What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[MacBlayne]

Originally Posted by keirarts

Halloween: Resurrection

Deciding that there is no sense in leaving things on a high note when cash is involved, Dimension decided to draw out one last film from the original universe before dropping it and starting again.
essentially this one starts with an act of cinematic fraud so blatant its actually depressing. H20 ends with Laurie strode decapitating Michael and ending the franchise. Apparently the god of slasher villains is over-creative writers who bullshit that it was actually a conveniently muted ambulance driver that Laurie killed leaving her spending the next few years in a nut-house tormented by guilt. so what happened to her son? The suggestion is that Michael killed him but who the f*** knows. Michael shows up, Laurie gets unceremoniously killed and then Michael heads home to stare at a blank wall.
That is until Busta Rhymes decides to live stream a bunch of kids wandering the old Myers house in Blissful ignorance of the fact that the shape has come home and isn't wanting visitors. Pretty soon the kids are getting bumped off one by one until the final girl and Busta rhymes decide to fight back. This ones directed by part 2's Rick Rosenthal and in all fairness once you get past the frankly idiotic premise its fairly entertaining. It was made in 2002 just as the interwebs was becoming a thing for film-makers and compared to some of the travesties out there is handles this shit pretty well. It's weird to see people communicating by Yahoo messenger almost as weird as it was in scream to see people questioned about why they have a cellular phone, my how things have changed. Non of the characters are especially likeable aside from the hot Katee Sackhoff who played the female Starbuck in the Battlestar Galactica re-jig. For an evenings entertainment its better than 5 or 6 and it was fortunately the end of things at that point until...

Not only do I consider this to be the worst of the series, but I honestly think that this is one of the worst films ever made.

[keirarts]

Halloween (2007)

Given that Ressurection seemed to be the final act, it was no surprise that given Hollywood's penchant for remakes, re-boots, re-imaginings and other forms of necromancy, that at some point Halloween would be on someone's list somewhere.
The gig was given to Rob zombie who kicked some spectacular ass with the Devil's Rejects. A nasty, down & dirty, low-budgeted horror-western-road movie that stripped away a lot of the universal studios backed, then dropped like a hot potato House of 1000 corpses. Given that no attempt to remake it was ever going to be popular I was actually one of the few glad to see this, especially when director Rob Zombie made it clear he would try and make his own movie rather than slavishly copy the Carpenter classic. Here we get more scenes of the life of Young Michael Myers played by Daeg Faerch as a chubby little killer in a completely dysfunctional household headed by his single mother with a poor choice in men who makes ends meet as a stripper. Pretty much seething with rage Michael kills a bully at school and then goes off the deep end, killing most of his family bar his mother and his little sister angel, seemingly the only people he gives a shit about. Taken into smiths Grove he is put under the care of Dr Sam Loomis, here played by Malcom Malcolm McDowell who wisely decides not to even go near Donald Pleasances masterful performance. Instead the Loomis here is a vain egotistical narcissist who fails his patient entirely and abandons him for the book tour circuit after he realises Myers has disappeared behind his mask forever. Myers is safely locked away until Smiths Grove decides its best to hire morons to guard the inmates and two such morons take one of their patients into Michaels room for a spot of rape because taunting seven foot tall masked psycho's is always a good idea. Michael promptly tools up and heads back to Haddonfield to go hunting for his sister who has been adopted by the strode family.
While Rob Zombies Halloween is technically a remake, its better to think of it as a B-side or an entirely different mythology to its 1978 cousin. while carpenter used the story to talk about hidden evil, the nature of evil as a concept that can exist even in middle class suburbia. Rob Zombie delivers a film about family bonds that while lacking the deeper subtext of the original is still a decently told story. Its nice to see that Zombie resisted the temptation to stage stunt gag murders and delivers everything straight forward, brutal and believable. Add in the shaky hand held nature of the interior scenes and its clear Zombie has decided to go for a more cynical, more brutal and entirely different type of story to Carpenters. Certainly he retains several scenes as a nod to the fans but taken as its own film this Halloween is nowhere near as bad as some suggest. My only problem, is a fault that I find with a lot of Zombies films, he tends to lose focus in his story telling, looking at the deleted/alternate footage, the R-rated cut which is different in several key scenes and the other alternate footage there is a lot of stuff that Zombie does that ends up on the cutting room floor. Some focus might be appreciated but overall I like his work enough to welcome this into my collection. Certainly compared to other attempts at re-working Carpenters material for the big screen, The thing, the Fog, Assault on precinct 13, its a masterpiece.

[keirarts]

Originally Posted by MacBlayne

Not only do I consider this to be the worst of the series, but I honestly think that this is one of the worst films ever made.

its not as bad as parts 5 or 6....

[gag]

Originally Posted by MacBlayne

Not only do I consider this to be the worst of the series, but I honestly think that this is one of the worst films ever made.

Personaly i think a lot of franchise films get lazy or stray from concept of the films or just keep chirning them out because they can because off the franchise and think their on to a winner. I might be missing out on some good films but i tend to get bored after the 3rd film, think only films where i havent was Final destination i thought the 3rd was ok but the weakest of the lot, Personaly a lot of films you havent got a clue if their good or not after the 3rd film because they stop pushing the film and just tend to release the next 5/6/7 r so films without any publicity unless u a film fan you dont notice this, how many times have you heard from a average film watcher say i didnt know there was a part four. You even get that occasionaly from fans as well. Their loads of films/franchise etc out there where there 7/8/9 etc films
Halloween
Fri 13th
Children of the corn
Hellraiser
Tcm and lets be fair most of them after the 3rd are pretty dire and rubbish
Nightmare on elm st are just a few.

[MacBlayne]

Originally Posted by keirarts

its not as bad as parts 5 or 6....

I'm afraid I think differently. Whereas parts 5 & 6 tried, yet failed to something different (connect Michael Myers to a Celtic cult), Resurrection is lazy, lazy, filmmaking.

Not to mention that the characters in Resurrection are so sleazy. Not the fun type of sleazy you find in Joe D'Amato's films, but the "no way in hell is my daughter going with them" type of sleazy.

[MacBlayne]

Originally Posted by gag

Personaly i think a lot of franchise films get lazy or stray from concept of the films or just keep chirning them out because they can because off the franchise and think their on to a winner. I might be missing out on some good films but i tend to get bored after the 3rd film, think only films where i havent was Final destination i thought the 3rd was ok but the weakest of the lot, Personaly a lot of films you havent got a clue if their good or not after the 3rd film because they stop pushing the film and just tend to release the next 5/6/7 r so films without any publicity unless u a film fan you dont notice this, how many times have you heard from a average film watcher say i didnt know there was a part four. You even get that occasionaly from fans as well. Their loads of films/franchise etc out there where there 7/8/9 etc films
Halloween
Fri 13th
Children of the corn
Hellraiser
Tcm and lets be fair most of them after the 3rd are pretty dire and rubbish
Nightmare on elm st are just a few.

[keirarts]

Halloween 2

Rob Zombie delivers a sequel that surpasses his original film, shock! I say that half in jest as most fans accept Devils Rejects was a better film than House of 1000 corpses however, and this may be controversial, I really, really like zombies Halloween 2. Essentially it kicks straight off from part 1 with Michael Myers escaping the ambulance that carries him off. He heads straight to Haddonfield hospital and it looks like we're in for a replay of the Hospital from part 2...except its all a dream, or is it. Admittedly its a flaw in the film but its never abundantly clear where the dream ends and reality begins as we re-join the now pierced and tattooed Laurie strode whose dealing with the events from part one, barely. She's pretty messed up to the annoyance of her friend Annie, played by Halloween stalwart Danielle Harris (nice to see zombie bringing her back for these.) and her father Sheriff Bracket, played by the ever awesome Brad Dourif. Meanwhile Dr Loomis has another book out and a revelation in it threatens to tear poor Lauries world apart. Even worse Michael has decided to head home and finish what he started.

Part of what I like about part 2 is what I liked about part one. The violence is savage and immediate and not at all jokey or comedic like it is in a lot of the later slasher flicks. In fact if anything its more brutal and direct here with Michael becoming the embodiment of pure rage. Some nice cameos (clint howard, richard Lynch, Udo Kier in the first, Caroline williams ect here) However what takes this over and makes it my favourite is the weirder elements zombie includes here. From the imagery of the white horse and his mother guiding him to the killings which could be either just plain madness or something supernatural to the weird hallucinatory imagery including the pit of bodies in the hospital, the weird fairy tail characters feasting.. its a trippier, weirder sequel that might even be happening in Lauries head as she sits in a psych ward (just one reading of it. ) I know a lot of people hate the zombie versions and I don't really blame them but I find myslef liking them more each time I watch them


and that folks is why I've not been posting so many reviews up recently..

phew!

[keirarts]

Originally Posted by MacBlayne

I'm afraid I think differently. Whereas parts 5 & 6 tried, yet failed to something different (connect Michael Myers to a Celtic cult), Resurrection is lazy, lazy, filmmaking.

Not to mention that the characters in Resurrection are so sleazy. Not the fun type of sleazy you find in Joe D'Amato's films, but the "no way in hell is my daughter going with them" type of sleazy.

in fairness it is an appalling bastardisation of H20...

[MacBlayne]

Originally Posted by keirarts

Halloween 2

Rob Zombie delivers a sequel that surpasses his original film, shock! I say that half in jest as most fans accept Devils Rejects was a better film than House of 1000 corpses however, and this may be controversial, I really, really like zombies Halloween 2. Essentially it kicks straight off from part 1 with Michael Myers escaping the ambulance that carries him off. He heads straight to Haddonfield hospital and it looks like we're in for a replay of the Hospital from part 2...except its all a dream, or is it. Admittedly its a flaw in the film but its never abundantly clear where the dream ends and reality begins as we re-join the now pierced and tattooed Laurie strode whose dealing with the events from part one, barely. She's pretty messed up to the annoyance of her friend Annie, played by Halloween stalwart Danielle Harris (nice to see zombie bringing her back for these.) and her father Sheriff Bracket, played by the ever awesome Brad Dourif. Meanwhile Dr Loomis has another book out and a revelation in it threatens to tear poor Lauries world apart. Even worse Michael has decided to head home and finish what he started.

Part of what I like about part 2 is what I liked about part one. The violence is savage and immediate and not at all jokey or comedic like it is in a lot of the later slasher flicks. In fact if anything its more brutal and direct here with Michael becoming the embodiment of pure rage. Some nice cameos (clint howard, richard Lynch, Udo Kier in the first, Caroline williams ect here) However what takes this over and makes it my favourite is the weirder elements zombie includes here. From the imagery of the white horse and his mother guiding him to the killings which could be either just plain madness or something supernatural to the weird hallucinatory imagery including the pit of bodies in the hospital, the weird fairy tail characters feasting.. its a trippier, weirder sequel that might even be happening in Lauries head as she sits in a psych ward (just one reading of it. ) I know a lot of people hate the zombie versions and I don't really blame them but I find myslef liking them more each time I watch them


and that folks is why I've not been posting so many reviews up recently..

phew!

Great write-ups!

I didn't like Zombie's Halloween 2 when I first saw it. But I had a grudging respect for it. It's certainly different from most slasher sequels, and I admire it's focus on how the events of the first film have damaged the surviving characters (Brad Dourif's Sheriff Brackett was one of the poignant characters in the film).

In the years since I saw it, the film seems to getting a reappraisal so I'm looking forward to rewatching it.

[Rik]

I really like both Rob Zombie Halloween's. Yeah, he turned Michael Myers into an actual character, not just a faceless Shape like Carpenter created, but that doesn't bother me, I was happy for the change considering how much the franchise had declined in recent years (not including H20, which I think breathed new life into the series).

I much prefer them than the F13 remake or whatever it is