Favourite Horror Film
- Thread starter Rosemary Jest
- Start date
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
Sorry to hear you've had a bad time and my apologies for if/how much my prickliness has contributed to it. You're a good un' with lots of very interesting things to say. I hope you'll be back.
I hope 2023 is a better year.
AverageJoe
...
Don't go Reno. We need you x
I rewatched Soft and Quiet last night and I've coming to the conclusion that it's truly great. The characters and their dynamics, the camera work, some of the subtle artistic choices... It's absolutely fantastic. But also horrible. The second half of the film is brutal but not in an over-the-top way but in a really sickening this-could-really-happen sort of way. In part the ideology but also in part that particular combination of characters.
I think it really understands its subject matter and exposes a certain tension that people who don't follow it might not realise exists and that may go over some peoples heads. It's that best kind of polemic that doesn't straw man.
I think it really understands its subject matter and exposes a certain tension that people who don't follow it might not realise exists and that may go over some peoples heads. It's that best kind of polemic that doesn't straw man.
T & P
|-o-| (-o-) |-o-|
Yes. It went on a completely different way I was expecting from the initial 25-odd minutes, which was great because otherwise it would have been completely predictable and done to death.
And as for your first sentence, we don’t have a regular thread for horror films so this will do fine.
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
Time to watch Blood On Satan's Claw again
www.screendaily.com
Piers Haggard, champion of fellow UK directors, dies aged 83
Since the 70s Haggard also campaigned to secure rights and recognition for directors.
www.screendaily.com
T & P
|-o-| (-o-) |-o-|
But at the same time there are some great tense and nerve-wrecking scenes. The vamps attacking the party, when the older brother is about to go for the the kid, the incursion into the cave… Also scenes that whilst not scary per se are still memorable. Like when they’re hanging from the railway bridge and fall into the void one by one.
Good usage of the ‘less is more in horror films’, such as when the vampires are circling the house before their final assault, and the main kid runs out to rescue his dog. And then when monsters are shown, fantastic practical effects. Vintage 1980s stuff and infinitely preferable to CGI.
A bit like Fright Night. Another classic of that period, and it has one or two properly scary scenes as well.
AverageJoe
...
80s horror films were great
T & P
|-o-| (-o-) |-o-|
The Fog is another fantastically good one. Superb slow-building horror and story development, and for most of the film, without the need for gore, graphic scenes, or even any actual showing on the screen of the antagonist. Just fog, knocks on the door, and a superlative script narrative 
Great film and incredibly atmospheric. Never been a fan of gore for gore's sake films either.The Fog is another fantastically good one. Superb slow-building horror and story development, and for most of the film, without the need for gore, graphic scenes, or even any actual showing on the screen of the antagonist. Just fog, knocks on the door, and a superlative script narrative
DaveCinzano
WATCH OUT, GEORGE, HE'S GOT A SCREWDRIVER!
Alleged by whom?
Shame Herbert's Rats trilogy hasn't been given decent silver screen treatment. I guess I can see why it would have been difficult to do so back in the day before CGI though. I seem to remember an interview with him where he referred to some awful low budget attempt at the first story where the rats were played by dogs in costume or something like that.
kittyP
Pluviophile
I'm sure in the credits it said "based on the book by James Herbert"Alleged by whom?
DaveCinzano
WATCH OUT, GEORGE, HE'S GOT A SCREWDRIVER!
I think you'll find there is no such credit...
kittyP
Pluviophile
OK...
Well just watched The Sadness. It takes gore and viciousness to new depths and I can grok that. The idea it's exploring is really very plain from very early on and to be honest it's a simple pessimistic view of human nature and not a very original or interesting one, but it's taken to a certain extreme. Cynical rather than subversive.
Just watched it last week and I think Skinamarink (see above) is really worth the effort. There's a lot of online discussion about it and that's part of the appeal I think. Requires patience and focus because there is a narrative it's just very difficult to make it out and it took me a few abortive attempts to get into it. It has some quite cheap jump scares but once you're in the zone with it, it's really quite freaky. It's been playing on my mind all week.
Director Kyle Edward Ball's background is making horror shorts on youtube. I hadn't come across him before and I'm going work my way through his channel.
TBH I'm finding a lot of more recent (last two years or so) horror movies disappointing. But Skinamarink, Mad God and Soft and Quiet all brought something fresh to the table.
Director Kyle Edward Ball's background is making horror shorts on youtube. I hadn't come across him before and I'm going work my way through his channel.
TBH I'm finding a lot of more recent (last two years or so) horror movies disappointing. But Skinamarink, Mad God and Soft and Quiet all brought something fresh to the table.
