Board 8 > 2023-24 Horror Topic: Executive Producer - Jason Blum

(+) Yeah! (+)

Johnbobb posted...

Watched The Coffee Table, a Spanish very dark comedy horror

recommend watching if you want to be stressed out for just way too long

What platform is this on?

PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

What platform is this on?

Looks like Prime and Apple. I added it to my list since even though it's listed as 2022, that's a film festival showing according to IMDb. It didn't have a proper US release until this year. Not sure when I'll get to it, but I'll prioritize it over most of the other stuff I have on my streaming platform list.

But tonight we're finally watching Spring Lakes. This was like one of the first movies of the year to come out and for whatever reason we never got around to it. It's free with Prime now (with ads, wee thanks Amazon).

Johnbobb posted...

recommend watching if you want to be stressed out for just way too long

I'm interested

Damn, I just saw that Stephen King and Edgar Wright both vouched for In A Violent Nature. Thinking about seeing it now.

Spring Lakes wasn't good for the record, I wouldn't recommend seeing it. Pretty dull with a highly disjointed story that's really hard to follow. If you do happen to see it, there's like one funny character in there that you'll know right when he shows up. Sometimes in bad horror movies, there's that one character who is super over the top hilarious that it's a small saving grace for the film. But just a small saving grace.

Crazy that we're probably going to get another good Alien movie again. That Alien Romulus trailer slapped.

https://x.com/MarkDuplass/status/1798053890103054370?t=5qqwGPf48AjTAfB4jhBY4Q&s=19

Nvm the more major horror movie is on the way.

OH helll yes

Creep update: it's going to be a TV series. Maaaaaan honestly that works really well.

Cool yeah that honestly sounds pretty sick

PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

Crazy that we're probably going to get another good Alien movie again. That Alien Romulus trailer slapped.

I'm not very excited even though I'm a big fan of the first two - the second even being my all-time favorite movie. However, I'm also against movies that exist for the sake of a brand name on principle and this looks like another sequel trilogy-style nostalgia trip. No thanks.

In before someone complains about me bringing Star Wars into this.

So I'm seeing a ton of people praising The First Omen now after it's been released on streaming.

Gdi where was everyone when this was in theaters!? Hoping that the buzz keeps up so maybe we can get a sequel because this movie deserves it. I honestly didn't expect it to finally blow up on streaming.

Also, if you haven't seen The First Omen, definitely check it out. Some phenomenal acting, direction is insane, and there's some outstanding sound and editing in this too. Just such a quality film that sadly didn't get enough people in the theaters.

I was too busy seeing Immaculate, the other movie about the same thing that came out the same time

We watched Slay on Tubi last night. It's about 4 drag queens being booked in a redneck/bikers bar but then vampires show up, and the characters have to work together. It's surprisingly a lot of fun, I enjoyed this one. Worth checking out; it's Pride month so what better time!

Johnbobb posted...

I was too busy seeing Immaculate, the other movie about the same thing that came out the same time

This struck me as such a baffling decision. Char and I ended up seeing both in theaters roughly ten days apart, maybe less, and the resemblance is striking between the two. For the record I enjoyed both, but I had to give the nod to Immaculate for the originality and complexity of the themes, and of course for not relying on an existing IP. Plus Sydney Sweeney absolutely crushed it pun completely intended in her role.

I will say that though the method is the same impregnate vulnerable nun initiate, and the goal is ultimately the same make people believe in God again, the way the respective powers that be went about achieving their goal is at least different. One oppressive system wants to fear monger people into organized religion by proving the existence of the devil, and one wants to bring about the second coming of the savior by literally recreating him using remnants of his own DNA. The latter is completely delusional in my opinion, which I think the movie Immaculate did a decent job of portraying. Even if you can recreate the manner of his birth (the immaculate conception) through lies and manipulation, and even if you can get a complete map of his DNA and create a perfect clone of him, you can't synthesize the voice of God to guide his moral compass and color his decisions. Their efforts were ultimately ineffective and futile anyway, as heard by the seemingly malformed infant that struggled to cry or even breathe by the end. I think it would've made a stronger statement to have the baby come out perfect, and then have Sweeney's character do what she ended up doing with it anyway, but I'm sure audiences would have frowned upon such an ending.

Man, I thought that The First Omen was very clearly the better film out of it and Immaculate. Which isn't a knock on Immaculate, because it's great, but The First Omen had so much going for it visually and a lot of it stuck with me and disturbed me.

I also felt that while Sydney Sweeney did great in that film, that Nell Tiger Free did just as good or better.

Both movies are absolutely worth checking out, but I definitely enjoyed The First Omen more. It also helps that I didn't expect much out of The First Omen too. Done by a director who hasn't done a full movie like this. Prequel to a series that has been dormant for so long. It felt like an easy cash grab, but it was anything but that.

I prefer The First Omen personally, but I can see how someone might prefer Immaculate. I will say that Immaculate was the more surprisingly good film since I had prejudged it coming in that it would be a ripoff. I ranked them both as A tier films on the year, so I'd recommend seeing either if anyone hasn't.

I waited a bit on my final placement for Slay, but I gotta rank that as an A too I think. It achieves just about all it can with that premise. My favorite horror films are always going to be more psychological and intricate in nature, but I feel I can recognize really fun horror comedy now as well which is something I know I couldn't do in the past.

We're seeing The Watchers on a midnight screening tomorrow. The review embargo lifts tomorrow at noon I think, so I'm curious to see what people think about this one. I expect the usual Shyamalan polarity but we'll see. I've been cautiously optimistic about this film and the trailers have done well not to give away the plot of the film. This movie just feels like it has one of those patented twists in it, but I'm not sure his daughter should be taking a page directly from her dad or not. It doesn't always turn out well, but it's pretty nice when it does.

It's being directed by M. Night's daughter who has a great directing style, so I'm interested to see how it looks on a technical level.

On the plus side, this is based off a book, so I feel like they might not do too much over the top fuckery with the ending and twists and such as a result.

I've heard that stylistically The Watchers is good, like I expected, but that the content of it is kind of a mess with tons of LORE and exposition. I won't spoil if there is a twist or not for those who want to see it. But apparently it seems like a much better book than a movie.

Might still see it in theaters but it's looking like it's not going to be particularly good.

After our midnight screening char and I asked each other what the other thought of it, and the first thing both of us came up with was "It was interesting." Take that as you will.

I think it's a difficult story to make into a working movie. It would probably do better as a TV series, or maybe even just a miniseries, where you'd have more time to build up the characters and tell some intertwining stories. Not to say that it's a bad movie, because I don't think it is. It's just... a little odd in places. It's definitely stylistically pleasing and most of the film's atmosphere has a great ominous feeling about it, but there are some issues such as well, the lack of horror. It's clearly still horror and all, but I do feel like it was missing some beats in terms of how a well done horror film is paced.

It looks nice and is well acted. Story wise it has some issues. We did see the trailer for her father's next film for the first time directly in front of the start of it though, I'm interested in that one.

We ended up seeing The Watchers tonight, and my takeaway is that it would have been a much better miniseries or TV series. It really needed more time to breathe. As I expected, the directing style of Ishana Night Shyamalan was rather great. She managed to do a lot of outstanding shots and creepy and memorable scenes. I feel like there wasn't a ton of horror, but the really tense scenes definitely worked for the most part.

I oddly felt like towards the ending they could have ended it on more of a vague note and it may have been better? Like I was more than a couple times like "Oh my god this is still going? Wrap it up." But I also understand them wanting to wrap up the themes of the story like they did. Hence why a miniseries probably would've been better.

Ishana was probably ready to try a movie though after being on Servant so long. I'm oddly a lot more interested in how the book goes as a result though. I have to think that it's probably paced a lot better.

Watched Cinderella's Revenge on Prime. This movie had a small theatrical run, at least it did here. It seemed to be exclusively shown in Regal theaters though, and unless it's a dire emergency I'm not gonna pay them $30 so we can watch a movie. I'm glad we didn't have to pay that price for this one, though I don't think this is that bad a movie. It's got some fun gore, fans of the movie Species will recognize that main character playing the Fairy Godmother in this one. She's the best part of the whole thing too. The standin characters for Lady Tremaine and her daughters (they changed their names for some reason, yet they kept Cinderella's...) are just too evil; it's so over the top, especially when you first start watching it. I'm not sure if they were going for this, but I felt even the Disney animated movie of this adaption wasn't so hamfisted in their approach. Genny said there were some little nods to the OG fairy tale, which was cool I guess. It's a little better than the Alice horror movie we watched earlier in the year. Still haven't gotten around to watching Blood and Honey 2 yet, not sure why they insist on waiting so long to put it on streaming.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/a/a99ed073.jpg

Watched Black Narcissus (1947) last night - great movie that gradually becomes tinged with horror towards the end, 9/10

I already love the look from that one photo

Jolted awake at 6am this morning from the first veritable nightmare I've had in a long time - heavily influenced by the movie "Mama", which itself has an intense nightmare sequence, lol. Whoa.

Smile 2 marketing is going off.

https://twitter.com/SkyeRileyNation/status/1801301608074281090?t=OFtwvrFtbvz8xx4YlHRI_w&s=19

Immediately has my interest because it has a different feel to it. Looks like we're getting a trailer in five days!

https://twitter.com/DiscussingFilm/status/1802714916517789804

I really don't know how you make a Quiet Place game work out honestly. You would have to control whether or not you make a noise doing random things? I dunno. The concept just seems weird.

Yeah that kind of thing works for indie games like Stay Out of the House or Granny where the difficult is the point but for a mainstream game.... I don't know!

Then I remember that Michael Bay produces the A Quiet Place movies and feel amused.

Hell yeah. I'm excited. Hoping it matches the quality of the first!

https://twitter.com/SmileMovie/status/1803050056880456066?t=WVe4roaj5GSt9VhiRlDuRQ&s=19

Watched another Tubi original called The Camp Host.

Pretty by the numbers in most respects. The basic plot is that a couple who is living out of their van decides to camp overnight, but where they camp at is the home of a deranged camp host who has strict rules that you must follow, or else you die. They try to do something with a Native American theme because the lead actress is that, or at least her character is. I'm just assuming the properly cast the part. Anyway it just never really goes anywhere and is fairly poorly explained. The main couple can be a little grating at times, and how Ed survives through the entire film is a mystery to me. He was shot in the head at point blank range, nearly disemboweled and again sliced presumably across the neck or close to it. No idea how he lives but he does.

There's also another part of the film that reveals the camp host has a small child locked in a cage. She's eventually freed but ends up killing one of the only characters who was actually trying to follow the rules. There's just no reason why given, because before she quickly decides she wants to escape her captor only to seemingly become her? Oh and despite being shot multiple times in the chest and floating away down the river, the Camp Host herself turns up just fine in the closing scene. Hate that. I get it if it's like Michael Myers or Jason Vorhees, but other than a brief time she sprinted at the speed of a vehicle she wasn't shown or hinted to be supernatural.

The more I write about it, the less I think of the movie. I want to say it's one of those things you can turn on in the background and have it not be offensive, but I'm not so sure I totally believe that in truth.

https://twitter.com/ActwithAlison/status/1803467028608721101?s=19

Lol I followed her and of she immediately retweets & replies to this:
https://twitter.com/BookCameo/status/1803873399309254789

I knew she was cool

Two of the best posts and two of the best movies ever made back-to-back, this topic is cooking now

Now time to make a post about Russell Crowe in an exorcism themed horror movie for the second year running.

Seems to have lower scores than last year's The Pope's Exorcist, which I thought was serviceable though looking back I probably overrated it just a smidge. The premise of this one (just "The Exorcism") sounds more interesting. This time, he's not playing an actual exorcist but rather acting as one in a horror film and things go in a downward spiral for him from there. We're seeing it as a matinee on Sunday.

This Nosferatu trailer is completely awesome and I can't wait.

https://youtu.be/OPBmI0eYtNU?si=l--nHuGDse7resUr

OMG That looks incredible

watched Tarot

it wasn't as bad as Madame Web but the writing was almost on par

Just got back from Quiet Place Day One.

I think it's pretty good. To me it seemed more of a film that just so happened to be set in AQP's universe and was much more character interaction driven than the other two films in the series. This one is a lot more about the individuals that make up the story, mostly just the main character but her sidekick gets some time to shine also. It's easy to forget at times that this is a Quiet Place franchise film I think because while the monsters are still there, they're much more of a device and the film feels much less about them. Which I think was a smart move here, because as much as critics and audiences seemed to have adored the second film, I kinda thought it didn't need to exist. In retrospect, I was probably too tough on it and perhaps I should give it another chance.

I'm glad the film franchise is succeeding either way. Even though it couldn't top Inside Out 2 this weekend at the box office, it still shattered any other 2024 horror release's theatrical gross so far. Horror sort of needs a win in that department right now, even though apparently this movie cost them $67m to make and after watching it... I just don't see what they spent that much money on. It's a good movie and it looks nice, but I've seen films look just as good for a third of such a budget.

S Tier:

1. Late Night With the Devil
2. Stopmotion

A Tier:

3. Lovely, Dark and Deep
4. Monolith
5. Abigail
6. You'll Never Find Me
7. Infested
8. A Quiet Place: Day One
9. T.I.M.
10. Exhuma
11. Lisa Frankenstein
12. The First Omen
13. Arcadian
14. The Devil's Bath
15. Destroy All Neighbors
16. Slay
17. I Saw the TV Glow
18. Dancing Village: The Curse Begins
19. Somewhere Quiet
20. My Bloody Galentine
21. Immaculate
22. Double Blind

B Tier:

23. Founders Day
24. Out of Darkness
25. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
26. Departing Seniors
27. Baghead
28. Sting
29. In A Violent Nature
30. Laced
31. Tarot
32. The Exorcism
33. Last Night at Terrace Lanes

C Tier:

34. I.S.S
35. The Watchers
36. Imaginary
37. Night Shift
38. Guess Who
39. Cinderella's Revenge
40. A Cold Grave
41. Stranger in the Woods
42. The Windigo
43. Cellphone
44. The Camp Host
45. The Seeding
46. Easter Bloody Easter
47. Sunrise
48. Alice in Terrorland

D Tier:

49. Night Swim
50. Midnight Peepshow
51. Spring Lakes
52. The Strangers: Part One
53. Gods of the Deep
54. Project Dorothy
55. Punch
56. Skeletons in the Closet

F Tier:

57. Arctic Hollow
58. Gacy: Serial Killer Next Door
59. They Turned Us Into Killers
60. History of Evil

Current rankings at 60 films watched now. We just got finished watching The Devil's Bath on Shudder. Pretty bleak and visceral stuff at times. It's a pretty depressing movie but it's very well made, sometimes a little too realistic looking I think. If you want to experience profound depression in the form of an 18th century woman and what's quite clearly an 18th century gay man this is the movie for you!

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/5/5836c54e.jpg

Just watched The Woman in Black (2012) while visiting my family in England, alone, as they all slept upstairs, LUL. 10/10, got spooked just turning the lights out and getting into the guest room.

Surprised there's no Maxxxine commentary here, did no one go to see it? Most seemed to have really liked the first films. We're seeing it tonight at 10:15.

Just watched a Tubi film called Killer Body Count to pregame for it. General plot is that "sex addicted teens" are sent away to this conversion camp type deal by their parents. It starts off pretty strong I think, but it felt like one of those movies that didn't know how to wrap things up. It sort of threw a ton of stuff at the wall in the final sequence and not all of it made sense... one of those good old squarely C films you can find on Tubi. Watchable, but skippable for sure.

Was going to see Maxxxine yesterday but unfortunately it fell through as I got sick, but definitely seeing it next weekend. Pearl is one of the best horror movies of the past decade so definitely looking forward to it!

I saw MaXXXine last night.

Overall, it was a disappointment, but only because X and Pearl set the bar so high. It's a good movie, but very easily the weakest of the trilogy. Some parts of it were gripping and interesting, but I really feel like it started to unravel towards the end, and it doesn't feel like it's as tight of a script.

I dunno, it clearly has a vision but it's just not as strong as the other two films. Great cinematography, a couple fun characters, exceptional acting. But there's just a lot that just doesn't hit the mark to send it to the level of Pearl or X.

PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

I saw MaXXXine last night.

Overall, it was a disappointment, but only because X and Pearl set the bar so high. It's a good movie, but very easily the weakest of the trilogy. Some parts of it were gripping and interesting, but I really feel like it started to unravel towards the end, and it doesn't feel like it's as tight of a script.

I dunno, it clearly has a vision but it's just not as strong as the other two films. Great cinematography, a couple fun characters, exceptional acting. But there's just a lot that just doesn't hit the mark to send it to the level of Pearl or X.

Yeah, I largely have to concur with this. I'd still put the trilogy as 1 > 3 > 2, but for reasons probably more unique to myself. I'd say without a doubt though, that this movie was the "safest" of the story. It was much more in line with what I feel a standard horror film is these days. There were a few flashes of the original film's shock and awe, but mostly they're pretty confined. With Pearl, I feel the film itself was just more unique than this one was even if it wasn't exactly for me. I still enjoyed it to some extent, I probably ranked it in a B tier sort of fashion, but it's mostly due to it having a villain protagonist. I think this is very difficult to pull off in film; characters like this are much better suited to mediums like shows or games because you have a lot more time to flesh out the character. For me, it's required because if I am annoyed or bewildered by the protagonist it will greatly impact my overall enjoyment of the movie itself. I think that's probably what happened with Pearl. But I can still look at it objectively and say yes, it is definitely the more unique movie over MaXXXine.

It's still a really strong movie though, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. It's definitely not horror film of the year contender at all though.

Didn't see MaXXXine yet but I DID go see the Indian movie Kill

if you have a chance to see it while it's in theaters, 100% make sure you do. It's a claustrophobic hyperviolent thriller that manages to make John Wick look tame by comparison