What's the latest movie you've seen?

[THGhost]

Originally Posted by pennydreadful

.... take thy beak from out my heart and take thy form from off my door!!!

http://www.rankopedia.com/CandidatePix/184436.gif


Quoth the raven: Bad remakes galore.

I have NO idea what this means!

[B-Man]

Last House On The Left and Evil Dead are the only two remakes of late I respect. Mind you, I consider Zombie's Halloween II: Director's Cut to be truly underrated.

[pennydreadful]

THG: Edgar Allan Poe reference.

B-Man: House of 1000 Corpses is my fave Zombie movie. The opening scene alone... it's my go-to for when I've had a bad day.

I may or may not have two Captain Spaulding tshirts in my wardrobe, because I love it that much.

[THGhost]

I mean what it means, literally. I've read it several times now and cannot make sense of it.

[MsMarvelDuckie]

Originally Posted by THGhost

I mean what it means, literally. I've read it several times now and cannot make sense of it.

It's a quote from "The Raven". He's being tormented by the bird's presence, and wants it to go away. It's "haunting" him by sitting on the ledge above his door.

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by pennydreadful

THG: Edgar Allan Poe reference.

B-Man: House of 1000 Corpses is my fave Zombie movie. The opening scene alone... it's my go-to for when I've had a bad day.

I may or may not have two Captain Spaulding tshirts in my wardrobe, because I love it that much.

Oh, god. "Devil's Rejects" is classic but "Corpses" is f***ing terrible. Oh, Jeebus. There needed to be a placard before the opening: "Hi, my name is Rob Zombie, and I'll be masturbating on celluloid for you this evening..." Holy sh*t. There's, "I wanna do an homage to 'Texas Chainsaw'," and then there's, "I wanna make the exact same movie, but edit it like one of the White Zombie music videos from back when we had no money. Also, have you guys met my wife? You're gonna be super-acquainted by the end of this."

I was so, so, so pumped for that movie, went to see it on opening night, and hated it SO MUCH. I mean, it's watchable, but it's, like, really bad. Super disappointing. I know it was his first movie but I expected so much more. Really lazy first effort, in my honest opinion.

Contrariwise, I thought "Rejects" was brilliant and that he should have just done that movie in the first place. That one was genuinely uncomfortable to watch, in the vein of the 70s flicks it was paying homage to, while not being such a blatant rip-off as the first one. I guess everyone deserves a Mulligan.

[THGhost]

^ Agreed. I've only seen a small handful of Rob Zombie's work, and every single one of them starred his wife. I'm getting a little sick of seeing her now.

[MsMarvelDuckie]

Originally Posted by pennydreadful

I tend to be a bit of a hardass when it comes to horror remakes... mostly owing to not having been impressed by the vast majority of the "big" remakes I've seen, like Nightmare on Elm Street, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hitcher, House of Wax, Friday the 13th, Carrie... don't even get me started on the Fright Night remake - I could b*tch about it for the next ten years and still have rant left over. Too many disappointments have turned me into a crusty old elitist.

Though I will give Rob Zombie props for what he did with Halloween... but yeah, I'm a horror snob. They can have my Universal Monsters box set when they pry it from my cold dead hands, I say!

I'll second that, penny. Most of the remakes of classic horror films in recent years have just- missed the mark completely. Didn't even see the Nightmare one, as Englund is so ingrained in my heart as Freddy that I can't even see anyone else in the role, period. Didn't care for the Ft13th, TCM, and Carrie ones, either. Haven't seen House of Wax, so I can't judge that one. And TBH, I wasn't overly fond of Zombie's Halloween, either. Yeah, horror snob here, too, LOL!

The only remakes I've liked were Fright Night and Evil Dead. The originals were just so cheap and corny I actually laughed through most of both. The new Fright Night was actually kind of serious, though, and it was a nice change. Evil Dead was so hokey I couldn't take it seriously, but the NEW one??!! *shudders* That scene with the trees was how it SHOULD have looked in the original!

Originally Posted by THGhost

I haven't seen either versions of The Hitcher or House of Wax, or the Carrie remake yet, but I liked all those other remakes you mentioned. Especially the Fright Night remake.

I also really liked the Evil Dead remake, way more than I thought I would too.

I frickin' hate the Rob Zombie Halloweens. He ruined them if you ask me.

Ditto to all this.

Originally Posted by pennydreadful

.... take thy beak from out my heart and take thy form from off my door!!!

http://www.rankopedia.com/CandidatePix/184436.gif


Quoth the raven: Bad remakes galore.

LOL, nice one. Also, I like the fact that you used Hammer's Dracula. I'm actually rather fond of Langella's take. He's at least as good as Lugosi. IMHO, of course. Oldman was fun as the Count, too.

Originally Posted by B-Man

Last House On The Left and Evil Dead are the only two remakes of late I respect. Mind you, I consider Zombie's Halloween II: Director's Cut to be truly underrated.

Dunno about LHOtL, but I agree about Evil Dead! And rumor has it that Bruce wants to be in the next one. (Did you see the "Easter Egg" at the end?)

[Leo656]

I actually liked the Carrie remake better, but I honestly never thought the original was all that great in the first place. Ditto "Amityville Horror". Both originals were kind of overrated and the remakes hopped over a rather low bar.

Only thing I didn't like about Carrie was the CGI blood. People who do that need to be shot.

Y'know what's a good horror flick nobody ever talks about? "Suspiria". I'm jus' like whaaaaaaat.

[pennydreadful]

Argh, no. I just can't get down with anything about the Fright Night remake. It wasn't just that it was a bad remake of a horror movie I already loved - I thought it was a bad movie even as its own thing. Charlie was an unlikable douche - I spent the whole movie wanting to tear his head off and drop-kick it over the nearest fence. The back-story for Peter Vincent did that "oooh, it's all connected" horsepucker that I loathe, Toni Collette was obviously just there to collect her paycheck, Evil Ed had zero personality... it had none of the campy charm or metaphors of the original; it had no heart. It was like a race to the bottom to see which character I cared about the least.

It may have actually pissed me off less if they hadn't ridden on the name Fright Night to sell it - because really, it had absolutely nothing in common with the original other than the names of the characters.

Originally Posted by THGhost

I haven't seen either versions of The Hitcher or House of Wax, or the Carrie remake yet, but I liked all those other remakes you mentioned. Especially the Fright Night remake.

I also really liked the Evil Dead remake, way more than I thought I would too.

I frickin' hate the Rob Zombie Halloweens. He ruined them if you ask me.

LOL basically I'm saying (in a teasing way) that you liking all those other remakes was the beak in my heart.

Originally Posted by Leo656

Oh, god. "Devil's Rejects" is classic but "Corpses" is f***ing terrible. Oh, Jeebus. There needed to be a placard before the opening: "Hi, my name is Rob Zombie, and I'll be masturbating on celluloid for you this evening..." Holy sh*t. There's, "I wanna do an homage to 'Texas Chainsaw'," and then there's, "I wanna make the exact same movie, but edit it like one of the White Zombie music videos from back when we had no money. Also, have you guys met my wife? You're gonna be super-acquainted by the end of this."

The world can be divided into two camps: those whose fave is Corpses, or those whose fave is Rejects. They're both good, IMO but Corpses is far and away my favorite. It's classic 70's exploitation horror. Everyone slammed it when it was first released, but it's got a huge cult following now. I dunno, I mean, it's zany and camp and fun - it's the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre on a tab of bad acid. Rejects is more of a grindhouse road movie - they both have very different feels and different creative approaches. Zombie's big on experimenting with his work, which is why I enjoy his movies so much.

I dunno, maybe if you rewatched it you might think better of it?

Can't wait for his next one (31).

[MsMarvelDuckie]

Fair enough, penny. I mostly liked it for Collin Farrel's vamp character, anyway. He makes a really good bad guy.

Hmmm, most recent movie I've watched. Well, I guess that would be Karate Kid III- it was on today, and I hadn't seen it in a while, so..... Still good! Of course, they aired Karate Kid II before that, but I wasn't out of bed yet (at noon- shocking, I know) so I missed it. And that one's actually my favorite of the three.

[B-Man]

I like Corpses (the slow-mo 'I Remember You' scene is a mini-masterpiece) but Rejects is one of the greats. Every time I watch I can't believe how good it is. Zombie will never make a better film than that (though I am looking forward to his new one this year which promises to be in the same vein).

[Leo656]

I've seen "Corpses" a couple times, I just don't dig it. I really wanted to, but I don't. I can handle it, I just don't like it. I'll see it if it happens to be on sometimes but I'd never really go looking for it. At times it felt like it couldn't decide if it was supposed to be serious and dark or cartoony and zany. And it was just TOO similar to TCM for me, and that's yet another movie I was never really impressed with in the first place. You know how he's always doing awful remixes of his own good songs? That's exactly what that movie felt like, to me.

I thought "Rejects" benefited greatly from Zombie not trying to be all quirky and gimmicky and sh*t and just making a good movie. It's definitely more linear and doesn't take as many visual risks, but it also doesn't suffer as many misses, either. And a lot of the "humor" in the first one just doesn't hit, but the second one is really clever and smart. I'unno, there's a million reasons why I just don't like the first but really, really like the second one.

[pennydreadful]

I dunno, I guess the feel of Corpses just worked for me... as I said, it's definitely one of those "you like it or you don't" things.

Oh, I do know one horror "remake" that I adore beyond all imagining - Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; the version with Robert DeNiro. I could rave for days about how awesome that movie is - it gets a lot of hate and I really can't understand it. DeNiro is brilliant, and Helena Bonham Carter hands in the most heartbreaking performance as The Bride that I've ever seen.

It is far and away the best adaptation of Shelley's novel that has ever been made, and it genuinely pains me that it's so thoroughly under-appreciated. It's got magnificent production design, and it really brings it back to the Victorian horror story that it was supposed to be in the first place.

I mean, Frankenstein is hands-down my favorite movie monster, but it's like audiences got their knickers in a twist because he wasn't green with bolts sticking out of his neck in this one... but he wasn't like that in the novel either. DeNiro's makeup in this movie is actually much closer to the source material, and as a result, his pain and loneliness just stab you in the heart so much more because you can see the man behind the monster.

If anyone hasn't watched it, I really recommend that you check it out.

[MsMarvelDuckie]

Ooh, good call on that one, penny! How did you feel about the recent Wolf Man remake? I loved it.

[Leo656]

Yeah, I don't get why that one didn't take, either.

[AT-Man]

Birdman, pretty good.

[pennydreadful]

I wasn't really big on the Wolfman remake... it had potential but I think it really suffered from bad direction. The director has basically admitted that he only did it because he needed the money, and he only had like, 3 weeks of prep time beforehand. I think that it really fell apart because of that, and it went way too CG-crazy towards the end there.

I also prefer the original The Blob to the remake.

On the other hand, the remake of Cat People was just as good as the original, I felt - it had a much more erotic tone but it's still a brilliant movie (even if the ending makes me want to break stuff because it upsets me)... and there's this one scene in the movie with Malcolm McDowell which I am incapable of watching without gagging.

[THGhost]

Originally Posted by pennydreadful

Argh, no. I just can't get down with anything about the Fright Night remake. It wasn't just that it was a bad remake of a horror movie I already loved - I thought it was a bad movie even as its own thing. Charlie was an unlikable douche - I spent the whole movie wanting to tear his head off and drop-kick it over the nearest fence. The back-story for Peter Vincent did that "oooh, it's all connected" horsepucker that I loathe, Toni Collette was obviously just there to collect her paycheck, Evil Ed had zero personality... it had none of the campy charm or metaphors of the original; it had no heart. It was like a race to the bottom to see which character I cared about the least.

It may have actually pissed me off less if they hadn't ridden on the name Fright Night to sell it - because really, it had absolutely nothing in common with the original other than the names of the characters.



LOL basically I'm saying (in a teasing way) that you liking all those other remakes was the beak in my heart.

I sympathise. The remake isn't meant to be campy like the original (which I love, btw). Instead it's smart, stylish and actually quite funny which surprised me. I enjoyed it - but if it makes you feel any better, I will admit that it is one of those remakes that didn't need to be made in the first place.

Originally Posted by AT-Man

Birdman, pretty good.

Loved it. There's some great films nominated for Oscars this year. Birdman, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Nightcrawler (only 1 nomination for some unknown reason), Whiplash...

Surely nobody can disagree with this one - The Thing (1982), one of the best horror remakes ever made. Right?

[Peanut]

Watched The Tale of Princess Kaguya tonight and loved it. Beautiful movie.