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

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.

LATE BLOOMER (2004, Go Shibata)

Sumida has cerebral palsy (played by a man with cerebral palsy), enjoys drinking, going to parties and gigs with his friend/carer who's the frontman of a rock band (a real band called Bermuda Vagabond). Sumida gets an additional carer who is a young girl who's attracted to the frontman and then Sumida gets jealous and becomes a serial killer.

It's very low budget, shot almost like a documentary, mostly black and white. It's quite simple and pretty good. World's End Girlfriend do the ending music.

EL CINE DE VAL LEWTON vol 1-2

Two Spanish box sets containing 5 films each. Really only four of them could be considered horror films but a few others have minor horror elements (other Val Lewton box sets don't include Mademoiselle Fifi).

They're mainly noir thrillers and there's two historical dramas. Lots of recurring actors between them, Boris Karloff and Simone Simon have three films each.

I think people really exaggerate the quality and sophistication of these films because there's some pretty silly stuff in some of them, they don't try very hard to make a lot of the characters seem French, German or Hispanic when they're supposed to be but they're mostly fairly enjoyable films and they look nice.
People tend to talk up the earlier films and I've heard some say the Jacques Tourneur films (the first three) are the only good ones but I don't agree at all, I prefer the later ones, Robert Wise directs some of them.

For some reason The Seventh Victim disc is extremely quiet.

THE CAT PEOPLE

The most famous and critically acclaimed of them. It's about a woman who possibly turns into a large dangerous cat when she becomes passionate in certain ways, it has its own little mythology. I like it fine but I think the Paul Schrader version is just as good but far too long.

I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE

Voodoo zombies on a Caribbean island, actually maybe just one of two zombies. The scenes in the tall grass are beautiful and quite atmospheric but I'm not that big on this film. I used to think the tall guy really had eyes like that in real life but viewing it recently it's obvious the eyes are fake.

THE LEOPARD MAN

Based on Black Alibi by Cornell Woolrich. A murder mystery involving an escaped leopard. This is the worst of the bunch. It has some good suspense scenes but it's really dopey in places: the fact that nobody puts much blame on the dancer for scaring the cat away, the leopard owner who becomes convinced he might be doing elaborate murders when he's drunk and some of the conversations about the crimes are ridiculous (especially the theory about when women put lipstick on). According to Wikipedia "It is one of the first American films to attempt an even remotely realistic portrayal of a serial killer".

THE SEVENTH VICTIM

A girl searching for her older sister who got involved with satanists. This is okay, the most noir-ish Lewton from the box sets and quite bleak but the portrayal of satanists seemed a bit daft to me.

THE GHOST SHIP

There are no ghosts, just an unstable captain of a ship. It's okay but apart from the extremely unconvincing scene when the captain convinces Russell Wade of his reasoning for leaving the ship anchor unsecured.
Lewton was sued for plagiarism and the film was not shown for decades.

THE CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE

Easily my favourite of the Val Lewton films and an odd gem. It's a very loose sequel that can stand by itself, a sometimes dreamlike family drama. The first time I saw this, the old woman telling the story of Sleepy Hollow spooked me. Simone Simon is adorable and hypnotic in this. Nice snowy scenes too. Beautiful film.

MADEMOISELLE FIFI

Based on Guy de Maupassant stories, set in occupied France during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. A propaganda film with most of the cast not bothering to sound French or German. Nice to look at and not too boring.

This from the TCM site..

"Simon, happy with her role and her co-workers, was in high spirits throughout filming. To provide the "oomph" that was expected of a sexy star, she wore false breasts for films and referred to them as "my eyes." It was reported that, just before each take, she would command with mock imperiousness, "Bring me my eyes!" Her performance in Mademoiselle Fifi is considered by some to be her best in an American film."

http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/184959%7c188863/Mademoiselle-Fifi.html

THE BODY SNATCHER

Karloff and Lugosi film, loosely based on "The Body Snatcher" by Robert Louis Stevenson, about people who sell dead bodies to medical research. It's okay. Karloff reminded me a bit of Jeremy Irons, oddly.

ISLE OF THE DEAD

Set during the Balkan Wars 1912, the plague is everywhere, including the island a superstitious Karloff visits, which has a crypt, house and woods. Based on the Arnold Böcklin images but not as awesome as that sounds, although it's still a good setting but too much of the duration set in the house. Makes no sense that Ellen Drew is comfortable sleeping in the same room as the superstitious woman who threatens her.
It's one of the Lewton films I prefer because of the setting and a few of the scenes are pretty good.

BEDLAM

Based on William Hogarth's "A Rake's Progress" images. 1761 in London, Anna Lee is appalled by living conditions in an asylum, attempts to improve the situation and gets locked in there. It's one of the better films and has a few funny moments. Marred by a scene in which Anna Lee doesn't try that hard to avoid being locked in with a seemingly brutish man.

damn, rag, you have a lot of patience

I wouldn't say so. I don't watch nearly as many films as a lot of other ilxor people and I don't take a lot of risks. Those Lewton films are easy to watch. The comics quests of Old Lunch and Aldo are something that requires waaaaay more patience. Dedicated popular animation fans are in another league altogether.

It seems like you're knocking the Lewton films for not being realistic — they're typically lauded for their poetic, fable-like qualities. Besides, why is it more realistic to have French characters speaking English in French accents if they weren't speaking English in the first place? Verisimilitude is far less important than mood; nailing down stone-cold stereotypes hardly benefits an audience. I have no idea whether actual Satanists ever resembled the dreary bunch in The Seventh Victim, but that isn't the point — the film is a remarkably cruel coming-of-age story about isolation in urban life. A moment of Christian homily does seem a bit there-for-the-Code, but it doesn't diminish the impact of the conclusion. I love that film.

I think the internal logic in some scenes just did not work, especially Leopard Man. It's like I was saying in one of the superhero comics threads recently, only certain leaps in logic can work even if the stories are fantastical or poetic.
Kazuo Umezu's work is nuts but even his stories had these unconvincing moments.

The accents aren't really as much of a problem. It didn't bother me that in Body Snatcher there was only one scottish accent, the English accents are easily plausible in Edinburgh and the American guy's accent isn't that strong. But in Mademoiselle Fifi it's a bit more jarring. That kind of mish-mash is easier to take in some Universal Monster films because they don't attempt to even look like they're in too specific a time period. It's about a certain level of consistency.
Like how in A Royal Affair they're all speaking Danish but in historical reality they were speaking a few languages. I thought that was a good choice.

Maybe I underrated Seventh Victim a bit, I was quite wrapped up in her situation.

FTR, RAG, it's not patience but rather mental illness that propels me through these odysseys.

I'm actually dipping in and out of a similar obsessive journey through early horror (or, given the porousness of the genre at the time, let's say 'fantastical') films. I think I've probably seen like 2/3 of the horror/thriller/sci-fi/fantasy movies of the '30s at this point and I got started on the '50s late last year (the '40s being a relatively fallow period beyond Lewton's work, although I think I'll ultimately go deeper into noir just to get a better sense of the darker side of cinema from that era).

Why haven't you written more about all the stuff you've been watching?

http://www.japanesesamuraidvd.com/.sc/ms/cat/Kaidan%2C%20Ghost%20and%20Horror
Great bootleg store. Will buy more as this is the only place to get a lot of these films with English subtitles.

This is the best string of films in seen in years probably. It was a good weekend. I must thank that youtuber Asian Movie Enthusiast because he recommended all of these, although I already had my eyes on Ghost Story Of The Snow Witch.

GHOST STORY OF THE SNOW WITCH/THE SNOW WOMAN/KAIDAN YUKIJORO

I've always found the Japanese snow woman to be one of the most compelling legends, not really for the romance story but just the images of her gliding around snowscapes. This film has some really satisfyingly beautiful and eerie scenes, good visual effects, sound effects, music and it gets surprisingly emotional. There's a clumsy scene in which the husband stands by and watches an old woman beat his wife for a minute before he does anything but this is a real gem.
The bootleg I bought was advertised as remastered but it doesn't look it. I'm tempted to get this from a Japanese site even if it doesn't have subtitles, to see if there's a better looking version. Still, well worth getting as is.

SECRET CHRONICLES OF THE GHOST CAT/HAUNTED CASTLE/HIROKU KAIBYO-DEN

This is really awesome. Another ghost cat film but with a ton more energy. It seems ahead of its time because the ghost cat woman has a ferocity in 1969 that wasn't really normal in monster films until after The Excorcist, Suspiria, Evil Dead and Demons. Earlier ghost cat women were often a tad silly looking but this one is quite scary. I felt quite sad when she stopped rampaging because I wanted her to keep killing. Most of these kaidan films have an avenging ghost but they really taken the rage seriously this time. The part when the sky is flashing is really great.
Not only am I saying this is better than Ghost Cat Of Otama Pond, Kuroneko and all the other Japanese historical horror films I've seen, I'm hailing this as one of the very best horror films of the 60s. Please watch it.

Tanaka Tokuzo also did Demon Of Mount Oe and Ghost Story Of The Snow Witch so I might go for his other films like his Zatoichi and Sleepy Eyes Of Death series and Betrayal.

SNAKE GIRL AND THE SILVER HAIRED WITCH

The first screen adaptation of Kazuo Umezu's comics (he appears in this as a taxi driver). It's a typical Umezu story with a good little girl finding her original parents and a mysterious disfigured sister.
This is from 1968 but it seems almost retro, maybe they were keenly aware of the weak special effects and decided to make it look like an older b-movie. But there's some shoddiness like dubbed voices (in the original Japanese, not dubs for a different language) over characters not even moving their mouths.
It seems like it might have been aimed at children but it's quite violent considering that, just like Umezu's comics. It's quite fun and despite the low quality of the special effects it's quite good looking too.

UNDER THE BLOSSOMING CHERRY TREES

A Masahiro Shinoda film about a man in the mountain forests who kills travellers and steals their women to keep in his house; he steals a woman who doesn't seem to mind that he killed her husband and she quickly starts to boss him around and shame him into doing things for her, demands which get crazier and sicker.
According to the film, people used to have a superstitious dread of cherry trees, saying that the blossoms drove people mad; the main character wants to overcome this fear.
Very good film, a bit more macabre than the title would suggest, great shots of the mountain forests and a Toru Takemitsu score.

Really want to see Shinoda's Demon Pond someday but I might have to get one without subtitles.

GHOST CAT OF THE CURSED POND/BAKENEKO: A VENGEFUL SPIRIT (interrupted, unfinished viewing)

This is directed by Yoshihiro Ishikawa, he written Nakagawa's Yotsuya and Black Cat Mansion films and directed Ghost Cat Of Otama Pond. This is pretty much a black and white remake of the latter and it seemed pretty good but my disc kept jittering and jumping towards the end, making the last three chapters unwatchable, so I'll need another way to finish the film. There was some impressive scenes but I don't think I'd like this as much as the Otama Pond version.
Isao Tomita was mentioned in the credits but IMDB doesn't have that soundtrack listing for him.

The route of exploring European fairy tale films is very tantalizing for me right now. I'm a bit daunted by it though, most of this will probably be done on youtube and I've bought Enchanted Screen by Jack Zipes to help me, it's a big book with a good chapter on old European fairy tale films. The film list at the back is enormous.

RUSALOCHKA/THE LITTLE MERMAID (1976)

This time the mermaid trades her hair colour. Some pretty good songs, some of it even sounds a bit like Magma. I thought the witch was going to be a villain but she's just kind of a crude comedic character. I don't understand why they used rubbish special effects to make the mermaid look like she's in the water in some scenes when she's actually in the water in other scenes. It's a nice film, but I mostly enjoyed the incredible cuteness of the mermaid (the only film role of Viktoriya Novikova?) and the gorgeous princess.

MALA MORSKA VILA/THE LITTLE MERMAID (1976)

Beautifully designed film, the caves with mirrors and statues, all the mer-people (who don't have fish tails but regular human bodies) have slightly silly yet amazing hair entangled with decorations. It must be one of the more elegant screen versions of the story and the soundtrack by Zdenek Liska can be quite powerful (the beats in the cave scenes are quite strange), the soundtrack is easier to get on disc than the film. I recommend it.

oh i watched all the phantasm movies last week. i love all of them except 5 (which i guess i should prob write about in the other horror thread) which is full of good ideas but looks like digital horseshit

You can get lost in the European fairy tale stuff on youtube. I seen a bit of a 90s tv movie which had incredibly shitty pantomime humour but really beautifully captured countryside.

Amazon's horror channel, Shudder, is now streaming the uncut version of Ken Russell's The Devils

Chatter on Facebook amongst some serious genre experts tells me that's bullshit - that in fact the version Shudder are screening isn't even the slightly more complete UK X Certificate version released by the BFI on a Region 2 DVD a few years back, but the even more censored American cut.

Yeah, I'm to understand this version is at least a dozen minutes short of the full monty.

BLACK MAGIC

Shaw Brothers. It isn't one of their supernatural martial arts mixes, this is just supernatural horror that revolves around people using magic to have sex with or kill each other. It makes no sense in a few places, has awful special effects, has a scene of a guy wrestling a dog that looks quite irresponsible for the filmmakers to do, but the film is fairly entertaining. There is a brief vision of a woman surrounded by a few hopping women in a forest and I wish it had more imagery like that.