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The Hellraiser series will always hold a special place in my heart since I saw the first four when in Jr. H/HS while I was also really into Clive Barker's writing. Looking back, I suppose that the first two had their moments, but aren't anything terribly special. I think that I actually saw the third one first, then one, two, and four. Three wasn't very good, but the scene of Sandy's death (I was convinced that she'd make it through) and Pinhead's demonic baptism freaked the hell out of my twelve-year old self. By the time that the fourth entry (Pinhead in Space!) came out, I was old enough to realize that it was just garbage and quit the series.

You really should rewatch the first two which will probably raise in opinion for you. As has been mentioned in his thread Barker is way better than he really should be.

Fear No Evil (Frank LaLoggia 1981) A film so inexplicably awful that any description of it makes it sound like at least an interesting failure. It's not. Really it's not. The AntiChrist is born to a pair of farmers and three of Heaven's ArchAngels take human form as two elderly folks and a teenage girl so they can confront the devilspawn… eventually? Along the way there a bevy of inexplicable scenes like when one kid getting killed via dodgeball or how the Jesus in an Easter Passion Play spouts a spontaneous stigmata gusher. And then there's one of the most bizarrely homoerotic sequences I've ever witnessed, wherein the school bully makes fun of the antichrist for being such a fag by... asking him out on a date and then making out with him in front of all his friends-- oh, and this is all happening while all of these teenage boys are completely nude on-screen. What in the world compelled anyone involved into thinking this was a good idea? The DVD case brags about the soundtrack containing Sex Pistols and the Ramones and Talking Heads but they should have spent the money devoted to licensing music on making the film even one smidgen better than it is. Because it's complete shit. So, it could've at least been just shit.

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (John McNaughton 1986) Intellectually, I get it, and the film was far milder than its reputation led me to believe, but this whole exercise just came across as irredeemably one-note, all the way down to its regrettable but eye-rollingly inevitable conclusion.

Hollow Man (Paul Verhoeven 2000) I guess this is what happens when you rewrite some slasher flick script the studio had laying around with the purpose of throwing enough money at the screen that viewers might be led to believe they were watching a blockbuster. The CGI is awful and laughably dates the film (Repeat after me, Hollywood: practical effects, practical effects, practical effects). The movie's also really mean-spirited and not very fun, even for a slasher flick. Deep Blue Sea showed the previous summer that a blockbuster could have a high bodycount and twisted sense of morality and still be a total blast. This just made me feel bad for all the poor actors stuck in this mess.

Stigmata (Rupert Wainwright 1999) Shot and edited like a Marilyn Manson music video, this overly busy and confused Nth attempt at replicating the Exorcist plays fast and loose with all manner of Catholic doctrines (but I guess 1999 was the chic year for that), and yet… I kinda found myself enjoying this just a little in-spite of how frequently I lost my patience with its never-ending supply of drippy water inserts and the occasional demonic possession (?). I do think the film presents an intriguing premise that gets bogged down in all the conspiracy theories and flashy late-90s filmmaking style crutches-- If anyone, much less a non-believer, began exhibiting spontaneous and violently occurring signs of the stigmata, what kind of effect would that have on the victim and their immediate surroundings (friends, job, day-to-day activities)? I'd love to see whatever film this once was before it was rewritten to death into its present condition.

Urban Legend (Jamie Blanks 1998) I'd been saving this one because I knew I'd love it. The premise is genius: a slasher movie where the assailant takes out his victims via recreations of infamous urban legends. Unfortunately this movie is braindead and wastes opportunity after opportunity to be even a little bit interesting. The pacing's completely off, the adherence to urban legends confused (how do you open with the highbeams tale and leave out the highbeams?!), and everyone but Alicia Witt's agreeable lead is a total snooze. The little in-jokes wore on me as well-- Joshua Jackson turns off a Paula Cole CD, Rebecca Gayheart's character is described as looking like "that girl from the Noxeema commercial," etc-- though the vehicular homicides in the film make for a far more pressing and regrettable reference point for Gayheart now!

A student asked me this today and I was kinda stumped, maybe you guys can think of some good examples: Are they are any horror movies with only or mostly only diegetic music?

There are probably quite a number of examples in the psuedo-documentary horror subgenre. I don't remember hearing any non-diegetic music in The Trollhunter for instance. I haven't seen The Blair Witch Project but that seems like another likely possibility.

Off the top of my head I can't think of any examples with more typical narratives.

A cursory internet search says that The Birds has only diegetic music, though I can't recall if that's true.

Also, apparently Browning's Dracula and Whale's Frankenstein, other than the opening credits.

The Birds definitely doesn't have any sort of conventional score, that example completely slipped my mind. Though Bernard Herman is credited as "sound consultant" and they did electronically synthesize bird sounds for the sound track. So you could argue that that functions as a sort of "score" though its motivated by the presence of the birds in the film.

swo17 wrote:Also, apparently Browning's Dracula and Whale's Frankenstein, other than the opening credits.

Early Universal sound horrors didn't have diegetic music outside if the credits (which often used classical pieces like Swan Lake). I think Murders in the Rue Morgue is like this, too.

The Blair Witch Project does sound like a good example. I suppose the composed atonal creaks and cracks (which fully play out in a composed piece over the end credits) could arguably count as non-diegetic, since we never see what is making them! There is also that early scene where the song from the car radio (according to the commentary it was originally playing The Animals' "We've Gotta Get Out Of This Place") had to be overdubbed with a Digginlillies track, but it is still meant to be coming from a car radio all the same.

How about the Joan Collins "And All Through The House" segment from Tales From The Crypt?

Tomorrow at 12:00 PM, TCM is showing Hammer's excellent The Two-Faces of Dr. Jekyll. Like the best Hammers, this one works best if you've got the original story fresh in mind. Right before it is Hammers superb B&W suspense film, Scream/Taste of Fear. Also well worth a view. Beautiful chiaroscuro lighting.

Halloween 4: the Return of Michael Myers (Dwight H Little 1988) I don't know why at this point I'm surprised at how little my tastes seem to match up with the fandom that descends almost automatically upon a horror series, but I found this return bite at the Mike Myers apple unfathomably awful and one of the worst sequels I've ever witnessed. It completely misses the point of the original and doesn't even have the decency to be a mean-spirited traditional slasher like Halloween II (which, if you'll recall, I didn't like much either, but it's a stone-cold classic in comparison!). Instead we get creaky theatrics surrounding Myers' improbable and highly predictable visit to his niece, played by young "scream queen" Danielle Harris, who is mostly only called upon to think she sees Myers around every corner. The film has no concept of suspense or even the cheap thrills gore scenes could provide and instead insists on lobbing a ludicrous and seemingly never-ending assault of half-baked thrills that revolve around Myers being some sort of white-faced robot capable of clutching onto the side of a truck without being noticed and taking a dozen shotgun blasts to the chest with little effect. My cursory research tells me this is the most respected Halloween film after the original, and that's the most compelling evidence yet that despite my continued forays into this genre I will still apparently never belong to or understand its brethren

Halloween 5: the Revenge of Michael Myers (Dominique Othenin-Girard 1989) And somehow this is seen as among the worst of the sequels despite it being the "best" of the three Myers-focused sequels so far to my eyes. At least this film has the common courtesy to being a mediocre traditional slasher film. Unlike the TV blockings of the fourth film, the director here does show some visual wit and energy that make it far smoother viewing than the interminable fourth film. The film wisely recognizes the limitations of the cast its stuck with and relegates Harris' child actress to a passive, mostly-mute role that works far better and has the perverse bonus of making her one of the youngest "last girls" I can think of-- the audaciousness of having the murdering machine known as Michael Myers actively target a little girl in the midst of all the traditional teenaged victims is at least an idea, which automatically puts it one-up on Halloween 4. I also enjoyed how this entry made Donald Pleasence's ever-present doctor into an asshole, baiting Myers with her writhing body clutched close to his chest. The film ends with the unlikely but inevitable escape of the world's most uninteresting slasher villain thanks to some unseen force dressed in black. I suspect this mysterious character is explained in Halloween 6. I also suspect it's doubtful (but not impossible) that I'll ever prove that first-hand

Slant Magazine weighs in with their picks for the 100 greatest horror films ever made.

Now Martin Scorsese reveals his picks for the 11 scariest films ever made. I'm so happy to see that the little seen The Changeling made the list!

I agree with Scorsese: Isle of the Dead has the scariest moment of all the Lewton films. Almost makes you want to forgive the movie's abundant short comings.

Are you talking about Isle of the Dead or The Leopard Man?

YnEoS wrote:Are you talking about Isle of the Dead or The Leopard Man?

Is this an actual question, or did you just want to point out that you feel the same way about The Leopard Man?

the latter

Because zombies are still in vogue, I continue doing my best to never let this thread truly die:

the Calling (Richard Caesar 2000) Laura Harris is tricked into birthing the AntiChrist and then spends the rest of the film figuring out how to kill her own child with a little help from a celestial taxi driver and no help from men of the cloth or her husband or actually any human being she encounters. This is not a good movie, though it does a good job of making its antichrist child a true piece of shit that no one would mind seeing bumped off (it made me think what a better film it would be if Harris was struggling with wanting to kill her prepubescent son just because he was an asshole instead), but I somewhat shockingly found myself half-admiring it at the end by virtue of its truly well-executed twist ending. Maybe because the film was so bad I wasn't expecting it to have enough brains to trick me and thus let my guard down, but whatever the cause, I must admit I was smiling at the last ten minutes and begrudgingly give it props for that at least. Between this and Severance, I wonder what kind of tax deals / vacations / exploitation of a super-niche market these Brit productions were offering the (Canadian, actually) Harris to be the token "American" in a cheapie horror film! -- Given that Colin's our board's resident expert on satanic pregnancy movies, I hope he's either already seen this or has it queued up!

Severance (Christopher Smith 2006) Leave it to the Brits to be the ones to finally make a good backwoods slasher! Though it focuses a bit too much on comedic elements in the first half or so-- to be able to name drop the Office on box and poster art more than for creative reasons, I suspect-- this entertaining take on the genre places a bunch of stuffed shirt office workers from a Halliburton-esque defense company out into the woods for "trust exercises" and then sics the backwoods murderers on 'em. And really, once the carnage starts, the film's humor is far more appreciated and well utilized, as with Laura Harris' runner of struggling with oversized weapons, or the film's sickest and most diabolical sight gag involving a "Terrorist" defense that I will not spoil. The film's cleverest achievement however is in figuring out logical backwoods villains for once. The use of Eastern European war criminals hiding out from retribution for their crimes but still bloodthirsty for more carnage is a smart idea, and though this film is not even remotely interested or capable of making any kind of political statement with their use, at least it lends the film a degree of sense that most slashers lack. Recommended, if you're into this kind of thing!

Urban Legends Final Cut (John Ottman 2000) Well, though I don't think I liked it nearly as much as Colin, it's easy to agree that this sequel is worlds better than the first film, even though this movie contains only one urban legend I've even heard of. The focus this round is far more concerned with movie in-jokes on-campus at a film school with an unnaturally high body count than "The call is coming from upstairs" tales. Scream 2 definitely did this basic premise far better, but I admired the craft and skill that went into many of this film's elaborate chase sequences. Ultimately this movie, like the work of most film school students, is too clever by half and there are just too many Hitchcock references (and DePalma references for good measure and further headaches as the circularity folds in on itself) and winky nods trying to distract from what is actually a well-made but disposable slasher movie, seemingly unaware that that's a far rarer achievement than Hitch felating!

I see Severance is by the same guy who did Triangle so I'll definitely have to check that out!

I thought this was pretty cool until I noticed South Dakota's entry

If Wikipedia is anything to go by, that's about the closest thing you're going to get to a South Dakota set horror film.

I question Carrie being Maine's entry. While the novel, like most of Stephen King's work, is set there, I don't believe the film ever establishes a specific setting, and it definitely wasn't filmed there. I'm sure there are plenty of other King adaptations that are specifically set in Maine, particularly those based on his "Castle Rock" stories.

Mr Sausage wrote:If Wikipedia is anything to go by, that's about the closest thing you're going to get to a South Dakota set horror film.

Now I finally have my pitch!

ME: So, it's a slasher set in South Dakota--
PRODUCER: Here is a check for five million dollars.

Monte Hellman's The Beast from Haunted Cave was both filmed and set in South Dakota.

Shh, wait til the ink is dry