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

OK I'm gonna set this up today unless people have any other nominations/suggestions

House. Tho not seen any and prob rubbish.

lol House. had no idea that made it to three films. I remember the first one being okay in a stupid way, plus George Wendt was in it

House had three sequels (The Horror Show wasn't labeled as such in all markets, and I think the fourth was direct-to-video).

Wendt was in the first, Ratzenberger in the second. I wish they'd continued that trend.

there's some things even Shelley Long won't do, I guess

don't have any to add, but yeah, poll 'em dead

I liked the first 2 house movies, would watch again.

living dead and psycho series both ought to be included, imo, as they came into their own as franchises during your window, and each has an equally good claim on the "birth of the modern horror genre" crown

not that anyone's gonna vote for the psycho sequels

too bad demons only got one official sequel

what about thematic series, like fulci's "gates of hell" trilogy (the beyond, city of the living dead and the house by the cemetery)? suppose that stretches things beyond the remit...

The third House film wasn't supposed to be part of the series but they just named it that for sales.

guys, ship has sailed

Yeah but this is the AMC post-show wrap-up. I'm your host, Chris Hardwick.

Creepshow arguably counts if we do some gymnastics (Creepshow TV series becomes Tales From the Darkside due to rights issues, TFtD: The Movie becomes de facto Creepshow 3). And yes, I know Creepshow 3 technically exists but I like to think that we as a society have chosen to ignore that fact.

Was there a The Fly 3?

Yeah, but only in the '60s.

MANSION OF MADNESS

The story isn't particularly engaging but the well designed sights and people of the asylum sustain it well enough. Quite like Houglass Sanitorium but less surreal. So it's not as good as Alucarda but I wasn't expecting that.

I'm not sure if I had previously heard about Alucarda having a planned sequel called Alucarda Rises From The Tomb. Sounds tantalizing. Must repeat that I wish there was another 20 Moctezuma horror films.

So it's not as good as Alucarda

but what is?

Lemora has a similar place in my heart, with me wishing there was another 20 Blackburn horror films.

kinda want to rep for Blair Witch 2

Good concept, unfortunate execution.

never seen it cuz i didn't like the first one. have noticed lately that it has fans. still not inclined.

You really aren't missing out on anything.

https://vimeo.com/167772153

A clip of a film per year since 1895 to present.

Bat Whispers looks pretty cool. Surprised I haven't seen more about it.

The following three come in a boxed set called American Horror Project vol 1. Seems like a promising series, I wonder what will be in the next sets? I suspect these films weren't released individually because they might be ignored (again). Each film comes in bluray and dvd, with extensive features and a booklet with essays by Stephen Thrower, Kim Newman, Kier-La Janisse and Brian Albright.

THE WITCH WHO CAME FROM THE SEA

The title is well known for being misleading. There's nothing fantastical about this story of an abused child who became a mentally ill serial killer. It's a quiet character drama with a dazed quality and some strange distorted moments. It's pretty solid but it's my least favourite of the set.

THE PREMONITION

A mentally ill musician loses custody of her daughter and years later tries to steal the child back from the adoptive parents. Strange psychic communication is involved and an unconventional scientist sees this phenomena as the key to resolving the situation that develops from the kidnapping.
There is a series of psychic hauntings and one is unexpectedly scary and stuck in my mind for the night. The film slightly resembles films like Audrey Rose, The Entity and The Changeling.

MALATESTA'S CARNIVAL OF BLOOD

Horror editor Ross E Lockhart linked an amazing clip of this in a discussion of surreal films and I bought this boxed set for this film (which was impossible to see for decades). I had previously ignored it because I got it confused with two other 70s horror films called Carnival Of Blood.
It's a rough gem, a new favourite. An atmospheric surreal little adventure with deranged ghouls and vampires in a run-down fairground. My favourite line of dialogue: "he's TOO evil".

I was interested in that set but I can't justify spending £45 on it, will wait til it hopefully drops a little. The Witch Who Came From The Sea was the one that initially attracted me,seen bits online and it has a nice uncanny feel, promising you think it's least of the trio.

Amazon has cheap digital rent or buy versions of them all, I'd guess that's without features.

COUNT YORGA
RETURN OF COUNT YORGA

These are on the same disc of the Arrow edition. They're Dracula style films set in the 70s, like Hammer did at the end of their Dracula series. Although Yorga is obviously in both, the stories have no continuity (Yorga dies in the first film). I think they're pretty mediocre, they move along easier than most Dracula films, fairly enjoyable at times but they can be quite drab and silly. The second film is surely the better one. The scenes of Yorga running towards victims (more of that in the sequel) are quite memorable for straddling daftness and being kind of cool too.

Here are some things I'm looking for:

-A list of (putatively) public domain horror/sci-fi movies. Like the ones that wind up in every 50-pack DVD compilation ever.
-Some Discogs-esque site that breaks down the various home video releases of horror/sci-fi movies.

I mean, I'm looking for horror/sci-fi info specifically, but any general film site that does the job will also work nicely, obvs.

This is partly inspired by my current monomaniacal attempt to track down as many non-shit oldies (through like the '50s) as possible. Unfortunately, a lot of the older stuff is either only available in cut-rate comps or as DVD-Rs released by major studios (which is really just one of the most shameless and insulting money grabs ever).

I can't think of any such list but I often find public domain collections to be slim pickings. I remember there was a YouTube channel devoted to public domain horror but I don't recall the name. They're not always as complete or in the good condition of the version you have pay for. Or its something you've probably seen (Nosferatu, Carnival Of Souls, Night Of The Living Dead).
I think some of the Corman films are public domain, not sure.

I had a collection with the Corman films A Bucket Of Blood and The Terror on them, which I think was public domain. A Bucket Of Blood is pretty good, an old horror comedy with funny beatniks. The Terror has Karloff and Jack Nicholson is much like the Vincent Price films but not as good.

Part of the issue I'm running into is with movies that have received next-to-no DVD release outside of some weird slapped-together multi-film set whose title doesn't make it immediately apparent what it contains. Which can be cool when you happen upon something you had no idea was available (or that's OOP and expensive on its own).

THEM

The start is fairly ominous and I like the sounds of the ants but I found this surprisingly dull.

Anyone seen Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis or Tokyo: The Last War? Giger did designs for one of them. The Vega/M Bison design comes from the series.

SPIDER BABY

Was never anxious to see this but it's really unique. A horror film of that era (1964), with that style of slightly modernised classic horror, humour, sweetness and sexiness makes it quite unlike anything else I've seen, even if it does feel incredibly short. Jill Banner as Virginia is adorable and probably the best thing about the film but Lon Chaney Jr as the loving father figure is also pretty good.

Among many other things on the Arrow disc release is a short feature about composer Ronald Stein, focusing on how different how scores were and how underappreciated he is. There are a few compilations of his music but very little in the way of full soundtrack releases. Maybe there weren't many music pieces per film?

how different how
how different his

An overview of the fantasy and horror films of Juraj Herz.
http://www.fright.com/edge/JurajHerz.htm
I'm a big fan of Beauty And The Beast and Morgiana, but it looks like it's mostly downhill from there. Would be nice if he could make more films in the spirit of his best work.

House Of Wax (1953) yay or nay? I haven't seen it.

THE UNDEAD (1957)

Perhaps the first Roger Corman gothic horror? It's black and white, pretty foggy.

A prostitute is hypnotized and sent back centuries in time to a previous life as a witch. There's another two witches, including Allison Hayes (Attack Of The 50 Foot Woman) who can turn into animals and insects. Satan's there too.

If this was better written, acted and a bit better designed it could have been one of the best horror films of it's time. As it stands it's fairly enjoyable and daft. Allison Hayes looks amazing, the dance of dead women is kind of cool but the Ronald Stein soundtrack is probably the best thing about it (sadly it doesn't seem to be available in any form except on the film).

Guys I know I'm not the only one who watches horror films from more than a decade ago, why havent you been talking about what you've seen over the last several months?

I don't feel like typing about movies very much I guess? Horror Hotel was good, I enjoyed the killer babies & sensitive 70s husband Frederic Forrest in It Lives Again

I keep wanting to call it It's Still Alive -- but regardless that movie was enjoyable and I really liked the killer baby effects

Re-watched Scanners and the 70s Invasion of the Body Snatchers remake in the last couple of weeks. As I said in the "last x movies you saw" thread, Scanners was more thriller than horror - car chases, shootouts, bureaucrats arguing in offices. The exploding head was the only big horror moment. Invasion... remains scary as hell. I like three of the four versions of that story - even the '90s Abel Ferrara one has its moments (Meg Tilly's really good in it). The only one that sucks is the recent one with Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig.

The score to the 70s body snatchers by Denny Zeitlin is sooooo great. It's available as a digital album now. Jazz-doom-synth

I do watch old horror movies all the time (probably like ten of them in the past week?) but my prime ILX posting time doesn't really overlap much.

I rewatched Psycho for probably the first time since before Van Sant's version was released. Very well constructed, in a way that left me wishing I could see it with no foreknowledge. The identity of the titular psycho is teased beautifully a number of times before any psycho-ing even takes place. My only criticism would be the 4 1/2 hour end sequence of the psychologist explaining everything.

Followed that up with Psycho II, which is naturally a pale shadow but not bad taken on its own terms. I did benefit from a lack of foreknowledge with this one, only identifying the psycho about five minutes before the revelation. Given that this was released in '83, there's naturally some ott concession to the contemporaneous slasher boom but it's mostly pretty restrained.

And then I watched the first episode of Bates Motel which was good but also a little bonkers and campy and jarring in its updatedness (Norman shouldn't be texting) but I think I'll hang in since the short seasons alleviate the otherwise overwhelming prospect of jumping into a series that's already four seasons deep.

I Drink Your Blood was some real campy fun. Might pick up the Blu-Ray when it comes out later this month.
Caught Cronenberg's The Brood recently - not up there with his best, but still worthwhile imo; good mood, enjoyed the acting and creepy "villains".

Alongside the old movies, I've been watching Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Twilight Zone from the start (and plan to pick up some of the other anthologies from that time like Tales of Tomorrow and One Step Beyond). Probably doesn't even need to be said how good this stuff is and how well it holds up. I was pleasantly surprised to learn, after thinking that Psycho reminded me a lot more of a good AHP episode than a standard Hitchcock film, that he used the crew from his show to film the movie on the cheap. Again, probably a thing everyone but me was already aware of.

The upcoming release of I Drink Your Blood will also include I Eat Your Skin, fyi.

AND an extra obscure X-rated movie featuring Bhaskar, the crazy leader of the Satanists from Blood, and I'm not sure if that makes me want to buy it more or less.