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

Had a fairly terrifying nightmare that was more or less about the Species creature, which when I actually look at it is never as scary as I remember. Haven't seen the film in a very long time but I remember there being one good shot in it which was genuinely creepy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5L8pHKP-vv4
This video is on the official channel for the film. There's an interesting introduction by the director.

Black Angel - Short film but probably as good a mainstream 80s medieval fantasy film as you're going to get and a lot more poetic and beautifully shot than similar films. Roger Christian is remaking it longer but his track record is a little concerning, he made Battlefield Earth. Perhaps this short film is the best thing he's ever done?

Daughter Of Horror - Thanks to Old Lunch (?) for this one. I watched the one with the Psychic Teens soundtrack thinking it was the only available version and started to watch the official version but I think the Psychic Teens soundtrack probably improves the film. Very interesting surreal noir horror, I'd like to see more films like this that are essentially modern silent films (although this is from the 50s) with little or no captions.

One Dark Night - An okay teen horror film with above average special effects for the time. Meg Tilly stars so it's a keeper. Just like with Black Angel, the director wants to remake this early film of his. The interview with him on the bluray is pretty good.

Virgin Among The Living Dead - Cant believe it taken me this long to see a Franco film! I was bracing myself for what might be incredibly boring but I actually quite enjoyed it and I'm looking forward to a few more Francos, he really does have his own style. Cool macabre flower vase, two of the creepiest old rapists I've ever seen. Although my Screenbound dvd did have bonus feature hardcore sex scenes (not very explicit but I think they were real), the Rollin zombie scenes weren't included at all (put them on my youtube playlist).

Eyes Of Fire - direction seemed a bit straightforward so I wasn't expecting much, but the scenes with the forest spirits were quite impressive looking, those people embedded in trees. Watched it on youtube, would like to see a sharper disc version.
Check out this amazing poster.
http://view-from-the-paperhouse.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/the-devil-is-in-trees-eyes-of-fire-1983.html

Eyes of Fire is crazy! Like a campier, psychedelic low budget version of The Witch made decades before that came out. Those tree people...

want to see!!!

I am about halfway through Phenomenon and I don't want it to end
* the monkey
* the insects
* the music
* baby Jennifer Connelly and her smart serious super calm character

I love it!

Argento (and giallo in general, except for Zombi 2 which is mostly not good aside from the amazing zombie/shark fight) is pretty much a blind spot in my horror fandom but I more-or-less blind ordered the Suspiria remaster because the screenshots look amazing. I kinda half watched it on VHS a million years ago but the muddy thing I remember seeing bears no resemblance to the Technicolor nightmare it's apparently intended to be.

We recently watched Tenebre too and it was alright but nothing I have seen lately compares with Phenomenon
It's like a delicious snack

i thought i had a vague memory of seeing phenomena in the 90s but clearly i haven't. i'd remember the insects.

watch it! it is so good!!

if y'all are not paying the $5 for shudder you are missing out. it's worth the (very low) cost.

Sleepwalking Jennifer Connelly has a special communicative relationship with insects and also rides up a staircase on a lift with the monkey-assistant who saved her from a sleepwalking episode in a forest. I mean does it get better than that? Maybe the final act is an abusive bloodbath but the first half of this movie is so much to my liking that I want to crawl inside of it and hide for a while.

^^^your final sentence basically limns my feelings about most of my favorite horror movies

almost every piece of narrative art I really love is because of the beginning and middle tbh

What I particularly love about Phenomena is the scene of Connelly moving very slowly by the trees with the hyperactive Simonetti music. It's a hypnotic contrast and I wonder if Argento knew what he was doing or if it's just accidental brilliance.

Go for Inferno, Deep Red and Terror At The Opera.

Argento (and giallo in general, except for Zombi 2 which is mostly not good aside from the amazing zombie/shark fight) is pretty much a blind spot in my horror fandom but I more-or-less blind ordered the Suspiria remaster because the screenshots look amazing. I kinda half watched it on VHS a million years ago but the muddy thing I remember seeing bears no resemblance to the Technicolor nightmare it's apparently intended to be.

― Ape Wipes (Old Lunch), Monday, March 12, 2018 8:56 AM (four days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

omg old lunch please report back

Lieberman's Just Before Dawn and Squirm are also good fun.

― Bernie Lugg (Ward Fowler), Thursday, July 13, 2017 4:29 AM (eight months ago)

...the first half of this movie is so much to my liking that I want to crawl inside of it and hide for a while.

― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Monday, March 12, 2018 10:49 AM (one week ago)

What I particularly love about Phenomena is the scene of Connelly moving very slowly by the trees with the hyperactive Simonetti music. It's a hypnotic contrast and I wonder if Argento knew what he was doing or if it's just accidental brilliance.

― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, March 16, 2018 1:11 PM (six days ago)

Two Shaw Brothers ghost films released on bluray recently.

The Enchanting Ghost (1970) - Not to be confused with the similar and earlier Enchanting Shadow (1959). Takes a bunch of tropes from Japanese ghost films like the illusions, the rotting face and hair loss of Yotsuya films and the water reflections in Kwaidan. Female actress plays the male lead and there's no big plot reason for it. The film is okay, I found the sleeve notes about Chinese Pedant life more interesting.

The Ghost Lovers (1974) - Much better than the above film. Directed by the guy who was kidnapped by North Korea to make Pulgasari. Quite amusing/horrifying how two of the men challenged to spend the night with a recently deceased woman try to immediately have sex with her corpse in her family home.

damn that's some dark shit

It's not even treated in a particularly dark way, it's just "of course these scoundrels will try to have sex with her corpse as soon as they get the chance". It's a typical romantic ghost film in many ways.

gross

The Legend Of The Werewolf - Seems like a remake of Curse Of The Werewolf in some ways (set in France and same werewolf design) but it's a substantially different film. It mostly focuses on the detective work of police surgeon Peter Cushing. It moves along fine but it's not particularly memorable, although the zookeeper has one of the strongest cockney geezer voices I've heard in some time.
Animal cruelty: wolves getting stuff thrown at them.

From the Hellraiser 1-3 Arrow box set.

For such a famous 80s horror film, the first film seems so unusual, the British/American mix. I like it, most of the visual effects are really impressive.
Two complaints: (1) the bad guy dialogue is the worst thing about it. (2) people hang around a bit when they're in danger. The girl stands crying at the top of the stairs when she probably would have left and Pinhead doesn't try very hard to stop her using the box.
Really good bonus feature interview with Stephen Thrower about the unused Coil soundtrack, I already knew this story but there was more information and pictures from the fetish magazines Coil and Clive Barker shared.

Second film isn't as good overall but it nearly makes up for it with the labyrinth and the bizarre new doctor cenobite. But the bad guy dialogue is even worse than in the first film and the baby sewing itself doesn't look quite good enough.
The deleted hospital scene is nothing to get too excited about.

Third film is not good at all. Even the Motorhead song at the end credits is surprisingly poor (although to be honest I haven't really followed the band, so I don't know what they were like in the 90s).

I was going to watch more extras but the "Leviathan" documentary was just too slow and I just wasn't interested enough. But there are an absolute ton of extras if you care enough.

Uh...how the hell is Romero's Season of the Witch not more of a thing?!? I always thought it looked/sounded intersting but I'm shocked to discover that this obscure thing is one of his very best films. Certainly one of the best acted. Only caveat wrt this particular thread is that it's barely horror, but big thumbs up.

I’ve never even heard of it! And now I want to see it real bad.

See it! It's newly-available on blu-ray!

love season of the witch!!

great lady-going-nuts movie

Poking around online, I apparently am not alone in thinking this and The Witch Who Came from the Sea (also available now on Blu-ray!, because I guess I'm a shill for Arrow now) would make a solid double bill.

yeah i've always wanted to see season of the witch!!!

I saw it and Martin on tv in my teens, I think before I'd seen any of the dead stuff - both kind of overlooked I think

xps I saw hellraiser in the cinema last halloween, I hadn't watched it since I was a child (far too young, idk what my parents were thinking). What left an impression on me at the time wasn't even the cenobite stuff so much as the domestic scenes, which felt sordidly adult in the same way that late night soap operas do to a kid. Rewatching it I was able to appreciate the knowing camp humour of the dialogue ("what I care about is a new skin!")

watched the first two a couple of years ago. the second one, for me, just sucks

Go watch any of the subsequent entries and witness as the second rises to the level of a relative masterpiece in your esteem.

late to this but hellraiser 2 > 1 (i think i just like the hellworld-building that much)

i mean also

https://i.imgur.com/KkljP71.jpg

I've seen hellraiser 2 many times! It's a similar thing with terminator for me, I've seen judgement day a zillion times and the first film only once (&I don't really remember it)

first terminator is a very special film (in fact i think every time we talk about cameron in general on ilx all conversations eventually reduce themselves to "terminator is a v special film)

omg so i haven't seen hellraiser
is this something i have to do???? i've looked into it before....

i have to tell you that i just watched friday the 13th part 2 for the first time and was FLOORED. dunno how it took me so long.

I chose Part 2 for last Friday, as well. It's got two of the hottest guys in the entire franchise.

Any horror movie fan should watch the first two Hellraisers at least once, see if they're your thing. I don't think any of the other sequels are anyone's thing so you can stop there.

I know I've beat this drum before, but most of the Friday the 13ths (like most of the Halloweens) are a dull slog. The fourth one at least has this going for it, though:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocgj9tewHso

I want to say like the first 20 minutes of Friday 2 is a recap of the first.

I think first is fine, but I like part 6 and 4. And I like the sneaky way the reboot begins, which (like the My Bloody Valentine reboot) is the only thing it has going for it.

I tend to most enjoy those horror sequels which aren't afraid to be utterly batshit (Halloween 3, Seed of Chucky, Basket Case 3) so my fave 13th (and no one else's) is Jason Goes to Hell.

Hell is a mess, but Space and Vs. Freddy are pretty wacky, too. New York is stunningly bad and dull.

most of the friday the 13ths may be a dull slog but i still think they’re fun to watch

part five is one of the creepiest least functional movies i’ve ever seen

I wish contemporary neverending horror franchises went as weird and silly with their umpteeth iterations as F13 / Elm St did

Elm Street is still my favorite of the big franchises but it started strong and most definitely petered out on the back half. Anyone who's still stumping for New Nightmare on the basis of its clever conceit should force themselves to sit through the thing again, because it's not so hot.

(True heads know that Child's Play is the franchise which most successfully revitalized itself with weird silliness.)

(Jennifer Tilly has now played herself as inhabited by the soul of an evil doll in three installments of said franchise. Nuff said.)