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

I hacked our old Harman Kardon dvd player so it would play all-region mainly so i could watch Aus movies sent from home - that is why we kept it even though we mostly use the PS3 as a dvd/blu player

good to have a multi-region option imo

Yeah, my PS3 is the house blu-ray player. My laptop drive is region free so I can at least do international DVDs. I've spent way too much money on R1 stuff that I still haven't watched to justify expanding the scope of my purchases.

I would always buy DVD players based on their ability to be region hacked. But even then I saved purchases of out of region DVDs for rare occasions, because they were so expensive. The irony is all the region juggling and hard to find titles over the years have lead me down more grey area routes, which often means watching copies as modest in quality as initial DVD quality, if not sometimes VHS. Like a million other people, I would totally pay a premium for a global infinite jukebox that just lets me watch what I want, when I want, without worrying about what's not available, or what's about to disappear, etc. But of course that is literally too much to ask. You have to buy 10 ladders for 10 different sized walls.

Why too much to ask? Isnt an international version of Netflix possible if the rights holders would let it happen?

How about bluray players?

UK Netflix has a very limited catalog in comparison with, say, Spotify.

if the rights holders would let it happen

Ergo, too much to ask.

The increasingly-balkanized landscape of streaming media and the unpredictable availability of said media is what keeps me buying physical copies of movies when I can and t0rrentz-ing when I can't. I won't be paying for a service beyond Netflix (which I basically only have for their original programming) until these chowderheads get their shit together and realize that they're shooting themselves in the foot by not seeking some kind of unification of their myriad of services.

Same thing happened in the early days of Napster et al. They fucked it up then, they'll fuck it up again. If and when they get their shit together movie piracy will be as easy and rampant as were MP3s and the movie industry will meet a similar fate. Maybe. Because certainly there are still huge movies (albeit shitty ones), and stuff like Walking Dead or Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones or whatever make more than enough money to keep interesting or novel or good shows coming to cable and streaming. If anything that gives me some hope the movie/TV industry is at least to some extent trying to figure things out, as opposed to hiding their heads in the sand. No doubt, there is as much TV and as many small movies as ever, which is remarkable, because it is much harder and more expensive to make a movie that no one sees than it is to make an album no one hears.

Not strictly horror, but I discovered this book last night and it shot to the top of my Christmas wish list: VHS Video Cover Art: 1980s to Early 1990s.

finally watched 'black sabbath' during a nighshift at this hostel and while overall it's good, 'the drop of water' segment is genuinely scary. [minor spoilers?] that's a face you cannot unsee.

^^^ responsible for MANY childhood nightmares.

FYI: Shout! Factory has some old horror movies (Day Of The Dead, Sleepaway Camp, Night Of The Demons, and some non-horror stuff) that have been sourced directly from VHS streaming online at http://thevhsvault.com/ .

I sometimes wish horror DVDs/Blu-Rays had a "watch in shitty VHS fidelity with occasional tracking problems and maybe, after the movie's over, see the last 15 minutes of whatever was on the cassette before and that you taped over" option.

http://imgur.com/9ij2Fuq

http://i.imgur.com/9ij2Fuq.jpg

lol

Oh my god.

It's a shame that tattoos don't have an audio component.

that's commitment

I might watch sleepaway camp in shout factory's vhs streamer tbh

When I see tattoos like that, or, like, elaborate Homer Simpson tats supposedly inked on genitals, I just ... it's like the opposite of the X-Files line. I Don't Want To Believe.

You know, I might have been seeing things, but I could have sworn that when I saw "Death Proof" in the theater, the movie began with all sorts of old-print artifacting, but that when the movie tipped its hat that it was contemporary vis-a-vis modern mini vans zooming down the road, the artifacting disappeared and the image sharpened up. Anyone else catch this?

Yeah I am pretty sure that is correct

Yeah, I wasn't sure at the time if it was intentional or if Tarantino just got tired of maintaining the pretense but I definitely noticed the same thing.

Is there any worthwhile horror or sci-fi from the '40s beyond the Val Lewton films and a handful of Universal pics and a few other movies like The Uninvited? I've been scouring through the whole decade for anything resembling a gem and it looks like pretty slim pickings.

Yeah, I wasn't sure at the time if it was intentional or if Tarantino just got tired of maintaining the pretense but I definitely noticed the same thing.
--I Was Picking Up A Teaspoon When Something Happened To My Spine (Old Lunch)

Pretty sure it's intentional.

BTW all those Lewton films are gonna play on TCM over the next few days along with some killer Tod Browning joints that i wanna see.

TOURIST TRAP - I'm not much a fan of slasher films but this is okay, with a fair number of appealingly odd moments in the mannequin scenes.
There's a really unconvincing scene in which the goodies somehow successfully hide amongst the mannequins.

FOOTPRINTS ON THE MOON - I wasn't really drawn in by this giallo but it's fairly solid. The sex scene mixed with memories and very nice music is lovely.
The version I saw is a patchwork of different prints of very different quality. Unfortunately this seems to be the best available version (Shameless DVD).

BLOOD AND BLACK LACE - I thought I had seen this one before because I get the titles of Bava films mixed up (so many alternate titles). This is still quite brutal and nasty. I mostly liked it for the lighting and compositions, some scenes look pretty stunning.

I VAMPIRI - Not a proper vampire, but an Elizabeth Bathory type getting transfusions with the help of scientists. Not a full-blown gothic horror either, but there is an old castle and graveyard. It's not very interesting but there are some good shots and interesting sculptings on the castle walls.

Looks like Five Dolls For An August Moon is going to be the next Bava film given the full Arrow Blu-Ray treatment. I haven't seen it since i owned a VCR player but it was always one of my favourites.

Was watching the '88 Chuck Russell remake of "The Blob." Is it just me, or is this movie kind of intentionally weird? Not just that the blob itself is sort of sentiently sadistic, like in a slasher film, but all these strange character beats and jokes in the background. And the gore effects are also really gross/inventive.

I first saw that version as a sophomore in college, at a party where I was absolutely shit-faced drunk, and the scene in which the dishwasher at the diner gets pulled down the sink drain struck me as the most mind-blowingly scary/gross thing I had ever seen. But yeah, the movie always feels crazily off-kilter. The whole "buying condoms from the drugstore guy who turns out to be your date's father" is just . . .

Also, a 10-year-old kid has a pretty horrific death scene.

it's definitely a really weird movie, tonally. like it's going for camp nostalgia b-movie vibes for the majority of the time but throws in some of the most viscerally unpleasant deaths that i've seen in a film.

what happened in 2006?

There's another thread for films after 2005.

RETURN TO OZ

I quite like this. There's too much mad luck involved for me to really get invested in the drama but there's a lot of cool design in this film (Mike Ploog and Henry Selick were involved in the visual contributions) and I found it quite charming in places. The wheel guys look jarringly too 80s pop to me but the home of the head changing witch is pretty stunning. People talking in chicken voices never ceases to amuse me.

PHANTASM

I was mulling over whether to risk buying the box set and not like them or just buy the first then keep getting more if I like them. I got the box set. These might be reissued soon because the fifth film seems to be in production right now.

As some others were saying, it is indeed surprisingly dreamlike for a large part of the duration. I was anticipating a more splattery comedy. I appreciate the amount of night scenes, lots of shots of people surrounded by darkness. Good soundtrack. Can't say I was particularly engaged by this film but it is a pleasant oddity.

Lots of deleted scenes of sections of the story they completely discarded. Including a really odd one in which the older friends cover the boy in piles of ice cream and eat it off him.

PHANTASM 2

I think this is where all my memories of the series come from. This is the goofy humour, rubbery monster, gory action thing that sits somewhere near the Evil Dead series, Reanimator and Braindead. I don't think it pulls off the humour as well as those films though.

Maybe it's more common than I remember but it's odd seeing such a horror film not trying too hard to function as a stand-alone entry in a series.
It has more memorable moments and more fun than the first but it's not as good overall.

There's two particularly daft aspects of the film. (1) The two main characters don't appear remotely puzzled as to why the hitchhiking girl is so unfazed by all this madness, especially the extreme measures they go to for the trap setting (2) They also appear absurdly overconfident about assuming when the silver balls are safe enough to be near.

ILLUSION OF BLOOD

The third film I've seen about the Oiwa legend. I'd rank it above the mid 50s one but below the Nakagawa one. In a better print this might have been a very good looking film. No real surprises after the other films. Has the same nice setting with all those streams and grass, rarely much in the way of wide open space.
Don't know why they had to use fake rats all the time.

PHANTASM 3

There's more wrong with this than I can be bothered listing but the most glaring flaw is that Reggie comes across like more of a creepy pervert than intended.
Increased cheese and Evil Dead elements. The kid from the first film returns.

PHANTASM 4

There's still a bit of goofy humour but this is closer to the atmosphere of the first film. It expands the backstory but still keeps it vague. Also retains the series fixation on car accidents and has a succubus type girl. It's not particularly good but it's not as big a mess as the third film.
For me the most interesting thing is how well they incorporate unused footage from the first film. It's very unusual, as if they travelled time to shoot this film. From seeing this I assumed Coscarelli had planned all this from the beginning but from a documentary I saw that the original film was conceived as a stand-alone and he only did the first sequel after lots of prodding.

Another nugget from the documentary was that Brad Pitt was turned down to play Mike in the second film.

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