I agree with your review. To me one of the most important parts of a good horror/mystery/thriller is having characters you actually like. That pulls me into movies pretty easily. At the very least you need characters that seem somewhat based in reality so you can put yourself in that what would I do/what will they do type of mindset. The Invitation had none of that at all. A bunch of people that no one would want to be friends with doing stupid shit with the only reason to keep watching being the mystery aspect which was a letdown in the end. Maybe a big creepy supernatural ending would have been a saving grace but nope. Just jerks doing jerk things. Speaking of new to netflix Road Games is on there now. I wanted to see it for awhile after hearing a couple good things but I didn't have time. Now that it's streaming I hope to catch it this weekend!
Hmm, Road Games is a bit of an odd one. One of those movies where some of the reviews make me wonder if I watched the same film. Not terrible, but a B-movie, without question. I also think all of the marketing/posters/etc. don't really serve the film very well. The French title of Fausse Route makes much more sense for the completed film. The acting is here and there, and while I don't think there is really any 'mystery' in it, it does achieve a fair level of suspense. I did like the play of language throughout the movie, but I guess this turned a lot of people off. I am not sure if the Netflix will have subtitles, so I'd be interested to hear how they worked this out. I think it tries a bit too hard to be out there, and sure doesn't offer a lot of payoff at the end of the movie, but still, far from the worst I have seen; all right for what it offers, provided your expectations going in are in the right place. (Also, as I said, I find that that trailer above doesn't do a good job of offering a fair representation of the film, and in the does it a disservice.)
Not sure what you mean about the subtitles, there were some for the French, but not everything was translated. Did it not have subtitles in the theatre? That would make things very confusing, at least at the end. Not that it would take a genius to figure it out, but I could see how that would bug people. I enjoyed it. It's not too hard to figure out who the killer is, but there's some red herrings that worked in making me doubt myself. I didn't get the full connection till close to the end. One tip-off was Spoiler: major spoiler when she didn't immediately run up to the car. Again though, why would you stay at an unfamiliar house where the people are so weird? Another horror trope I could do without. An aspect of that is what kind of threw me off for a bit. Started watching Stranger Things on Netflix, and 2 episodes in it's pretty decent. A tad better than most stuff on SyFy or Fox (or FX or whatever the hell it's called) but it's not earth-shatterinly good. Ryder is annoying, but the kids all perform admirably (although one's performance is pretty forced). And it definitely has the "if Speilberg directed King," vibe that's been tossed around. Hell the first scene is a pretty hard riff on ET. Didn't even recognize Matthew Modine till half-way through the 2nd EP. A few things I dig are the score and the credits. And they do nail the look and feel of the '80s pretty dang well. Edited to add: The girl from Road Games is in Kissed of the Damned which is worth a look-see.
Any giallo aficionados here? I've never been a horror fan (although I do like the trappings of the genre: posters, soundtracks etc), but I've been trying to ease myself in by watching some horror/comedy stuff, and l recently decided giallo sounded pretty interesting. I watched Deep Red and it was decent, but I'd read quite a bit about the form beforehand so my expectations were set pretty high and I ended up being a little disappointed. Then I watched another Argento film, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage and I liked that less than Deep Red. It certainly wasn't awful, though. Just wondering if anybody has any favorite films from that particular sub-genre they could recommend.
There's a whole thread about gialli here somewhere. Edited to add: http://www.skullbrain.org/bb/index.php?threads/giallo-movies.50879/
@Lttr Prssd Awesome. Looks like a relatively short thread, but I see some recs I was looking for. Think I'm just going to transpose my post and bumb that thread in case anyone wants to discuss.
Netflix is now showing Darling and Holidays. Don't really know much about Darling, other than it constantly pops up as a suggestion for me, but I've been looking forward to watching Holidays. UPDATE: Don't bother with Darling. Just watch one of Polanski's Apartment Trilogy pics since that's what is being ripped off here. Or "paid homage to," as the director would have you believe. There's a subtle twist in that you think it's going to be a Rosemary's Baby scenario but it ends up being a Repulsion rip. At 76 minutes it actually feels overlong. Holidays was fun. I enjoyed the St. Patricks's and Easter stories the most. New Year's wasn't bad either. The rest were pretty slim on story and scares.
What the hell! A horror movie I have been looking forward to seeing for awhile because of awesome trailers was actually a direct sequel to the Blair Witch but they didn't tell anyone that it was until now.
"Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky" is now available on Shudder. Go Watch! It's the Cool Hand Luke of Asian Body Horror films. You will enjoy
That is..... very odd. Especially since they already made a 'sequel' to it. I actually re-watched this not too long ago; while it will never be as good as it was then, and I have never particularly been taken with the found footage movies, at least I can really respect and appreciate that it did something different. If only the same could be said of more horror films today.
I should point out (re: The Woods) I also remain somewhat skeptical that this might not be just another Cloverfield/Lane situation, despite what the filmmakers have been saying.
Any Jarmusch fans here? This isn't really a capitol "H" horror film, but it is about vampires. I saw Only Lovers Left Alive recently and thought it not very good. For a Jarmusch film. I was pretty psyched imagining what a Jarmusch film about vampires would be like. I did watch it in several segments, so I'm think maybe I broke it's spell or something. i mean, it is 90% atmosphere. It just seemed to be received a lot better than what I thought of it. Also, he has a new film called Paterson that I think got a limited release in May and they just announced a wider release the end of December. No idea why it would take that long (the article did say that date would allow it to "qualify for awards"). Not a horror film, but it is supposed to be very, very good.
If you were a film critic, you'd need to come up with a clever headline for your review, like They're Watching, But You Shouldn't. Do critics still do those? Guess I'm thinking of guys like Gene Shalit.
Yeah, my first instinct was to be clever with the whole "watching," thing, but it simply doesn't warrant that much effort.
My girlfriend and I had the ...err... "pleasure"...if you even want to call it that...of watching 'Dracula Vs. Frankenstein' a few months ago and am just remembering it now. The cover and poster make it seem like it's going to be WAY cool. I mean, who doesn't look monster duking it out?! Well, lemme tell ya. It sucks eggs. Major hardboiled ones I might add. The dracula in the movie isn't even the same one thats on the damned poster! It's a total schlock-fest, and not even the good kind of schlock. Avoid this one at all costs.
Huh, I can come up with that kind of stuff pretty effortlessly from my years spent writing fortune cookie fortunes in Shanghai. I'm to be pitied more than envied... And don't you guys read reviews before you take a decision to watch something? Both of those were very poorly received. I've heard people say stuff like they don't need a reviewer to tell them what to think about a movie or whatever, but I live and die by critical consensus (with more weight given to reviewers whom I know share my tastes, of course). I mean, I'll occasionally make exceptions if it's something I'm extra curious about or it's subject matter I'm particular to, but very rarely. And even if I really wanted to see Dracula battle Frankenstein, which, of course, I do, I would never subject myself to something that has a 26% on Rotten Tomatoes as that does (and RT scores are usually about 10% higher than actual averages for some reason, though that isn't always the case)..
I don't typically take public reviews of films seriously. I like to judge them for myself, but yeah DvF was an abomination.
