ok lets all shit our pants to something old: pre-2006 horror film thread

From the first film I thought Reggie looks so much like Dean Norris (Hank from Breaking Bad)

Yeah, the resemblance, in the first movie especially, is uncanny. I had to double check the credits when I saw it recently.

http://nerdist.com/j-j-abrams-restoring-phantasm-in-4k/

Watched Mark Gatiss' Horror Europa documentary on a whim today (I missed it on tv a few years ago), not expecting to learn much but I had never even heard of La Residencia/The House That Screamed (1969), and one or two other films that weren't really profiled. La Residencia looked quite interesting and I didn't know anything about the life of Conrad Veidt.
I think he should have made it a three parter, but probably harder to do than with his more brit/american focused three parter. Because it did seem odd that some directors like Jean Rollin weren't even mentioned.

Nice that these tv documentaries find such a big audience on youtube.

Also wasn't aware that Albin Grau planned Nosferatu as the first of many supernatural films with occult ingredients. I really like Grau's art, wish there was much more of it to see. Looking up his other film contributions, the only other film I've seen is Warning Shadows(which might be the only other available film), which is interesting but not as weird or horrory as Nosferatu.

I mentioned La residencia upthread, it's highly recommended. The cast is fascinating, a mix of beautiful and odd-looking people. Lilli Palmer is awesome as the headmistress.

Now I've got to check out Horror Europa, thanks for the tip.

Watched "Street Trash" tonight. Feel like this should be a little better known? Such a gnarly energy and aesthetic. Splatter/Punk/Mad Max/US Urban Decay 1980s vibes. The rainbow colored gore scenes are something to behold.

http://www.i-mockery.com/halloween/greatest/pics/street-trash6.gif

Watched Horror Europa last night and thought it was not bad for what they chose to discuss. Agree with Robert however that Jean Rollin should have been mentioned at the very least. Also the only time Jesús Franco came up was in reference to his Christopher Lee Count Dracula film, which I don't consider one of his really significant works. At times the doc seemed like a commercial for a men's fashion house with all the attention given to Mark Gatiss's suit and shoes, etc. But.. overall well-edited with good visuals.

Ha, I never really noticed any lingering on his clothes. Should be noted that in his previous 3-parter A History Of Horror that he stated up front that his choices were very personal.

The thing that makes Rollin a glaring omission is that Gatiss makes it sound as if there was a real horror trend in France at the time of Les Diaboliques and Eyes Without A Face, but I'm fairly sure those films were some of the very few and Rollin seems like the only really consistent fixture until the extreme horror came in the 90s. The Belgian horror scene Harry Kumel refers to was most likely the fantastique fiction of the time.

I was quite pleased with Gatiss' ending for A History Of Horror because of his reservations about what horror fandom does for the films. I didn't totally agree but that's kind of a complicated subject you cant definitively sum up in a short time.

That Street Trash toilet scene is what I wish the splatterpunk genre looked more like. A bright multicolored graffiti, toxic and sewage look, or like some punk rock album covers.

I hadn't heard of Street Trash before this year, but it's hard at least two showings this year in NY, so it is being remembered

Melt movie enthusiasts are definitely a 'thing', and Street Trash is basically the biggest film that's devoted to the art of the melt.

apologies for my boorishness "melt movie enthusiasts", Street Trash has flown under my radar until this very year

Ha, I didn't mean that to sound snotty or "HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW THIS?" at all. Sorry if it did. It's a pretty culty thing, which means that a) no, it's not that well-known outside its group of enthusiasts, but b) those enthusiasts exist and keep an audience for such things, hence the cinema outings.

Would like a melt primer!

('Melt' is such a gross word in general. When applied to people...ugh.)

yeah, i wanna know!
just saw Brain Damage recently, i wonder if that fits

A lot of melt favourites are "films with melt scenes in them", so they're not full Melt Movies - I think even the Wizard of Oz gets repped for as proto-Melt, and of course everyone loves that scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark. There's an excellent montage piece on youtube somewhere, will see if I can dig it out later. For now, off the top of my head: The Devil's Rain, The Stuff, there's one called something like the Incredible Melting Man or something which I actually haven't seen, I think there's some melt elements to Peter Jackson's gore movies (also this indicates the crossover with general Body Horror), errr I'm forgetting a lot of things, I'm sure.

Brain Damage is fantastic, don't recall any melting. I'm guessing more like Emil's sloppy finish in Robocop.

i think i saw The Stuff but i don't know anything about melt -- is it about actual melting?

Pretty sure there's actual melting in the Stuff when it takes over, right? I'm sure I'm sure. I watched it again recently... I'm going to have to locate the scenes I'm thinking of to reassure myself that I'm not just making up the melt element in my brain. Also will give me an excuse to relisten to the jingle.

"can't get enough.. of-the-stuff!"
this was totally a meme for my crew in high school

There's really no acceptable reason why I haven't seen The Stuff. I love Cohen.

Yeah, this scene definitely counts as a melt, I think there are others in the film as well.

And this link is the excellent 'meltage' I was talking about earlier.

I guess I should caution that both links contain lots of body horror gore. Not sure what else you'd be expecting, but just to be clear.

The Stuff is totally fun, plot-devolution in the last 3rd notwithstanding

Assuming Cronenberg's The Fly is in there - the scene where he vomits on and melts the dude's arm and leg is all-time.

cronenberg really the king of the melt

"I'll take a Cronenberg melt with a side of Hooper slaw"

Yuzna's SOCIETY is pretty melty.

thanks for that link emil.y

Somebody let me know when this thread is safe to click on again, it somehow just became my version of the trypophobia one.

That clip was great! The whole 'melt' thing is kind of a perfect underexplored subgenre for me, inasmuch as the idea of melting is sufficiently horrifying but it's also kind of inherently ridiculous and removed enough from reality that I don't find it off-putting in the way that some ott gore stuff can be.

I wanna know where the clip of the screaming guy ripping his face off came from! Totally one-ups the infamous Poltergeist scene.

Society is essential viewing, despite its non-ending

some of my favorite body melt scenes that aren't in that youtube compilation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCoT6zE2mWk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeT9EtpZxzc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dmFtsmvEPQ

at 26:00 - reverse melt
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jriXA6pIFak

This thread just got so gross.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xu5f3mADUA4

anyone seen The Mask (1961)? Canadian, 3D, etc. Showing in NYC on Saturday.

http://tiff.net/festivals/festival15/tiffcinematheque/the-mask-eyes-of-hell

That's completely new to me. Trailer looks interesting.

Was just thinking of the trend of low-budget filmmakers releasing belated and slightly bigger budget sequels to their breakthroughs in the late '80s. Have we talked about this? Thinking of "Phantasm II," "Evil Dead II," "Texas Chainsaw Massacre II." (Does three constitute a trend?) Are there more than just those three?

Just saw Messiah of Evil and was absolutely blown away. It definitely helped that I was lucky enough to get the blu-ray during the five minutes a year Code Red's online store is up and the owner isn't behaving like a complete fucking sociopath- I can't imagine seeing it without the right color balance, especially in the beach house, which has to be one of the greatest horror movie sets I've ever seen in a non-giallo movie.

Also, I've seen it described as Lovecraftian, but aside from the crumbling beachside town, it isn't. The closest it comes to Lovecraft is its resemblance to the (much) later In the Mouth of Madness, really. What blew me away about it is that barring one ill-judged but easily ignored flashback that comes perilously close to overexplaining things, it's closer to a Thomas Ligotti film than anything else out there.

Do you like... Wagner?

xxpost Henenlotter's Basket Case 2 might count (although I don't know how much the budget really increased). Interestingly, two of the three you mention have even more belated recent updates of same (assuming that the late great Coscarelli's new Phantasm actually gets released). Along those lines, I just read yesterday that Joe Chiodo is apparently trying to get a Killer Klowns TV series off the ground.

Wait, isn't Coscarelli still alive?

Anyway, just realized that Evil Dead 2, Chainsaw 2 and Phantasm 2 also all have chainsaw fights! And of course all three lean comedy as well.

Emily- What about Wagner?

xpost Oh jeez, you're absolutely right. I confused Angus Scrimm's death with his.

R.A.G.:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09KvvlVholY

Meridian (1990) - Bad Full Moon movie in which Sherilyn Fenn gets horizontal with a werewolf. I remembered liking this for wrong reasons, but no. Despite a gorgeous Italian locations and a decent Pino Donaggio score, it's kind of impressively horrid.

Shadowzone (1990) - Weirdly good-bad Full Moon movie in which dreams conjured by hot naked people wreak bloody havoc in a near-deserted military base. Scary as hell, with fun performances from Louise Fletcher and James Hong - plus some amazing Mark Shostrom gore effects. Recommended.

Laughing at the new Count Yorga cover art because he looks like he's daydreaming or distracted.

Or telling us a sad story while looking off to the side.

It's an Arrow edition including both films.

have we really never polled the big 70-80s horror franchises (Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, Child's Play, Hellraiser, Halloween, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, etc.)? I can't find a poll thread about them.

Probably not, possibly because all of those series feature seriously diminishing returns with very few exceptions.

In short, the first three Nightmare sequels (roughly 4>3>2, in my estimation), the not exactly good but totally batshit Jason Goes To Hell, Seed of Chucky (and to a slightly lesser extent the direct-to-DVD Curse of Chucky from a year or so ago), Hellraiser 2 and Halloween 3: Season of the Witch are the only sequels from this lot that are worth your time (people rep for Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 but I wasn't impressed). And I say this as a pretty big fan of crap '80s and '90s horror movies.