The Horror List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

[swo17]

Wrong thread. This is not horror video. This is just this guy's house

[colinr0380]

It also feels very in the tradition of P.T., even down to the regular stop off at the bathroom, only more creepy!

I keep going back and forth on subscribing and unsubscribing to this guy's channel, as every so often the video domino linked to gets recommended, I think it's great and wonderfully atmospheric, subscribe and then eventually look back at his older videos where he's doing weird things with ants and start worrying that it is not fictional any more! Then I start worrying about the other videos YouTube may start recommending if I stay subscribed (mostly Minecraft videos *shudder*) and quickly unsub, usually subscribing to a couple of house cleaning tips channels in the process!

But I guess if this channel can unnerve me that much, it may be doing something right!

[domino harvey]

Over the Garden Wall is a quick watch, coming in at just under two hours for its ten animated parts, and very charming as its pair of child protagonists navigate being lost in an enchanted forrest and encountering some endlessly inventive distractions on their way home, including a cult of pumpkin-headed townsfolk, a Richard Scarry-book’s worth of woodland creatures in human roles, a reluctant ghost, and a mythical beast lurking in the background for the length of the story. The fun celebrity voices from Elijah Wood, John Cleese, Melanie Lynskey, and more are also welcome.

If anyone has been trying to find a copy of the OOP Australian Blu-ray of this, a seller on eBay has multiple copies for ~$40 (much cheaper than the $150-200 it has been going for since WB canceled Cartoon Network’s deal with Madman)

[Murdoch]

Much appreciated, domino. As of now there's only five copies left

Update: I was notified by eBay that the seller's account was removed for an undisclosed reason, yet my item still shipped so hopefully it's legit!

[domino harvey]

It’s a bootleg. Now I have to try to get my money back. Sorry you got caught in this too

EDIT I was successfully refunded

[Murdoch]

Uh oh, that explains why the guy's account was deactivated. No worries, awaiting its arrival but I'm sure it'll likely be the same deal.

[domino harvey]

Uh oh, that explains why the guy's account was deactivated. No worries, awaiting its arrival but I'm sure it'll likely be the same deal.

I initiated a return and messaged the seller for a refund, so I’m not sure which of these two steps resulted in me getting refunded without having to mail anything, but hopefully you’ll have the same success

My guess is someone ordered a bunch of these boots to sell for conventions etc and didn’t expect people like us or other eBay buyers who know the difference between a pressed or burned BD-R or can tell immediately that the Blu-ray case they use is wrong for Madman, because it was professionally (ie not heat) sealed and would look real if you didn’t know any better, and the price was high enough that it’s convincing in the initial smell test. But immediately clear once you look at the underside of the disc!

[Murdoch]

Thanks for the guidance, I'll try both options. It's certainly a convincing posting, hopefully some legit copies pop up for under $100

[domino harvey]

The Backrooms movie is still happening, and is set to star Chiwetel Ejiofor

[domino harvey]

The Backrooms movie is still happening, and is set to star Chiwetel Ejiofor

Now also Renate Reinsve!

[colinr0380]

That is exciting news, though I am trying to temper my expectations as much as possible! There is enough material in the Backrooms videos already to show that you can have lengthy live action bookends with real people explaining the lore or setting up the situation (similar to Cannibal Holocaust in some ways!), but hopefully all involved (especially the producers) know that there probably still needs to be a good 40 to 50 minute immersive chunk of the film that has to take place in first person shakey-cam style exploration of lovingly detailed impossible CGI created environments. You can probably do a third person exploration as well, as those have appeared in the previous videos (albeit everyone involved in those are hazmat-suited scientists, so you couldn’t get a recognisable actor to do those bits either!). Maybe have two or more civilian people simultaneously fall into the Backrooms together, so you can have one filming the other, or passing the camera between them? Which would also be interesting as something that has never occurred in the Kane Pixels series before.

I would like to hope that a feature length version of this can maybe do two or three ‘explorations’ across different eras with different quality cameras, from the classic warbling and fuzzy VHS up to glitchy modern digital, maybe making it into a kind of anthology film with interstitials showing the mysterious organisation trying to understand and otherwise deal with the situation?

The other big thing I am keeping an eye on is going to be whether Kane Parsons is doing the score to the film as well, as his environmental-turned-score cues synced to the action feel crucial to achieving some of the beautiful serene-yet-unsettling ambience of the short films. Considering his “Not Kane Pixels” channel is full of various tracks hopefully that is working as proof that he seems more than ready to tackle something like that. I could understand bringing in a veteran industry composer to ‘collaborate’ on a big project like this, or act as a kind of insurance for the money guys (so a co-credit would not particularly initially worry me), but if he is entirely excluded from scoring duties that may be something that would make me concerned.

[domino harvey]

Venus Flytrap (T Michael 1987) Well, here's a weird one. Shot on video and running just a bit over an hour, this flick finds a trio of punks intimidating a group of hilariously milquetoast yuppies, only to discover

Spoiler

That the yuppies are actually twisted predators who get off on luring punks to their house and then offing them during sex!

The whole thing has a sub-Paul Bartel feel to it, and the oddly mannered acting only helps. Also, it's definitely the 80s not just in the obvious right-wing commentary but with the word choices employed as well-- some variation of the word "faggot" must pop up at least thirty times. But there are some choicer moments, like when the lead preppy, who looks like Fred from Scooby Doo, starts punching one of the punks while gritting through his teeth: "Learn… some… respect… for… society!"

This shot on tape movie is getting a Blu-ray release

[TechnicolorAcid]

Horror Shuffleton: Dead on Revival
Entry #1: Diva in the Netherworld

Greetings everyone and happy Halloween! To commemorate the occasion, I've returned to a project I buried almost 2 years ago and boy did I return on a weird one. Diva in the Netherworld on the surface is just a standard haunted house film; 2 opera singers and their manager have their car break down and have to spend a couple nights in a spooky mansion with a sinister and supernatural twist, but Diva in the Netherworld becomes less like those movies and more like something akin to House (1977), as everyone else who's seen this movie will tell you. But there's a good reason for that because there is absolutely a sense of Obayashi's childlike joy and gleefully unruly nature in this film as it goes along, gleefully testing the limits of itself until the opening act introduction of a stop-motion pet dragon seems like one of the more normal and sane parts of this film. The fact that one of the central characters starts pointing out that what's happening to them isn't too far off from a spooky haunted house movie also just adds to the sense of loving parody that the film becomes later on, as though it's aware of its own predictable genre conventions and then sets out to do whatever it can to make sure you won't expect the next insane thing to happen. At points it's either a slapstick comedy, a mystery, or a superhero movie, all while getting in some genuine moments of horror before spending most of its closing act as a sand-covered hellscape backdropping an almost knowingly torturous fight of misery dressed in Spirit Halloween costumes.

Speaking of which, it should be pointed out that this also has a pure DIY charm to it that I really do adore, you can absolutely tell that everyone involved had a really fun time making this and the effects are so obviously low-budget that I can't help but love it. Probably my favorite examples is when the inciting incident of the film is played out with what's very clearly a toy car on a model set that the filmmakers clearly had no desire to hide and it. I also do applaud the attempts to incorporate the decently good stop-motion with live action, which aren't good but in a way add to the whole dreamlike tone of the film.

I should point though that despite everything that I've been saying, objectively, this isn't a good movie and especially not in the context of Obayashi's House. I think a major point in favor of Obayashi's film is that he does try to establish some character traits for his victims and by doing that, he allows the chance for us to feel bad when they actually get killed, which Netherworld doesn't really do and I think that makes it falter as a result (not to mention the film's decision to just undermine the potential impact of deaths in this film later on). I want to say that I think this is a fun time (at 64 minutes, it's also brief and swift enough to keep me interested throughout), but it'd be ridiculous to say that it isn't just a case of style over everything else and ultimately, in that regard, it is a pretty good movie. This is a movie to open up a can with your friends and spend riffing throughout on it but there's certainly worse you could deal with.

[domino harvey]

Over the Garden Wall will finally be released on Blu by Warners in April!

[knives]

Thank god

[colinr0380]

Want to get in on a new Analog Horror project before the usual suspects like Night Mind find it? Something called The Glendale Archives started uploading on the 21st December and are up to the third video now.

[colinr0380]

As with Joe Dante a couple of months ago the Red Letter Media guys have begun a ranking of Sam Raimi's films to tie in with the release of Send Help. Unfortunately we do not seem to have a dedicated Sam Raimi thread in the "Filmmakers" section, so this seemed to be the next best place to put it, although I mainly wanted to post the link to this rundown because most of my comments are relating to the least horror-film-y film of Raimi's career, the Kevin Costner starring baseball film For The Love Of The Game!

My nitpicks with the discussion of that particular film are mostly that Jay and his rarely seen pal Rich Evans do not really put that film into the context of the times, which is not just that it is unmemorable as a film in itself but it is also coming far, far too late in the run of baseball films that occupied Hollywood for the preceeding decade. Arguably it started with Robert Redford in The Natural in 1984, but it really kicked in ironically with the two big Kevin Costner starring hits of Bull Durham in 1988 and Field of Dreams in 1989. Then you get all of the dark 'n' gritty takes on baseball from revisionist takes on the abusive behind the scenes behaviour of heroic on the mound beloved players in the John Goodman starring The Babe or the other Ron Shelton directed baseball film, the ascerbic Cobb with Tommy Lee Jones. Then there is the political scandal tinged John Sayles film Eight Men Out; or the Feminist take of A League of Their Own. Along with those you also get the more whimsical films that are taking the Field of Dreams approach to baseball such as the TV movie Cooperstown or the Disney 1994 remake of the 1951 Angels In The Outfield (and of course the kids film take on baseball with Major League - in a way it is strange that Richrd Linklater's Bad News Bears remake came along a decade after all of the 90s run of films, as another late to the party straggler to a trend that was long over!) And I was recently reminded of that utterly bonkers Wesley Snipes-Robert De Niro film directed by Tony Scott The Fan when it aired on television a couple of weeks ago, which was a very leftfield attempt at melding the baseball subject with a post-Se7en lunatic perspective! So by the time we get to 1999 the baseball movie has almost run its course with so many different (and surprisingly dark) angles explored!

And in addition to that we have to look at For The Love Of The Game in the context of where it comes in Kevin Costner's filmography. I would suggest that For The Love Of The Game is capping off a run of Costner films that began with 1996's golf themed Tin Cup. Which again (as with Bull Durham and Cobb) is directed by the King of the sports movie of that period, Ron Shelton (and they talk in that Red Letter Media video about the 'throwing the game, but still winning' trope of For The Love Of The Game as being in the tradition of Rocky, but it got its biggest expression in Tin Cup, with Costner's character going way, way, way over par at the climax, but 'winning' by eventually getting the ball in the hole at the end), and which is very much Bull Durham-but-with-golf. And then skipping over The Postman (which more properly works as a matched pair folly with Waterworld) that was followed by the schmaltzy romance film Message In A Bottle. And if you smooshed together the sporty aspect of Tin Cup with the schmaltzy aspect of Message In A Bottle you pretty much get the film which immediately followed, For The Love Of The Game!

So that is really what makes the rather unmemorable For The Love Of The Game worth talking about rather than anything to do with Sam Raimi - it is coming both as the capper to an entire lineage of baseball films, bookended by the same lead actor and is working as a kind of mini-arc in Costner's own mid-90s period also - the point at which Costner was probably wise to move away from sport-themed films and into other areas, with the great Cuban Missile Crisis historical drama film Thirteen Days and going back to his roots with the western Open Range.

[colinr0380]

Want to get in on a new Analog Horror project before the usual suspects like Night Mind find it? Something called The Glendale Archives started uploading on the 21st December and are up to the third video now.

The Night Mind fellow has now got it on his radar!

At the moment with the fifth video in this series, and a change in title from "Glennon Archives" to "Glendale Archives", I think I would agree with some of the commenters on the videos that it could be that we are seeing someone either slowly succumbing to the same 'Nester' plague, or even through their eyes as an actual Nester, where the world seems empty because they are in a different kind of layer of perception. Or something like that! The best thing about these kinds of ongoing video horror series is that it feels that you are seeing the creators feeling their way through different possibilities for their material in real time with their audience.

[Finch]

Event Horizon

I'd been curious to see the film for a while and it showed up on Tubi yesterday. If this is supposed to be Paul Anderson's best film, I think I'll pass on the others. The interior design of the ship is nice and Fishburne is good but the story feels like a check list with "the scientists are the villains" cliches (the motivation may be different but the end result is the same), and nods to the canon (another Shining blood tidal wave towards the end). The brief hell snippets are disturbing, I suppose, but nothing I'd already seen used to stronger effect in the Society finale or the first two Hellraisers. Horror is so frustrating when it plays to the peanut gallery. Hoping Damian McCarthy comes up three for three with Hokum in theaters next month.

[colinr0380]

After Netflix's attempt at tackling Junji Ito in animation form in Uzumaki, it looks as if there is going to be another attempt at adapting Ito's work into live action with a Chinese TV series Bloody Smart. From the look of that trailer it looks at if it may be trying to adapt the entire Ito-verse canon, from the Uzumaki school; to the Tomie, Soichi and Lovesickness characters; to discernible things like elements of Blood-Bubble Bushes, Slug Girl and Hanging Balloons. Although we will see if this will be able to reach the necessary scale to even approach doing something like Hellstar: Remina or Roar!

Plus a Japanese series "Junji Ito: Strange Tales for Sleepless Nights" in July; and a third anime series "Junji Ito: Crimson" are coming as well.