I had the distinct pleasure of seeing BTVOTD on the big screen in London many moons ago. So much fun. On another wonderful evening I watched Vixen, Supervixens, and Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens. I think those were the three. Maybe Up! was one of them. Regardless, it was a pretty amazing 5 or so hours of movie watching. Ebert wrote Beneath, too.
Caught nice, crisp prints of Mudhoney and Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! years back (AMAZING!), but I honestly can't quite remember if I ever experienced a celluloid copy of Dolls... those were greener days, to be sure! EDIT: I did! Just found the old listing for it! Back on thread point --- I've managed to attend screenings of a great many older horror pictures, some from every decade, but my favorite repertory-style night out* was back in the late eighties, when the Royal Oak Music Theatre projected an aging 3D print of Flesh for Frankenstein. Life changing! "To know death, Otto... ...you have to fuck life in the gall bladder." *Polanski biscuits aside,
The Void has a limited theatrical release opening tomorrow and will be available via iTunes as well. Looks awesome.
Just watched The Void during dinner - luckily I had finished the meal before things kick into gear! I would put it up there with Hellraiser, Event Horizon.. has the same feel as We Are Still Here but is much more dynamic.
I just watched it on Amazon. What a bizarre film. ...not sure what to make of it. Will rewatch.The effects were good--no cheesy CGI stuff.
I enjoyed the Void overall, but there was something missing from the "evil" plot that never came together as a satisfying answer to the mystery element as it unfolds. Ha, I'm trying to not mention specifics for those who haven't seen it. If you have yet to tho, I still encourage you doing so. It's worth watching just for the practical effects and genuinely creepy well designed monsters.
Gonna throw out a rec for a nice little film I watched today called The Eyes of My Mother. Wasn't expecting much, but it showed up recently on Netflix after I'd added it to my Amazon Watchlist, and I thought I'd give it a whirl. It's short, about 75 minutes, in black & white, with a small cast, but it's effective and affecting. Oh, and Don't Breathe is pretty damn awesome.
Bummer, watched the Void last night and I gotta say it was ok. All the criticisms I've seen of it are pretty dead on. You won't be wasting your time or money watching it, but I was pretty underwhelmed. And I really like Astron 6's other comedic films. I really wanted to like this one.
Yeah, it's not exactly mind-blowing, but it's pretty fun. My biggest complaint is that they resorted to the ol' quick cut, shaky cam, lights flickering bit when it came to the big creature reveals. I mean if you're going all out on practical creatures, then show them. It was very difficult to make them out and I wanted some Thing-like dudes at which to gasp. The acting wasn't the best either. However, the nods to Carpenter, Fulci and Lovecraft via Stuart Gordon were pretty fun. There are a few too many ideas that don't all come together, but I'd rather watch a fun mess like this than most other new stuff that's out. My rental is for seven days, so I'll definitely watch it again, and will also watch it when it's free to stream, so that's saying something.
The Void: Much like Domino's pizza in the 80s, avoid The Void. Tedious...boring...crap. It's very fitting that the last line of dialog is "Is it over?". I was reminded of Beyond The Black Rainbow - a few cool looking scenes, but overall a tedious movie not worth watching. And BTBR was a much cooler looking movie.
I agree with most of this. As far as the creatures I made sure to watch on a big screen with every other light off in the entire house while it was pitch black outside and I was pretty happy with what was shown. I think lots of the dark scenes would have been too dark any other way. I really LOVED how the dead were as slow as they should be. None of that elite athlete zombie nonsense we see too often. Dead things should be slow. It sort of reminds me of The VVitch with how polarizing it is for fans. Kind of a love or hate film. I really liked it but I can understand why some people don't. It was kind of a hybrid between The Thing and Hellraiser and The Strangers. I didn't mind how much was and wasn't explained overall. It felt like what you would learn if you were in the situation and opposed to everything being watered down for the audience and carefully explained like most movies are. Most major things were explained if you piece everything together I think. Plus it was nice to see Knives Chau in another fun movie finally.
Except that The Witch was utterly unique, unlike the uninspired mish-mash of somebody's favorite scenes from other movies that is The Void.
Agreed though I did enjoy this film it is kind of a montage of other films. The VVitch was in my opinion a true piece of art and I adore that film but so many people really hate it. I can understand not liking The Void but anyone who hates The VVitch just has poor taste in horror films. Or at least taste so different from mine that I can't understand it at all.
The Witch didn't really do much for me. I enjoyed it, but I'd watch something like The Void again (watched it today actually) and don't see myself doing the same with The Witch. Although, never say never!
I watched The Void last night and I thought it was pretty rad. Not very original but I loved the overall vibe. Spoiler The creatures were pretty damn disturbing and reminded me of some video game bosses. They were so far from how any monsters in movies look these days. The doomy soundscapes and the sounds the creatures made, as well as their movements, were all great. And the minion dudes looked soo awesome. A basement in a basement is something out of my own recurring nightmares and I thought that all of the creature scenes felt like a nightmare, dark and not exactly clear whats happening. Some holes in plot and the acting didn't make me dislike it. Loved when the 'endboss' crushed the minions head by accident!!
To each their own. Especially when it comes to horror films. I've heard some people don't like The Thing and I'll never be able to fathom that.
Mulholland Dr., Hausu and The Tenant are pretty standard go-to rewatches for me. Can't ever pass up The Ninth Gate, The Thing or Starship Troopers, either. It's rare, these days, that I'll give a second watch to new films, at least in the same general time frame, but I did spend a solid week with AntiBirth a few months ago. Rubbed me right. Anywho, guess I should get around to checking out The Witch, huh?
I don't even consider The Witch to be a horror movie. It's just a masterfully made piece of fine art, and pegging it with the horror label does it a major disservice. Not liking it is fine - there's lots of fine art I don't like. But there's simply no comparing The Witch and The Void - there's nothing remotely similar about the two movies on which to build a comparison. The Thing is great, but I can see how someone would find it boring.
I think not calling The VVitch a horror movie does a disservice to horror itself. Just because it's truly amazing doesn't mean it's not a horror film. Everything about it is pure horror. The eerie soundtrack. The long drawn out nature shots. The movie starts with a baby being kidnapped and churned into butter to make a witch able to fly. It is as horror as horror can get. Yes it's art and easily the best witch movie I've ever seen but that doesn't change it from horror to something else. Horror can be masterful for sure. It just usually isn't.
I've always found horror movies to be narrow, harrowing escapes from something horrific. The Witch doesn't fit that, IMO. It's much more fairy tale than horror. More Bros. Grimm than Stephen King. The ending, while having multiple possible interpretations, was downright jubilant IMO. There's certainly a cross-over of elements between fairy tales and horror - but I don't agree that eeriness, nature shots (?), kidnappings, or witches are a hallmark of horror. With that said, because things need to be categorized for consumption, horror is the most natural genre to attach to The Witch - but it falls well short of adequately representing the movie.
