Part of Decemberdike for me. :skull:

tonight's ABUKtober flick is a slight cheat, it is an Anchor Bay but I have the Boulevard DVD version( with Larry Cohen Commentary)

Naming a month after yourself? You'll be changing your name to Emperor Demigula next. :lol:

Tonights viewings

Good idea.

You can be a slave to Demigula once i hit 50,000 posts.

You'll have to spell Emperor correctly or i'll have you soundly whipped by Bizarre_Eye. He doesn't dress like that just for fun you know.

Unlike you with your Servalan outfits. :hailwitch:

Waxwork. 8/10

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tD-SL1FfMqU


In the mouth of madness. 9.1/10


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PFcOeM_Usk


Waxwork 2. 8.4/10

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ScyCnTFpbY

May (2002)

Lucky McKee's directorial debut and one he has never bettered as of yet. May is a psychological horror film about a young woman who had a difficult childhood and very few social interactions. May's only true friend is a doll in a glass case given to her by her mother. She works at the animal hospital assisting with surgeries and her only possible friend is receptionist and colleague Polly who flirts with her. May soon strikes up a relationship with a guy who apparently likes 'weird' and May is certainly weird....

I'm going to stop there or i'll have written the entire plot outline.

May is an excellent horror film. A standout performance from Angela Bettis is at the centre of the film as she sweeps all before her with her quirky looks and mannerisms. Although Anna Faris, someone who seems more bonkers than May, is great as Polly too and could easily have stolen the film had Bettis given a lesser performance.

As the film goes on we become emotionally involved with May, or at least i did. It's quite a tragic film at times and must resonate with a lot of lonely souls. Other scenes will have you squirming yet unable to take your eyes away from the screen, especially the blind children scrabbling about in the glass. Bettis goes from timid mouse to terrifyingly sexy Goth chic (Am i the only one who found killing spree May in her claret dress extremely erotic? - Perhaps it's best not to answer that one) as the film explodes in a brutal orgy of violence and a final act that i won't spoil here.

19th
PET SEMATARY
A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET

20TH
NIGHTMARE 2 FREDDY'S REVENGE
NIGHTMARE 3 DREAM WARRIORS

21ST
NIGHTMARE 4 DREAM MASTER
WES CRAVEN'S NEW NIGHTMARE

22ND
MUTANT
MARK OF THE WITCH

23RD
CHRISTINE
THE PIT

24TH
CLOWN
WE'RE STILL HERE

25TH
WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO SOLANGE?
WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO YOUR DAUGHTERS?

26TH
PIECES
FOUR FLIES ON GREY VELVET

27TH
THE CARD PLAYER
BLOOD AND BLACK LACE

Be hitting the classics over the halloween weekend......

Pet semetery one of the few films that still has the same impact since the first time I saw it. Thanks to these two who are just as creepy and unnerving today as when I first watched it.

So i failed in my own challenge to watch and review 31 horror film i have not seen. Rusty was not well during the week so i just had no interest in watching any films. Sorry and thanks for all the likes of the reviews i managed to get in. Don't really have time to watch 12 films this weekend.

Sorry to hear about Rusty, Nord. Hopefully he's better now and you can watch a few horror films together. :werewolf:

Cheers B_E hopefully he will be ok for Halloweens classic marathon. :woot:

Film #9

"Hellraiser"

I bought the Arrow trilogy set recently from Sainsbury's, £20. I'd never seen the films but the posters are infamous and I remember my dad having the film on VHS when I was younger, and me looking at the posted art and being intrigued/terrified by the look of Pinhead. I really enjoyed the film, but it wasn't what I was expecting it to be. The notoriety of Pinhead had me expecting the film to be about him, but obviously for those that have seen it, the role of main character is a toss up between Frank, Julia, and Kelly. The film and the effects and make up really are top rate. I watched the Leviathan documentary afterwards and it made me appreciate the film all the more. Thank jeebus Larry said "Jesus wept" instead of the scripted "**** you!" That one line changed the entire tone and depth of his character. Amazing film and it's really stayed with me for days, milling the scenes over and over in my mind.

10/10

Film #11

"The Purge : Anarchy"

I enjoyed this a lot more than the first instalment. And I really liked that one too. Can you imagine that the Purge was a real thing?! All these daft characters cutting about going to the shops like "hey, we'd better get up the road, the Purge starts in 5 minutes". Hell bloody mend them! I wouldn't leave the house all that week beforehand. I'd be boarding shit up and polishing my guns!

7/10

Film #11

"Hellraiser" - AGAIN

I took this one in again last night for the @Arrowvideo tweet-a-long. That's the first time I've taken part in one and I couldn't keep up with the tweets. They were coming thick and fast and I struggled to multi-task watching the film and tapping away on my phone. I got a few likes and a few LOLs from Nicholas Vince though, so that was pretty cool :-)




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I've been censored!!

:-O



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Sorry to hear about Rusty's ill-health. I hope he recovers quickly and you are able to play catch up in the next fortnight.

A couple of quickies i've reviewed in the past.
 

Linda Blair looks quite pretty in this generic fraternity slasher set in in old manor house. At 101 minutes it's far too long and very little happens until the discovery of a madman running loose towards the end. Still, there's plenty of moody old dark house wanderings from Linda in her fancy dress costume which gives it a distinctly Gothic flavor.


Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)

The fifth film in the saga of Michael Myers. Take away the needless and daft occult opening scenes, well, no take away all the occult scenes and what's left is pretty similar to what's gone before it. Michael returns to Haddonfield on Halloween night to slaughter anyone connected with his family name.

The film features one or two interesting kills (Michael seems to have learned how to use farm machinery at some point, no wonder Loomis is worried every time he escapes from the madhouse) and serves as a farewell to the great Donald Pleasence.

Honestly it's not really as bad as people make out.

Tonights first viewing but in half a mind to save until halloween

Do both. I have watched it on its own and with the commentary, and intend to watch it again this month.

I think that will be tonight's viewing for me too.

Decided to saving it for Halloween. So going to try to watch these 3. Not seen bad biology before


Edit

Anyone seen bad biology before if its crap I'll give it a miss and watch either tales from the crypt or nightmare on elm street

I'll be watching it over the weekend hopefully - along with Trick 'r Treat.

It's The Witch for me tonight! :hailwitch:

Seen it a few times. I really like it. It's Hennenlotter's best film in my opinion.

Ended up switching it off after 20 minutes

The Undertaker (1988)

http://skyfall.a.ltrbxd.com/resized/...g?k=865e97ddbe

Joe Spinell's final film (he actually died during its production) and he clearly enjoys himself here, hamming it up as the lonely Undertaker who kills young women and uses their corpses to keep himself company back at his funeral home.

Overall this one is a seedy, low-budget, grimy curio with copious amounts of 'The Corpse Vanishes' for good measure, which Spinell's character watches everyday.

A fitting swansong in many ways for man who made a career out of killing women and defiling their corpses.

Psychomania (1973)

http://oblivion.a.ltrbxd.com/resized...g?k=62ab42f015

Fogbound-dreamy-folk-wyrd-occult by the way of the biker film, which resonates on some inter-dimensional plain of existence even now, several decades after its original release.

Here we have the ultimate 'youth in revolt' film; not just against the establishment, or 'the system'; not just against the police or the authoritarian social hierarchy; not just against organised religion and/or whatever god(s) people hold dear, but against life and existence itself - all the while playing out with malicious mischievous glee.

If you die truly believing that you will come back, then you will.

This will be odd, I've watched Arrow's newer BD of Tenebrae a couple of times recently so I'll watch this ABUK with the commentary track, ABUKtober gets serious big time... Evil dead and Suspiria left to go before the night itself.

http://i64.tinypic.com/ra4w1i.jpg

This is tomorrow nights film for me. :skullscream:

Don't worry i'm sure we can convince you it's an 8.5/10 soon enough.

Don't you like Frank Henenlotter's films?

It is if you go into the ones near me...unless you want a 1Direction concert film. There are hundreds of them!

The 'Cult Don' tag has gone to his head!

yes, but i just couldn't get into it, mind that could just be an excuse so i could play skyrim instead which is becoming very addictive

Wasn't me that came up with the term Decemberdike. :chainsawkill: It's been floating around a few years now.

You keep your anal fetish games out of this thread please. :thankingyou:

http://i1202.photobucket.com/albums/...psqric663p.png
[24] Mardi Gras Massacre
Mardi Gras Massacre is one of those films that perpetrated the demonising of the slasher subgenre as misogynistic in its attitudes to women. I don’t think there’s a single female character that isn’t a hooker. But interestingly it’s the male characters who exploit these women, from the antagonist who is sacrificing them, in a bizarrely captivating ritual that hypnotically repeats itself several times, to a cop who steals from one. The film’s morals are all over the place, in one amusing scene the antagonist attempts to let a sacrifice go, after discovering she’s only nineteen, but she stays, protesting that he should get his money’s worth, in another we see one sacrifice treated to a Chinese banquet, to ensure she isn’t gutted on an empty stomach. The score adds to the disconcerting atmosphere, from an ambient breathy drone to lapses into disco. The brief scenes at the Mardi Gras are spectacular looking, it’s such a shame for the most part much of the action takes place in bland nondescript dingy interiors. The acting is consistently abysmal, but despite so many faults the film is never anything less than entertaining.
:pumpkin::pumpkin:

http://i1202.photobucket.com/albums/...psyulmas0q.png
[25] Horror House On Highway Five
Richard Casey’s Horror House On Highway Five is one of those films that I’ve always struggled to articulate my love for. It has a schizophrenic quality, at times seeming completely inept, but at others showing genius in its lunacy. There’s an absurdity to so much, from a teacher sending his students unaccompanied into the woods to investigate some rocket inventor with ties to the Nazis, to nods to the likes of Fritz Lang’s Dr. Mabuse films. The film has an endearing sense of humour; the final girl’s ambivalence to her school-project partner finding a butchered cat in their van and then a dead body by a bin is deadpan brilliance. The same girl’s hair at one point towards the end amusingly becomes a wig. Apparently they took so long to complete the film the lead actress had completely changed her hairstyle. Director Richard Casey coming from a background of music videos, the score is of particular note, providing a surreal quality, but oddly when it came to sound effects they didn’t show the same acuity, one scene with an iron standing out in particular as woefully incompetent. Despite so much of it being played for laughs, or comically inefficient in execution, that Richard Nixon mask is still creepy as hell, the scene where one character is dictating a letter and a close up reveals nothing but a gibberish scrawl is also effective and those closing moments are hauntingly reminiscent of Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, if slightly botched.
:pumpkin::pumpkin::pumpkin:

http://i1202.photobucket.com/albums/...psngs4pad3.png
[26] Slaughterhouse
Slaughterhouse’s setting is undoubtedly its best asset, the opening shots of the slaughterhouse, the strung up animal carcasses, the shots at the dilapidated homestead, of decomposing animals, bones and pelts all set an effective atmosphere. The slaughterhouse owner’s monstrosity of a son Buddy is an imposing presence, slaughtering the people trying to take away his land, and amusingly, teens who were messing with his pigs. There are some fantastic, largely static, shots that set the scene dramatically well, like the string of bodies hanging from meat hooks towards the end, but when it comes to action sequences, none of the chase or kill scenes are in any way as striking or memorable. The attempts at humour often fall flat, the script is littered with puns, Lester ‘Bacon’ owns the slaughterhouse, and Buddy playing dress up as a cop comes across as woeful. The victims are largely undeveloped, particularly the teens, fodder with no effort made to get the viewer to relate to them, or care about them. As far as slashers go, Slaughterhouse is merely serviceable, not particularly bad or good.
:pumpkin::pumpkin:

http://i1202.photobucket.com/albums/...psm8lyoczx.png
[27] Cherry Falls
Scream and the post modern wave of slasher films highlighted the now fabled rule set, one of which being, you have sex, you die. For Cherry Falls to have the killer specifically targeting virgins was an ingenious decision. It’s conceptually self-aware, and director Geoffrey Wright laces everything with a satirical sense of humour, tongue also firmly planted in cheek. There are some cracking one-liners, when the students organise a party to mass de-flower themselves, one character dubs it a ‘hymen holocaust’. There’s a pervading sexuality, Brittany Murphy looks like she’s about to climax in almost every scene, and there’s a creepy sexual tension between her character and her on-screen father. The killer’s look is genuinely effective, feeling straight out of Brian De Palma’s Dressed To Kill. There’s dynamism to the set pieces and chase scenes, and the movie has a brisk pace. Apparently a victim of studio meddling, it feels very much like there’s more to Cherry Falls than we get, as if there’s something slightly more special under the surface, attempting to break out. The pieces are all there, but they don’t quite fit, as they should. But it’s a movie I’m very fond of, despite its flaws, I was a teenager during this wave of the self-aware slasher cycle, and it feels significant to me.
:pumpkin::pumpkin::pumpkin:

http://i1202.photobucket.com/albums/...ps4x3mu7pr.png
[28] Last Girl Standing
Last Girl Standing is a novel spin on the slasher formula, opening with the final chase but focusing primarily on the surviving final girl Camryn, and her dealing with both her physical and psychological scars, but also survivors guilt. It’s an intriguing prospect, opening with what is traditionally the pay-off for the subgenre, the movie manages to sustain momentum with the mystery of a killer who has seemingly returned from the grave. Camryn is visibly fragile, her quirks endearing, her newly forged friendship with Danielle is touching, and their relationship proves hauntingly significant in the final scenes. Occasionally the film lulls, as it descends back into the traditional formula, but it does still have the ability to shock, the skinned rabbit with twig antlers is a strikingly visceral image. Oddly the actual final chase is nowhere near as effective as the opening one, lacking the taut tempo, foregoing velocity for sentimentality. But the passing of the torch symbolism is chilling, if a little heavy handed.
:pumpkin::pumpkin::pumpkin:

The penultimate week has been very slasher heavy. Now onto the final few days. Sad times. Looking forward to closing with Trance, Retribution, Chopping Mall and Tales Of Halloween.

Tales of Halloween (2015)

Ten stories are woven together by their shared theme of Halloween night in an American suburb, where ghouls, imps, aliens and axe murderers appear for one night only to terrorize unsuspecting residents.

It's impossible not to compare Tales of Halloween to Trick r Treat (2007). However whilst that film works a treat (ahem) the same cannot be said for Tales of Halloween. Not all of it anyway.

After a terrific opening half hour with the short stories hitting you thick and fast it suddenly became a bit of a chore to sit through. So much information attacking your senses. Ten stories in under 90 mins is just too much. It would have worked far more successfully with half that number. I wanted it all to stop or slow down and take it's time. Visually it's excellent with so many references to horror down the years you just don't have chance to take it all in.

Where Trick r' Treat really works for me is the loving way all the stories interconnect with each other and you notice scenes from one story taking place whilst watching another. There's nothing like this here with only a few references thrown in, mainly during the police investigation story at the climax. Some of the ideas used did seem to come from other films such as Jeff Lieberman's Satan's Little Helper (2004), but it was lovely to hear and briefly see Adrienne Barbeau reprise her role of late night witching idea DJ throughout the film. Shame there wasn't much of a role for Tiffany Shepis mind, not that anyone really had much screen time.

Some of the stories amuse, some repulse, a couple i felt didn't work at all. Mostly though Tales of Halloween is a fun and gory spectacle that i think i'll watch in three segments next year.

Finally whoever told me Axelle Carolyn's entry was The Halloween Kid was wrong. If you want to see that you'll still have to buy the Soulmate dvd.

So did you like it?

We don't care about you watching it with a commentary. We want to know if you enjoyed it or not. :brainfood:

I enjoyed it very much – some bits more than others – but overall was impressed with the quality of the segments. Like you said, it's a bit too busy for its own good and would have been better with perhaps six stories, but it is something I will revisit about this time every year.

I didn't get on with the commentary particularly well because it a bit too much of a 'lads night in' with a selection of the filmmakers chatting about what they are watching and imparting observations of locations, stories, actors etc., but with far too much laughter and backslapping for my tastes.

:lol: Again, as much about the commentary as the film. You are obsessed dude! :skull:

It was the last thing I saw, so it's fresher in my mind. I'll be able to describe the film – and my favourite stories – better when I have seen it again.

It's also probably a hangover from reviewing discs for so long, writing down the length and quality of every extra feature on the disc!