Warriors can beat the Kings and we have the tiebreaker margin.

Looks like the franchise belongs to Neve Campbell again. Not sure where else they can go; I had thought this was intended to be a new trilogy, but perhaps it isn't going to be anymore. I have a feeling we won't be seeing Scream VII next year like most people were thinking...

Anyway, watched Brooklyn 45 on Shudder last night. Really good one, solid A tier film for me. The film is about veterans from WW2 gathering to console a friend whose recently lost his wife to suicide. The film then sort of beings this half horror, half tense drama film where the acting really shines through. It's such a tense film, and the characters really are pretty interesting. When the film decides to remind you of the fact it's horror, it's usually pretty quick and for that reason, can often really get you when you don't expect it. It's easy to forget about the horror element because of the character work that's done here. It's another one of those films that takes place 95% in one room, which have often been really well done lately. Good stuff, check it out if you haven't.

Yeah, I feel like teams like the Magic and the Wolves (and probably several others that aren't routinely any good) play differently from these bigger teams. I see a lot of stars sitting out just to rest so far this season, seems to be especially common against us for whatever reason. Yet our stars have yet to sit out at all, even during that grueling 3 games in 4 days on the road span.

Yeah I'm not disagreeing, but let's assume she's 17 and he just turned 21. That's not really that bad, at least in my opinion. Regardless of the ethics of it, I feel like unless she's 15 he didn't break any laws.

Age of consent in Oklahoma is 16, assuming this is in Oklahoma. Most of the US is 16 or 17, not sure why people think it's 18. That's just for porn.

Another big win. No Embiid, but whatever. I feel like with every game we win there's always some sort of "but ___ ". Maxey has been fantastic, and we stifled him essentially. Still leading the league in defensive. I'm a bit concerned with McDaniels hurt... his stats may not show it, but I think he's really important to the chemistry of our team and one of our best defenders. But, I think NAW is decent and everyone on the starting lineup has been playing really strong defensive all season. Gobert has to be considered for DPOY.

The Hawks have scored almost 300 points in the last 2 games.

Holy shit, so just supporting the Palestinian people is considered antisemitism now?

S Tier: (100-95)

1. Scream VI
2. M3GAN
3. Talk to Me
4. Saw X
5. Evil Dead Rise
6. Totally Killer

A Tier: (94-85)

7. Re/Member
8. Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead
9. Influencer
10. The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster
11. A Haunting in Venice
12. Satanic Hispanics
13. When Evil Lurks
14. Thanksgiving
15. Beau is Afraid
16. The Blackening
17. She Came From the Woods
18. Knock at the Cabin
19. Bunker
20. Birth/Rebirth
21. Cocaine Bear
22. Insidious: The Red Door
23. Final Cut
24. It Lives Inside
25. We Have a Ghost
26. Appendage
27. Jagged Mind
28. Haunted Mansion
29. Renfield

B Tier (84-70)

30. 65
31. The Boogeyman
32. The Last Voyage of the Demeter
33. V/H/S/85
34. Sorry About the Demon
35. The Pope's Exorcist
36. Infinity Pool
37. Cobweb
38. Stalker
39. From Black
40. Inside
41. Nefarious
42. The Puppetman
43. The Exorcist: Believer
44. The Nun II
45. Slotherhouse
46. Clock
47. Natty Knocks
48. The Ghost Within
49. Til Death Do Us Part
50. They Wait in the Dark

C Tier (69-50)

51. Huesera: The Bone Woman
52. There's Something Wrong With the Children
53. Malum
54. Bird Box Barcelona
55. It's a Wonderful Knife
56. Five Nights at Freddy's
57. The Devil Comes at Night
58. The Unheard
59. Meg 2: The Trench
60. Kids vs. Aliens
61. Enys Men
62. Candy Land
63. The Royal Hotel
64. You're Killing Me
65. Zombie Town
66. Baby Ruby
67. Blood Flower
68. Run Rabbit Run
69. The Strays
70. Consecration
71. The Tank
72. Soul Mates
73. The Offering
74. Hunt Her, Kill Her
75. Dark Nature
76. No One Can Save You
77. Trinket Box
78. Spoonful of Sugar
79. Unwelcome
80. Unseen
81. Don't Look Away

D Tier (49-30)

82. Elevator Game
83. The Black Demon
84. Bad Things
85. Leave
86. The Headmistress
87. Children of the Corn
88. Fear
89. Alone At Night
90. Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey

F Tier (29-0)

91. The Outwaters
92. Perpetrator
93. The Unseen
94. Skinamarink

New on List: The Unheard, It's a Wonderful Knife, Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is pretty solid. Captures that classic feel of like a 90's-00's era teen slasher film that picks a theme and runs with it. The kills were a lot of funny, the directing, acting and sound design all worked well. Probably the best thing I've seen from Roth, whom again I usually don't care much for. I will say that I feel the characters of Bobby and Ryan seemed a bit misused and ended up lost in the shuffle. Really the only criticism I can think of to levy against this film though.

Yeah I'm pretty sure that isn't changing any time soon either... hard to believe they won 2 of their first 3. Yikes, my sympathies.

#1 in the West for a moment.

What a sight.

Anyone planning on seeing Thanksgiving in theaters? Most likely on the menu for Sunday. Did you know that 1 year ago today The Menu came out? I mean it's a sign right... I'm sure this movie will be every bit as good as that one. There are characters, horror and food.

Ifrit posted...

Elena rates the highest of all the turks, in a respectable position.

What a tragedy.

Snake

Elena - 4
Leblanc - 3.5
Lunafreya - 4.5
Benedikta - 7.5

Been a little hectic lately so no time to really binge stuff.

I thought It's a Wonderful Knife was fine. Pretty good, but definitely flawed too. I think Justin Long's overacting does a lot of the heavy lifting here. The lead character (Jane Widdop) was fairly good too, but I was underwhelmed with the supporting cast, especially realizing that Cassandra Naud was barely in the movie as her character wasn't used much and they killed William B. Davis almost immediately. For whatever reason, I really did not vibe with Jess McLeod's character. I wouldn't categorize it as her fault, it's more of a fault of the writing. It's not really spoilers so I'll just say it. Her character is meant to be the "weird girl no one likes"... but why? It's just like, there are all these far more strange and ugly characters bullying her for undetermined reasons. Then there's a revelation later that she was going to kill herself this Christmas too. I just don't see it. The writing for this character was just not working for me and it felt so ham-fisted.

But it's still an enjoyable experience, just not on the level I was hoping it to be.

I didn't expect us to win, but we looked a lot worse than I had hoped. Granted this was the 3rd road game in 4 days and you're playing against, at least in theory, one of the best offensive duos in the league. We didn't look good in any way at all though. All goods things must end I suppose.

No excuse for losing this game.

Garland (IX) - 6.5
Galenth - 4.5
Genesis - 9
G'raha Tia - 4.5
Doctor Cid - 9
Regent Cid - 6.5
Cid Kramer - 3
Judge Cid - 7

Giving up way too many offensive rebounds to a pretty short team, and our FT% continues to be ass. But we keep on winning anyway.

The Unheard: Good premise. The main character is deaf and she begins receiving treatment for the condition, which begins to work though it comes with some auditory hallucinations (maybe?). It was interesting to hear the film through the ears of the main character early in the goings, but they quickly abandon this feature way too soon in my opinion. I feel what stops this movie from being any better than decent is that eventually, it just devolves a bit into something that isn't very special or interesting, and also something that isn't properly built upon so it feels rather forced when it happens. It's a bit of a letdown considering how unique it started out as, but ultimately nothing bad. Watchable.

The last time the Timberwolves started the season this well:

Terrell Brandon
Wally Szczerbiak
Kevin Garnett
Rasho Nesterovic
Joe Smith

Cloud

Bump

guffguy89 posted...

The worse part about all this is I made a similar mistake when I hosted the Disney music contest. I accidentally saved Be Prepared over Belle when I intended to save Belle, and of couse, the match was decided by a single vote (Belle lost).

Doesn't sound like an accident.

Tonight's movie is going to be The Unheard on Shudder. Lately, it seems that whenever it's my turn to pick a movie I pick either a meh one or a crap one, and Genny always manages to find B tier and up. I picked this one so I'm sure it won't be very good.

Planning to see It's a Wonderful Knife in theaters on Sunday night.

The search engine was so confused it just put up guys who wear black.

Yeah... no. I'd say definitely not.

There's yet to be a traditional black female playable character in the entire franchise.

Because it's always Jason Blum.

S Tier: (100-95)

1. Scream VI
2. M3GAN
3. Talk to Me
4. Saw X
5. Evil Dead Rise
6. Totally Killer

A Tier: (94-85)

7. Re/Member
8. Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead
9. Influencer
10. The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster
11. A Haunting in Venice
12. Satanic Hispanics
13. When Evil Lurks
14. Beau is Afraid
15. The Blackening
16. She Came From the Woods
17. Knock at the Cabin
18. Bunker
19. Birth/Rebirth
20. Cocaine Bear
21. Insidious: The Red Door
22. Final Cut
23. It Lives Inside
24. We Have a Ghost
25. Appendage
26. Jagged Mind
27. Haunted Mansion
28. Renfield

B Tier (84-70)

29. 65
30. The Boogeyman
31. The Last Voyage of the Demeter
32. V/H/S/85
33. Sorry About the Demon
34. The Pope's Exorcist
35. Infinity Pool
36. Cobweb
37. Stalker
38. From Black
39. Inside
40. Nefarious
41. The Puppetman
42. The Exorcist: Believer
43. The Nun II
44. Slotherhouse
45. Clock
46. Natty Knocks
47. The Ghost Within
48. Til Death Do Us Part
49. They Wait in the Dark

C Tier (69-50)

50. Huesera: The Bone Woman
51. There's Something Wrong With the Children
52. Malum
53. Bird Box Barcelona
54. Five Nights at Freddy's
55. The Devil Comes at Night
56. Meg 2: The Trench
57. Kids vs. Aliens
58. Enys Men
59. Candy Land
60. The Royal Hotel
61. You're Killing Me
62. Zombie Town
63. Baby Ruby
64. Blood Flower
65. Run Rabbit Run
66. The Strays
67. Consecration
68. The Tank
69. Soul Mates
70. The Offering
71. Hunt Her, Kill Her
72. Dark Nature
73. No One Can Save You
74. Trinket Box
75. Spoonful of Sugar
76. Unwelcome
77. Unseen
78. Don't Look Away

D Tier (49-30)

79. Elevator Game
80. The Black Demon
81. Bad Things
82. Leave
83. The Headmistress
84. Children of the Corn
85. Fear
86. Alone At Night
87. Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey

F Tier (29-0)

88. The Outwaters
89. Perpetrator
90. The Unseen
91. Skinamarink

New on List: The Tank, Sorry About the Demon

The Tank: A pretty standard creature feature. I was initially excited for this one when it first came out; it had a limited theater run apparently but I couldn't find it nearby. It eventually made it onto Hulu so we were able to check it out there. Again, it's a pretty standard monster flick. The characters aren't super interesting but the acting is fine, so it's more of a thin script than the performers faults. The creature design is at least pretty unique and nice, and the fact they are a big colony rather than one big monster was something a little different. Ultimately, it was just an inoffensive film that didn't really create that many new ideas though.

Sorry About the Demon: This is a fun horror comedy about a pretty common sort of horror film; home possession by a demon. It stars a main character so pathetic the demon gets angry about the previous family trying to "gift" him this particular sacrifice, and he decides he doesn't want this guy at all. It's easy to like this character because I feel he's pretty relatable; he's a hobby driven person but he's all over the place, spread too thin. The self-deprecation humor here hits pretty good. The supporting cast is pretty good too, and the interactions with the demon and associated spirits he controls is well done. Again, I was surprised with how much quality was here in this horror comedy. Maybe I like these more than I thought I did... also apparently the director has been at it for almost 20 years; and she's only 31.

Reminds me of a bit of the movie we watched last, Sorry About the Demon. Similar protagonist for sure.

Beatrix - 6
Yunalesca - 7
Scarlet - 4
Anabella - 6.5

Auron

Found on Twitter:

MIN, Last 4 Opp FG% & 3PT%

NOP -- 38.7% & 28.6%
BOS -- 39.1% & 28.2%
UTA -- 38.5% & 27.9%
DEN -- 39.6% & 18.2%

4 games row < 40% FG & < 30% 3PT is longest streak in franchise history.

And hasn't been done by any NBA team in 9 years.

Cloud

Damn, we gave up 100, guys should have just been more conservative at the end. Still, another really good looking game outside of the free throw line. KAT super efficient this time, Gobert almost a 20/20.

MartinFF7 posted...

There's the Lightning result I was expecting vs. Ramza, geez. Where were all those Barret voters then.

Voting for Lightning. You still don't believe Ramza isn't special for some reason!

Kefka
Auron

Alucard

Vayne - 8
Emet-Selch - 8
Dion Lesage - 7
Mewt - 3.5

Barret
Cloud

S Tier: (100-95)

1. Scream VI
2. M3GAN
3. Talk to Me
4. Saw X
5. Evil Dead Rise
6. Totally Killer

A Tier: (94-85)

7. Re/Member
8. Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead
9. Influencer
10. The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster
11. A Haunting in Venice
12. Satanic Hispanics
13. When Evil Lurks
14. Beau is Afraid
15. The Blackening
16. She Came From the Woods
17. Knock at the Cabin
18. Bunker
19. Birth/Rebirth
20. Cocaine Bear
21. Insidious: The Red Door
22. Final Cut
23. It Lives Inside
24. We Have a Ghost
25. Appendage
26. Jagged Mind
27. Haunted Mansion
28. Renfield

B Tier (84-70)

29. 65
30. The Boogeyman
31. The Last Voyage of the Demeter
32. V/H/S/85
33. The Pope's Exorcist
34. Infinity Pool
35. Cobweb
36. Stalker
37. From Black
38. Inside
39. Nefarious
40. The Puppetman
41. The Exorcist: Believer
42. The Nun II
43. Slotherhouse
44. Clock
45. Natty Knocks
46. The Ghost Within
47. Til Death Do Us Part
48. They Wait in the Dark

C Tier (69-50)

49. Huesera: The Bone Woman
50. There's Something Wrong With the Children
51. Malum
52. Bird Box Barcelona
53. Five Nights at Freddy's
54. The Devil Comes at Night
55. Meg 2: The Trench
56. Kids vs. Aliens
57. Enys Men
58. Candy Land
59. The Royal Hotel
60. You're Killing Me
61. Zombie Town
62. Baby Ruby
63. Blood Flower
64. Run Rabbit Run
65. The Strays
66. Consecration
67. Soul Mates
68. The Offering
69. Hunt Her, Kill Her
70. Dark Nature
71. No One Can Save You
72. Trinket Box
73. Spoonful of Sugar
74. Unwelcome
75. Unseen
76. Don't Look Away

D Tier (49-30)

77. Elevator Game
78. The Black Demon
79. Bad Things
80. Leave
81. The Headmistress
82. Children of the Corn
83. Fear
84. Alone At Night
85. Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey

F Tier (29-0)

86. The Outwaters
87. Perpetrator
88. The Unseen
89. Skinamarink

New on List: We Have a Ghost, Perpetrator, Candy Land

Watched our first film on Tubi. As a platform I guess I appreciate a free option to catch more films, though the ads can be a little hard to get used to. I guess I did grow up in a generation where you couldn't avoid commercial breaks, but I'm not used to it! I don't want to go back!

Anyway, Candy Land is a movie about a former member of a religious cult who is tossed out for conflicting beliefs. She's left at a truck stop, which doubles as a well known prostitution spot. Our "protagonist" is essentially a black widow; believing herself to be sent by God to cleanse sinners from the world. It's not a bad movie, but I do think near the end it's sort of one kill after another. None of the characters fight back either, at all. I have to dock points from a film that portrays the antagonist as nearly unstoppable when they're not even supernatural. Even Michael and Jason get their asses kicked every once in a while, or at least someone tries to. Here everyone falls over dead like ragdolls. It's a bit immersion breaking by the end. That said, the acting is fairly good and it feels competent. Not a bad watch, maybe not a great one either, but okay.

Quality win. Towns is not looking so good, but whatever. We buckled late again but for once, we were able to regain the momentum and close it out.

Biggs - 6
Wedge - 4
Kiros - 6.5
Ward - 4.5