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

DRACULA/HORROR OF DRACULA
DRACULA: PRINCE OF DARKNESS
DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE
TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA
SCARS OF DRACULA
DRACULA A.D. 1972
THE SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA

In case you're not aware, these are all the Dracula films Christopher Lee did for Hammer (there's another Lee Dracula film by Jess Franco which I haven't seen, apparently the "making of" documentary is better than the actual film).

Apart from Scars, I got all of these in a Spanish box set, which has a few glitches in some of the films.

I've seen a few of these before and I was well aware I probably wouldn't love any of them, but I'm so into gothic horror style that they might have been worth a shot.

Horror, Prince and Risen are okay, roughly as good as each other, then Taste and Scars drop the quality a bit. 72 is really bad but Satanic Rites is bloody atrocious, the worst by a long distance, incredibly boring.

Horror and Prince are the most consistent in their style. 72 and Satanic Rites are set in the 70s and are very stylistically messy. 72 is just a laughably silly attempt to update the series but that's much preferable to Satanic Rites' woeful attempt at modern sophistication.
The first five films have enough pleasant gothic images to make them fairly enjoyable and Lee looks really great when his eyes are bloodshot. Risen has this odd recurring habit of framing some scenes with a hint of yellow.

There's not much attempt at keeping a consistent mythology or set of supernatural rules, and I don't really mind that, so I thought it was a mistake for Prince to open with a recap.

They recycle lots of things and people do often complain the films are too similar. There's a few instances of bar-men going all quiet when anything to do with Dracula is brought up. There's three films in which vampire women pretend to be innocent, pleading for someone to help them escape. Two films have a decadent dandy who persuades people to do a dark ritual.

Unintentional Humor: old British vampire films have a problem with teeth baring scenes. Scars has a silly scene of a priest gently trying to fend off a bat that's eating his face. 72 has all sorts of silly stuff.
It isn't particularly bad but Taste has a funny scene of Dracula going around throwing heavy things at the heroes.

Horror Of Dracula has two really badly integrated comic relief characters.

Scars has some really awful cheeky British sex humour that slips into Carry On and Confessions Of A Window Cleaner territory.

Scars and 72 have blatant "look at these breasts!" scenes. Like on the level of anime fanservice.

Taste opens with an odd scene in a carriage. Is that guy supposed to be disabled? It seemed pretty clumsy.

These films have some of the most pathetic deaths for a major movie monster. In Prince he's scared by small areas of running water and falls under the ice. In Taste he's repelled by a few crosses, has a bad memory then feebly falls to his death. In Satanic Rites he's misled into thorny tree bushes which make him so helpless he can't defend himself against a stake.

I think Brides Of Dracula is a better Hammer film than these even if the male vampire isn't as good as Christopher Lee.

THE GHOSTS OF KASANE SWAMP/THE DEPTHS (1957)

Pretty standard stuff. Social ranks, bastards, betrayal and tricky ghosts. It's okay.

I got to intvw Fessenden once. Neat dude.

I might try Wendigo sometime.

Wendigo is OK, like the snow one it's more spooky than scary.

At this point, scary is so rare that you can't really fault something for not being scary. And there's some types of scary that don't interest me.

yeah. the best horror is the stuff you think about the next day and then the next week and even a month later you're saying 'you know what? I can't shake that idea'. 'scary' is ephemeral. the best horrors stick with tou

For me, the ideal horror and fantasy is all about ecstasy and beauty.

I want to feel like this little girl.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njATcf2roio

I love that vid/gif more than p much anything else on the web

Xpost There are aspects of Wendigo that are supposed to be scary - like the titular monster. But the general mood is enough to make up for the lack of scares, just as his snow movie's mood made up for the lame vengeful snow spirits.

Was thinking today how genuinely scary/stressful/dread inducing the first couple of Paranormal Activity movies are, even when you know what's coming. Can't remember what anyone here thinks of them.

I've liked them all tbh (have seen the first four).

I've avoided them after seeing so many scathing reviews complaining about never-ending jump scares and annoyingly superficial characters.

the opening party scene in Dracula AD 72 is incredible

xpost Definitely worth seeing at least the first 2 Paranormal Activities. They're not really jump scares so much as really slow burn scares.

I have a special fondness for Dracula AD 72 as it was the very first Hammer film I ever saw (on TV) - I don't think I even really understood what was so unusual abt Dracula being in 'contemporary' London. I genuinely like the music by Stoneground, and the opening sequence is prob the best battle scene ever between Dracula and Van Helsing - in fact I think the first half is pretty strong (accepting the naff nods to yoof culture), the resurrection sequence is def p creepy. The second half is a bit drabber, but yes, still an improvement on the dreadful Satanic Rights.

After the Fishers, I wld rank Taste the Blood as the best of the Hammer Draculas - I like the circle of debauched bourgeoisie stuff (tho the romantic leads are as usual p tiresome).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18RKwISa6JM

the opening sequence is prob the best battle scene ever between Dracula and Van Helsing

Yeah I thought it was the best scene in the film.

Right now I'm feeling Dracula Has Risen From The Grave is the best overall, although it isn't as stylistically solid as Prince Of Darkness.

I'll keep an eye out for Paranormal Activity on tv because I'm unlikely to buy it.

I've got 3 more old Japanese horror films and 2 Val Lewton box sets to watch.

GHOST OF CHIBUSA ENOKI/THE MOTHER TREE

Another tale of a bastard earning his ghostly comeuppance. The only unusual thing is a baby being taken to a tree with lactating nipples.

It's under an hour.

GHOST STORY: DEPTH OF KAGAMI

A standard 50s Japanese ghost story. Perhaps a slightly better quality of acting.

Thanks for reminding me that I DVR-ed most of those Hammer Dracula films from TCM or somewhere on Halloween night. Hammer homevideo distribution in the states is kinda shameful so that's what I'm reduced to if I ever wanna see this stuff.

I've heard people say that before but a decade ago I could only find Horror Of Dracula, Curse Of Frankenstein and some others on American dvd. It's only been about 5 years the best stuff has been easy to find here. I think there's quite a few American 4 films in 1 box releases of Hammer films.

yeah i remember they used to be a lot harder to get over here

GHOST OF YOTSUYA (1956)

There's an unpleasant approach on this version as if Lemon is a tragic figure and his mother is really mostly to blame for his crimes. I wasn't sure if they were going for this but he seems to have a hero's fight to the death.

After seeing a bunch of these films (not counting The Woman Vampire, which is different), many of them slight variations on the same story made a very short time apart, they're a lot like the most formulaic EC Comics with murderers haunted by their victims. But the build-ups aren't really enjoyable enough and it's all about the payoff, but all these films have much the same payoff so I'm not in a hurry to see a many more that look like this specific subgenre. Even compared with J-horror films they're very repetitive. Over Your Dead Body is a new spin on the Yotsuya story and I hope Snake Woman's Curse is a bit different and the different versions of Demon Pond and The Snow Woman.
I'd only recommend Ghost Of Yotsuya (1959, Nakagawa) and Ghost Cat Of Otama Pond (1960).

I don't know what the black teeth on women is all about. Initially I thought it was to tell you they're bad women or lower class but it doesn't seem that simple.

PHANTOM OF PARADISE

This is really good and really impressive but I'm not sure about the ending. I wanted a bigger ending and more keyboard wizard stuff but I can't complain too much. I really knew nothing about Paul Williams until I saw this and watched a bonus interview.

the tooth-blackening is ohaguro

Thanks. I think it's one of those things that seems to be considered ugly now, like the bald top haircuts. It's never the better looking film stars who have to bald topped or blacken their teeth.

THE DEMON OF MOUNT OE

This isn't a straight horror film, it's a special effects samurai action fantasy with monsters, from 1960.
The intro is like a videogame, introducing a few of the characters fighting a demon that sadly isn't featured in the rest of the film, it's the coolest demon in the film.
It's a fairly complex war story with magicians that turn into demons, including a man who can teleport and turn into a mechanical bull (like the one from some Castlevania games), a large webshooting man who turns into a giant spider and a woman who turns into a flying cat woman.
It moves along much better than most of the samurai horror films and two virtuous female characters who spend most of the film falling around weeping in their kimonos actually end up saving themselves and everyone else.

ha that sounds great

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLo_yPQzahrXNtVjOQTTgZ6ozZqOqOhZpx

Been having a great time watching this YouTube series overview of East Asian horror films by Asian Movie Enthusiast. He's not the best with words but I'm so grateful for this series, he covers hundreds of films and I trust his judgement enough (although I have some major disagreements) that this has really given me the hunger again when I probably shouldn't be looking for more films. It's pleasing how many films from Philippines he's managed to recommend and he's convinced me to consider watching more films without subtitles. The videos are quite leisurely, lengthy and the number of films increases dramatically by the 90s. He usually tells you about availability and a surprising number can be found on disc.
If you don't have time for the videos, he includes a list of all the films in the description boxes.

There's quite a few I really want to see, especially the really batshit ones, there's never enough of those. Interestingly the Shake Rattle & Roll and Troublesome Night series are longer than any American slasher film series but they're anthology films.

Get a load of The Cat (1992) from the director of Riki-Oh!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9SIeWsoPYw

The reviewer said the dog is a detective.

The dog isn't a detective, it's just a highly trained dog.

THE CAT/WISELY'S CAT/THE 1000 YEARS CAT (1992)

Based upon the novel Old Cat by Ni Kuang.
A cute alien princess and her super cat called "General" are temporarily stuck on earth and need to defeat a shapeshifting veiny blobby alien that possesses people. It's created with a variety of different techniques and looks like a cross between The Blob and Carpenter's The Thing and it grows until it's kaiju sized.
The insane junkyard fight between the martial artist cat and a large dog is hilarious and all the funnier because it's played straight but the filmmakers must have known this was funny.

I watched a quite murky and pixelated version online so it's difficult to see if there's anything like animal cruelty but they use fake cats extensively. I saw someone claiming the cat is hanging by its tail at one point but it's really difficult to tell if they're really hurting it, the moment is so dark and quick. Of course I hope they did everything right, this uncertainty might be a barrier for the film being released widely, I don't know. Get on this case Arrow.

Reading some reviews of Phantom Of Paradise, it is indeed a flaw that Jessica Harper sells out so easily. She somehow looks younger in Suspiria, which was a few years later. She's in the new Suspiria which is filming now. I've heard a lot of bad things about the approaches being taken but the cast and director doesn't seem too bad at all.

I watched Kill Barbara With Panic (1995 remake of a 70s film) online without subtitles. A Philippines family orientated ghost story. I can't fairly judge it without subtitles but it didn't seem good, it's very soapy populist stuff with Ouija boards and possessions. At least the medium got killed. Whenever I look at east Asian Horror films that aren't from Japan, South Korea or Hong Kong it seems like that's mostly the type of horror film on offer sadly. Maybe Thailand is exempt too.

It's odd that Germany produces so little after the silent era. Aside from Herzog's Nosferatu, the Nekromantik series, Torture Chamber Of Dr Sadism there isn't much but co-productions that jump out. I think there's a lot of violent thrillers but I'm not that interested. I saw some clips of Fährmann Maria/Ferryboat Maria (1936) but that's unlikely to be properly released any time soon.

I've had trouble finding any promising looking horror films from India too.

There's a youtube channel called Vulture Graffix that has loads of public domain (all?) films. Updated constantly.

i just watched THE STRANGERS with Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman, i liked it!

Basically "Them," minus even the slimmest of social commentary?

i'm a sucker for daughters of American royalty

Basically "Them," minus even the slimmest of social commentary?
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 17 January 2017 13:35 (twenty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag

And all the better for it? I prefer The Strangers to Them at least

The Strangers is awesome

my local bartender recommended it to me! i was into it even before the horror started, i thought the relationship dynamic was pretty crushing. and then i was terrified.

I've never seen it, it could very well be better than "Them." For the longest time I thought it actually *was* a remake!

There was a tv series from 2010 called Ayashiki Bungo Kaidan/Kaidan Horror Classics. 4 episodes including Tsukamoto and Koreeda. Haven't seen it but probably worth keeping an eye out for. I think it focuses more on character drama than anything else.

Naturally, a blu-ray set of all five Phatasms is coming in March.

Arrow is releasing Pulse, City Of The Dead (Horror Hotel) and Caltiki The Immortal Monster on disc.

Do you think they'd take note of email wishlists?

can't hurt eh

If you would like to suggest a title you think we should release, please contact us at suggesti✧✧✧@arrowfi✧✧✧.c✧.u✧

Will do.

I didn't realise they were also doing the House and Phantasm box sets. Dead Or Alive trilogy too. I don't actually want most of this but it's always interesting to see what they're doing. They better not die on us.

They're also releasing a Sonny Chiba film called Wolf Guy. Can't find any trailers.

i'm really interested because supposedly it was m/l made up on the fly and barely resembles the source material at all. i regretfully read through the recent more recent manga adaptation

There's two films in a 00s monster action series called Kibakichi about a samurai werewolf. Might have been inspired by Wolf Guy. I think Kibakichi is regarded as a minor bad movie classic but looks like they could be fun.

A BELL FROM HELL

Early 70s Spanish film that might not technically be a giallo but close enough. The main character is recently released from an asylum and its completely unconvincing how much his aunt and two of his cousins trust him in some scenes (a third cousin is smarter about it) because it's clear he can't be trusted. There's some pretty nasty footage of cows and sheep being slaughtered so some might want to avoid this one but it's a pretty good film. The director jumped from the bell tower after he finished filming. There's a longer version but I don't know if it's ever had a home release.