Board 8 > All Purpose Horror Topic 2021: Living Through Our Own Horror Stories

(+) Yeah! (+)

Even if I watch a horror film a day between now and Halloween (I won't), I doubt that Night House will be topped. Loved it.

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Yeeeeeah. Glad you enjoyed it! I absolutely loved it too.

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I honestly didn't feel like it's a "hit or miss" kind of movie at all.

Even if a viewer doesn't enjoy how the overall narrative opens itself to interpretation... I still absolutely loved the way this movie built tension. Every scene added layer upon layer to the discomfort, and - hats off to the director - it NEVER lost that tension with a flurry of cheap boo scares. It just kept building and building. The effects were great - from the use of lighting and shadows, to the way the "architecture" was presented (trying to avoid spoilers here). The acting was understated and meaningful, especially from the protagonist.

For a film that completely ignored the use of jump scares and gore, I felt it nailed all of the traditional horror elements.

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I completely agree with all of that. It's so well put together and stuck with me. I think it was extremely poignant as well with the themes it went for and the ending was completely perfect. I loved the entire movie a lot.

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The I Know What You Did Last Summer TV series is actually shockingly good. Like, I'm blown away that it's as good as it is. I'm 3 episodes in but I recommend it. My expectations were through the floor and it's seriously great.

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Watched two more movies:

The Invisible Man (2020) -- This was a tough watch. Not because the movie is bad, it's quite good. But because of the absolute suffering the main character goes through. I'd say the first hour and a half of just this brutal torture of this poor woman, where some of the most horrific things happen to her and her friends, and what's worse is that no one believes her AND she's blamed for it all. And it doesn't necessarily get BETTER for her after that... truly one of the worst (in a good way) horror villains I have seen in a while. It's funny how similar this movie is to Malignant, the more I think about it... but even Gabriel is a more likable person than Adrian. Overall, great move that I will be happy to never ever watch again.

One Cut Of The Dead -- Now this movie is awesome! I heard to go into it basically blind, which I did, and it was the right call. What a fun premise for a zombie movie. Hard to go more into it without spoiling some of the fun, but I'd definitely recommend it.

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One Cut was definitely a neato watch.

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Anyone else here heard of the Mandela Catalogue?

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6UBbvEA8uh6Ulc6ax1Zs0g/videos

It's a pretty new analog horror channel. Only 5 videos, but they're pretty darn good. I was creeped out a few times for sure.

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Hey I just started watching that last night because of Wendigoon (if you know him)! Good series definitely creepy so far, excited to see where it goes. Analog horror is seriously one of my new favorite genres in horror so it's great when I find a new good one.

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Ha, I found that channel from Wendigoon too

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Nice, I've found a lot of amazing stuff through his channel alone.

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1. Candyman

2. Spiral

3. Halloween Kills

4. Don't Breathe 2

5. Malignant

6. Escape Room: Tournament of Champions

7. The Night House

8. Quiet Place II

9. Old

10. The Forever Purge

11. The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It
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Halloween Kills is the only Halloween movie I've seen start-to-finish (I've watched bits of the original), and rarely has one installment so completely deterred me from an entire franchise. I really, really hated it.

I also watched The Invisible Man a few days ago and really enjoyed that one!

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Oh wow, I was a lot more charity with Halloween Kills (even though it has a lot of issues I thought). Invisible Man is awesome though and I can see why you liked it!

May as well pimp my topic again.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/79686314

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Halloween Kills is different than the early entries. I still think 1, 2, and 4 (my personal favorite) are all a lot better than Kills, but I still enjoyed it.

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Very strange to watch what's essentially the third part of a continuously storyline without having watched the other ones first.
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Finished Nioh so now I'm playing Resident Evil 7 finally

In the old house now, just defeated Margueritte and holy shit, her transformation is horrifying. That greenhouse fight was a nightmare.

other thoughts so far:

• First impression of Ethan is that he just completely sucks. After tracking down Mia this whole way dude has literally no emotional response to her condition, and is kinda just a dick to her for no reason
• Desepite my favorite game (Bioshock) being a first-person horror game, I'm generally terrible with horror games and this is no exception. Hate hate hate going down hallways and just knowing something's gonna jump out and scare me.
• the Jack Baker chainsaw fight was really cool but also kinda janky gameplay-wise.
• the mystery of the family and their condition is already super intriguing
• ugh inventory management, some things never change, huh?

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RE7 update

• Ethan still a worthless jackass
• Jack Baker came back, and holy shit wtf happened to him
• Lucas is annoying but his puzzle rooms are cool. The birthday VHS was a blast, and part of me honestly wants a full game of those creepy torture puzzles without zombie-shooting but Saw: The Video Game already exists and apparently it isn't any good
• The Mia v. Zoe choice kinda sucked because I went in knowing that "Save Mia" is the canon ending (which I could've guessed, given that's the entire point of the game's events) so I went with that but tbh it feels more in-character for Ethan to save Zoe because he has not expressed any actual care for Mia the entire way through the game.
• Creepy old boat exploration is giving me bad Man of Medan flashbacks (still need to play Little Hope and the third one eventually)
• not sure how to feel about the plot twist that Mia is a secret agent or something? like a government worker watching over Eveline? not sure what exactly is happening here but I'm at least intrigued

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Beat RE7

• What the hell happened to Lucas? I got through his traps and then just never encountered him again
• What happened to Zoe? She stayed behind and then I just never encountered her again
• I know the answers to both of those questions are probably just DLC and that's really frustrating and dumb
• Eveline turning out to be the old woman in the wheelchair who's just making everyone see the little girl was so good
• Eveline turning out to be a government military experiment is... very Resident Evil
• Chris Redfield at the end would've been a neat surprise at the time, but it's been pretty common knowledge for years now. Not entirely sure how he knew to be there right then though. Something with Ethan's watch, which is the one Mia had?

Overall, I enjoyed it! Very creepy, not ridiculously shooter-heavy in a way that distracts from the horror, a lot of creepy lore.

Is the DLC worth getting? It looks like there's a lot of it. Or is it just something I could look up on YouTube and get the same amount out of it?

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The DLC is pretty worth getting! I loved all the Banned Footage stuff it's really unique and has some of the best moments in the whole. The Joe Baker DLC End of Zoe is perhaps RE at its most ridiculous. Not a Hero is probably the weakest of them all but it too has some neat ideas.

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Also Not a Hero is free DLC so you might as well play it

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I saw that the Blu-ray Saw movie collection was on sale on Amazon, so I had to get that! Despite being a big Hoffman-head (thats what us Saw fans call ourselves) Ive actually never seen Jigsaw, so this could be fun.

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GANON1025 posted...

Despite being a big Hoffman-head (thats what us Saw fans call ourselves)

...is it though

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We all love that detective

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https://twitter.com/DefiGabbi/status/1452298878359941127

Cool... cool

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Lmao yeah this is what Dead By Daylight's developers helped with and the community has been riled up over it.

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https://c.tenor.com/MLdo8oMYo2IAAAAS/shades-on-sunglasses.gif

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More movies!

Evil Dead 2 - I watched this for the first time last weekend. Very fun movie, I can see why it became such a cult classic. Much better than the first... in fact, this feels like basically a remake of Evil Dead 1. Ash is such an iconic horror character, so it was great to see his full origins here.

Titane - This is a new movie, came out pretty recently I think... this one is wild. I liked it, but it definitely wouldn't be for everyone. It's really hard to describe what happens, not in that it's a hard plot to follow but more like putting the plot into words doesn't do it justice. It's more of an emotional/sensory film at times, if that makes sense. I'd definitely recommend it.

Saw - Now that I have the 8-film Saw collection, I kinda wanna re-watch them all... don't know if I can get through them before Halloween so we'll see. I might just skip to Jigsaw, the one I've never seen, before that. So Saw 1. Classic. Probably the best Saw movie. "Probably" seems weird to say, considering it's pretty much objectively considered the best one, or sometimes the "only good" one. While I do basically agree its the best, there's a lot of "stuff" in the other movies I like, so it's not quite the absolute slam dunk... but it's probably the best one lol. I do have a soft spot for the Saw series, and Jigsaw/John Kramer is probably my favorite horror villain. Here's some observations I had while watching (I guess I'll spoiler things from later movies??):

• Jigsaw has a rep of "only targets people who deserve it"... but even in this movie we can see that's not true. Who Jigsaw really targets are people who do not live up to his moral code. Often that will be bad people, but sometimes it's "bad" people. Like did Adam deserve to be trapped? ESPECIALLY considering he's just basically used as a prop for Dr. Gordon. I'd say the same for Zepp.... but the way he acted being a psycho makes me feel like there's something weird with him lol. Unless Jigsaw TOLD him to act like that... Then you have Amanda. Her crime is "being a drug addict", which does NOT make you a bad person. But to Jigsaw, she's throwing away her life which is bad enough. Then you add in what we know happens to his child, that a drug addict basically terminated them, then I think you can argue Jigsaw has it ESPECIALLY out for them.
• We know Dr. Gordon becomes an accomplice of Jigsaw, and it's interesting because you can kinda see the seeds of that here. Obviously that was NOT planned, it's just a weird twist they came up with for Saw 3D/The Final Chapter, but even still in this movie Gordon has some amount of admiration of Jigsaw. He even comes to admit he wasted his life, that he had the perfect family and shunned them, a revelation that I think he'd agree he wouldn't have gotten without this experience.
• The iconic song is called "Hello Zepp"... but Jiggsaw doesn't SAY hello zepp??? How have I never noticed this?

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Wow, just had to Google it cos I was adamant he said Hello Zepp...but you are right, he doesn't!

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GANON1025 posted...

I do have a soft spot for the Saw series, and Jigsaw/John Kramer is probably my favorite horror villain.

Hell yeah, same here

Also one of the things I think works about the early Saw movies is that, ultimately, Kramer thinks he's helping the people he traps. Is he right? Fuck no, he's pretty much entirely in the wrong here, but I always took it as he's not trying to trap bad people as much as he is people he thinks he CAN help

That's one of the things I think hurts the later movies so much, once Kramer dies and his followers take over, they don't really care about helping people, Hoffman especially. Half the traps are designed to specifically not be survivable and it ultimately just becomes mindless torture without purpose

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Thats true for a lot of his victims, but not all. Like Zepp, how is poisoning him and getting him to do all the stuff for Gordons trap helping him? Its not. Theres a difference between trap victims and like, people he uses to facilitate them. Even Adam, he was there for a prop for Gordon and I guess if his key didnt go down the drain Jigsaw would have let him go??


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Though now that I say that Jigsaw claims Adam is trapped because hes a voyeur. So one could say the puzzle he needs to solve is to get Gordon on his side and convince him not to kill him. And I suppose he does this by being honest. He just had the unfortunate luck of his key going down the drain?

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Saw 2 - I think this is a pretty decent follow up to Saw all things considered. Now IMO, the scenes with Jigsaw are what really carry this movie. The murder house is decent enough as a set piece, has some fun traps. But I can't say I was all that entertained by that plotline in general, especially on rewatch. I'm pretty sure Saw 2 has the most amount of Jigsaw on screen, maybe 3 tops it? But in any event, Tobin Bell kills it as usual. I of course love the reveal of where the son is, so silly but so good. The whole twist where it turns out the events in the murder house already happened is also very fun. Of course, you can't talk about twists without bringing up Amanda as an accomplice. I think this twist is set up really well, the fact that she's back in another trap is an obvious tell that something isn't right. Plus there's the scene where after she wakes up, she immediately gets the tape recorder out. She kinda acts like the Game Master for this escape room, subtly pushing everyone when needed. Don't know if she anticipated getting thrown into the hole of syringes, but if she DID she acted really well! I love one one trap at the end, a girl goes into one of the rooms and just ignores the tape and tries to get one of the antidotes out. It feels very real.

This movie also starts the "intro trap" tradition I don't know others feel about this, but I like that the guy actually doesn't go through with cutting himself. Also felt very "real", not everyone is going to go through with Jigsaw's games just because their life is on the line.

I think I found a Deep Lore Inconsistency!!!! Kramer's backstory is somewhat reveled in this movie as he finds out he has cancer, tries to kill himself by running his car off the road, it doesn't work and him pulling himself out the wreckage is framed as his personal trap/trial, and after THAT is when he starts his killings. But... that's not right is it? We know that in actuality, John's first victim was the addict who accidentally terminated his child by injuring his wife. We see his first makeshift trap in action then. I don't remember the timeline of events, but I think he only learns he has cancer after all of that... but I could be wrong there.. I guess I'll see!

Overall, a safe movie. I can't quite crack the code on why, maybe a combination of a big setpiece trap with a lot of Jigsaw scenes.


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GANON1025 posted...

Evil Dead 2 - I watched this for the first time last weekend. Very fun movie, I can see why it became such a cult classic. Much better than the first... in fact, this feels like basically a remake of Evil Dead 1. Ash is such an iconic horror character, so it was great to see his full origins here.

Genny and I got to watch this on the big screen last night, pretty fun.
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Saw 2 is my favorite of the series, and like you said, it's mostly for Tobin Bell, though I have always enjoyed the character of Amanda as well

And lol if there's one thing I will fully admit about the Saw movies it's that looking for plot holes is like looking for bees in a hive

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I think that they attempt to try to make their myriad of retcons make sense, more than some other horror franchises at least.

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Saw 3 - Gonna be honest, I really liked that! More than I was expecting. Lots of stuff I had forgotten apparently. Like, this movie has the first appearance of Hoffman! That was cool, love that guy. Doesn't do much though. This movie feels like the end of the original Saw trilogy, which is weird because there's like a million sequel hooks. You got Jigsaw eating the tape, you got the mysterious Amanda letter, you got Hoffman doing some weird shit in the background, you got the first appearance of Jill Tuck as well. But even still, this feels like it's closing the door on a big chapter of the Saw series because, of course John Kramer dies here. If I'm being honest... there's something about the whole ending that doesn't quite come together for me. Like, the twist that in reality John was testing Amanda is neat, and conceptually I get her whole crisis of faith at the end (and I honestly don't remember if the contents of the letter influenced here at all here). I like a lot of the parts, but I just don't love the whole. Can't really put it better... maybe it's whole "Amanda, you should put the gun down because you see there's a chance Jeff is going to walk through here soon and if he happens to see you kill his wife at the exact right moment, he'll kill you in retaliation"... I don't know. I actually also totally forgot Amanda was ALSO making traps that were unfair. Kerry's trap is especially frustrating because she actually DOES complete the test, but it was just a murder machine the whole time.

Some of the gore in this one is hard to watch. The operation especially. The sound of the drill hitting the skull gets me every time. This movie is also really the beginning of the "one guy goes through series of challenges" trap that a lot of later movies do. I like Jeff well enough as a Trap Protagonist, I like that he doesn't instantly help the other people trapped and I actually kinda like that he pretty much fails at every step.... it feels like "Failure" is a big theme of this movie. Jeff fails to forgive anyone, Amanda fails to be a true successor to Jigsaw. The only one who comes out "on top" philisophically is John, and he dies sooo that's no good for him. I DID love John's grin when Jeff picks up the saw at the end. I know because of the sequels that he has like 1000 contingency plans all lined up the come into play later, but I loved how satisfied he was that Jeff was going to kill him.


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Do I need to be fully up to do date on all the Saw movies to enjoy Jigsaw? My assumption is no..

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No but Jigsaw is not a very good film anyway. It's just Saw movie with more production value and another silly twist.

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I enjoyed Jigsaw for what it was in the same way I enjoyed Pirates 5

It's silly, it's mostly inconsequential, but it brought back what I enjoyed about the series in the first place and was a fun little flick

I do like Spiral a good bit though

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Sounds good to me!

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Saw 4 is weird. Its like this lore-heavy sidequel that takes place during the events of 3. Introduces Agent Strohm, and might I say, Strohm is a weird guy! We basically get all of Johns backstory here, and I am pleased to say that plot hole I brought up before I actually covered! Crisis averted. More Hoffman is always welcome, love that guy.

The main trap is weird kinda dont care for it. This movie really feels like its setting up for the second trilogy, and since the second trilogy aint all that good it sits in a weird spot I think.

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Yeah Saw 4-5 are definitely a low point imo

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I didn't care for Hoffman because it was just him being a dick and not really anymore about Kramer's vision, which I know is the point but it's a lot less interesting imo.

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Oh hes definitely less interesting than Kramer. But Im into what he brings to the table. Plus hes got some good moments (glass case and the scene where the police are about to uncover that hes the voice on one of the tapes).

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best hoffman moment imo was him brute forcing his way out of the jawbreaker trap

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Thats also good

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I watched Jigsaw! It was a lot of fun to watch a new Saw movie, to experience the surprises and twists for the first time again. For that alone, it was a very enjoyable experience. The movie itself probably ranks among the best of the Saw sequels. Always great to see Tobin Bell again, and I think the people in the traps and the new police cast were all pretty good. Especially like the girl who was a huge Jigsaw fan. The twists were of course, crazy and silly as expected. Obviously, something had to be up when John appeared alive again. One thing this series has stuck to is to never bring John Kramer back from the dead. Oh he'll appear in any number of flashbacks, but so far his death has been an absolute. So I know something screwy had to be going on. The twist that the game with John actually took place ten years ago reminded me of Saw 2, in a good way. When Billy the Puppet came out, I thought to myself "wouldn't these people recognize this is a Jigsaw thing?? Surely Jigsaw and his abandoned warehouse empire would be the most well-known serial killer EVER"... but now it makes total sense lol. I can't decide if its brilliant or really stupid/convenient that Logan happened to be able to find people for his game that matched the ones that died during the original one.

But as a Saw Lore Fiend, I gotta say, the idea that John had ANOTHER accomplice, Logan, and this one was like a Super Accomplice with the strength of Hoffman and the medical knowledge of Dr. Gordon and the true belief of Amanda AND he helped build the Reverse Beartrap so that means he was the FIRST accomplice ever is like.... where was he during all the other Saw movies??? I mean, John thought through everything 1000 steps ahead so maybe he told Logan to go into hiding after he started recruiting more accomplices just in case he was needed later. Though is he a true believer? he used a trap kill Haloran out of vengeance, just like Hoffman did. Then again, Haloran had a chance to play the game and chose to kinda cheat, so maybe it's fine. I liked that John saves Logan because Logan was knocked out for most of the trap, so it'd be unfair for him to die because he wasn't aware of the rules.

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lol yeah Jigsaw is a lot of fun but don't try to think about the implications

also that reverse cone trap is fucked

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Yes it was. I actually just remembered two things about that:

1. John says that the guy who got killed when they bought the motorcycle from the trapped guy was his nephew?? What a weird thing to add there
2. When the one girl is actually able to stall the trap, i was SOO pissed that the guy didn't just grab the brake. Like, just get it anyway just in case you need it!!!

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