October Horror Movie Marathon

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Justin101

Every time someone mentions Penny Dreadful it reminds me of one of Patti Smith's books where she talks in length about how she was on tour in Europe and she watched all of Penny Dreadful in the hotel while she was in London and when she got back to America she bought the DVDs. I've never seen it myself. Will check it out though at some point.

I just need to grab the third season now. Hopefully get a dvd set to watch in November.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Damien: Omen II (1978)

Set some seven years after the original with Damien Thorn now living with his uncle (William Holden) and his wife (Lee Grant) in New York State prior to joining military academy.

Damien: Omen II is basically a rehash of the first film with 'unexplained' deaths coming to all those who cross paths with the son of Satan. Whilst William Holden is okay he's no Gregory Peck and the film lacks a genuinely scary protagonist in the Billie Whitelaw mould.

The film does hit the mark with the death scenes most of which are beautifully inventive such as the guy sliced in half in an elevator by a falling cable, the death under the ice and the creepy killing of the reporter following a raven attack remain memorable even now.

I suppose when it comes down to it Damien: Omen II suffers from the curse of the sequel in that it tries to replicate the formula from the very successful first movie but fails due to most elements being so much less (acting, score and scares) this time round.

[Frankie Teardrop]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

I saw this last December. I've also still got the Blu-ray so i must have got something from it. Isn't it the film where basically everything that could happen does happen?

It IS the film where basically everything that could happen does happen, only I wish it'd happened when I was ratarsed enough to enjoy it.
Incidentally Dem, your review of 'The Prophecy', a film I've been avoiding forever, brought me closer to it. Only ever half-watched it, with 'meh' blinkers on. Forgot all those names and faces starred. Might give it a go this season.

[Frankie Teardrop]

ALIEN FROM THE ABYSS – Part of the fun of any monster movie is in the beholding, in seeing the monster, in finally reaching that moment when the embodiment of the awesome grotesque will be delivered. That’s what kept me up for those old Universal flicks when I was a kid, the lure of the reveal. I’m not much different now. By the time he made ‘Alien From The Abyss’, Antonio Margheriti had been around the block a few times. He knew that most reveals are crap. They are a simple but potent tool for snaring the terminally impressionable in the hope that they’ll buy into your half-baked ‘Alien’ knock-off long enough to stick around for a glimpse of something that looks like it was made by a community craft workshop, possibly assisted by H R Giger’s talentless nephew, with access to some knackered tyres, a few bits of oil-smeared pipe cleaner, and a big claw. Well, the big claw was impressive. What’s even more impressive about ‘Alien From The Abyss’ is that Margheriti strings us along for over half the movie before he graces us with his majestic unveiling. In the meantime, we have to pretend it’s an action thriller about Greenpeace’s attempts to expose industrial corruption in the jungle. Just when that gets dull, he takes the decisive step of throwing in a snake-charmer as his man of action; just when THAT gets dull, someone accuses someone else of being a squirter of snake juice. Along the way, some people get shot, Charles Napier gets angry, there are helicopters, and there are more snakes, this time in a cave. I liked ‘Alien From The Abyss’, but only because I’m highly tolerant of stupidity. If I wasn’t so into eighties Italian junk, my patience might’ve worn a bit thin. Antonio Margheriti was a long way from the gothique he used to peddle in the sixties, and also some distance from the likes of ‘Cannibal Apocalypse’, when he stepped up to helm this disposable shelf filler that just about gets by on quirky charm. Incidentally, ‘Cannibal Apocalypse’ contains one of my fave ever Italo-trash moments, a scene in which the central ‘gang’ of flesh eaters munch on someone’s leg to the strains of a sax-heavy disco number. There’s nothing as good as that in ‘Alien From The Abyss’, but I just thought I’d mention it!

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

It IS the film where basically everything that could happen does happen, only I wish it'd happened when I was ratarsed enough to enjoy it.
Incidentally Dem, your review of 'The Prophecy', a film I've been avoiding forever, brought me closer to it. Only ever half-watched it, with 'meh' blinkers on. Forgot all those names and faces starred. Might give it a go this season.

I really like it. The Prophecy i mean, not The Asylum. I plan to rewatch the other two films from the dvd box set in November probably.

I can't imagine it being a film you'd not enjoy, Frankie. Unless you have an aversion to Walken maybe.

[Frankie Teardrop]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

I really like it. The Prophecy i mean, not The Asylum. I plan to rewatch the other two films from the dvd box set in November probably.

I can't imagine it being a film you'd not enjoy, Frankie. Unless you have an aversion to Walken maybe.

The opposite actually, he's my favourite actor. People like Elias Koteas and Amanda Plummer are also faves, so I'm surprised I was so dismissive. But then again, I was like that with a lot of nineties genre stuff before I reversed my position in recent years.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

White Zombie (1932)

Madge Bellamy plays a new bride moving into her new husbands Haitian mansion who is transformed into a zombie by voodoo master Legendre (Bela Lugosi) in order to have her for himself.

Victor Halperin's early talky non-studio horror film is the first feature length zombie movie. Filmed in a mere 11 days on Universal's sets this is far better than it has any right to be. Lugosi is at his best, even if he is in need of a little restraint, and stalks the screen in a far more sinister way than he did the previous year in Universal's Dracula. Halperin adds lots of atmosphere thanks to the use of unconventional photography and an almost fairy tale trance like ambiance swathes the viewer, helped by some truly outstanding sound design. The scene showing Legendre's sugar cane mill being worked by the living dead is truly fantastic; One of the great sequences of thirties and forties horror.

If the film has faults it's in the performances of the other players which appear quite stilted, the same goes for the dialogue at times - although thankfully Halperin allows the film to go for long sequences without dialogue as he clearly knew there was too much exposition in early talkie movies which detract from the intense atmosphere- and the denouement where Bellamy returns to life (how?) borders on the ludicrous, but Lugosi towers over such trifling faults with his sheer bravado in probably the best independent horror film of the 1930's.

[MrBarlow]

Final Destination. 2000

Devon Sawa is the teen who has a premonition about the plane carrying his classmates on explodes after take off, when he is rejected from the plane with some class mates the plane explodes and death does not like to be cheated out.

Nicely done teen flick horror with a background music of John Denver and creative deaths especially a blink and miss death of a girl and a bus after telling her boyfriend to drop dead. Tony Todd is the coroner who cleans up after death has struck and seems to understand that a pattern forms after death has been cheated and comes backto finish the job. Plenty of blood and daft decisions made but it can be ignored.

p25022_v_v8_ak.jpg

[Susan Foreman]

Originally Posted by MrBarlow

Final Destination. 2000

Off topic, but this started life as an unproduced 'X-Files' story entitled 'Flight 180'

The script can be found here

[Demoncrat]

Zombi Holocaust

A charming tale.
Yet again, I marvel at the sheer insanity of O'Brien's performance.

Ian McCullough features yet again throwing his lot in with some italians in order to ... something. You'ld at least think when they get there, he'd say "this looks familiar"
Ahem. A grotty delight. Sleep safe tonight sure that no one is remaking this one harumph.