October/Halloween/Horror Recommendations

fran38 · 05-10-2023 1:52am

'The Fog' 1980 & 'The Thing' 1982. Two John Carpenter classics. Do not touch the remakes. Another Carpenter movie 'The Prince of Darkness' 1987. The devil tries to re-enter the world from some dimension. A lot of hokum but extremely fun & is typical Carpenter right down to the film score.

Honourable mention goes to 'Black Mass'. A mini series on vampires with some crackin' Neil Diamond tunes throughout 😀

Wrongway1985 · 05-10-2023 2:57am

The Thing isn't an original itself it's from 'Who goes There?' a.k.a 'The Thing from Another Planet' which was the title of the original adaption.

Famously enough initially 'The Thing' was panned at the time and deemed by many to be inferior to the original.

~Rebel~ · 05-10-2023 8:17pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121195942#Comment_121195942

Have a soft spot for The Prince of Darkness, saw it at a screening with John Carpenter doing a Q&A back around 2012, and they also screened the Gangnam Style parody "Lo Pan Style", which he got a kick out of :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xiAbDkXDgg

And since it's also nearly Halloween, I also went to a John Carpenter concert on Halloween night a few years ago, where he performed his music in this cool light box thing - awesome show! (i love John Carpender)

pixelburp · 05-10-2023 9:01pm

Aside from The Thing which absolutely holds up, I've been reluctant to dip too much back into Carpenter of late, fearful stuff like Prince of Darkness hasn't aged too well.

~Rebel~ · 05-10-2023 9:49pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121199243#Comment_121199243

I still get a kick out of Halloween, The Thing, Escape from New York, Christine, Big Trouble in Little China, They Live, and Starman - and even to an extent Assault on Precinct 13, which is ridiculous, but I think always was (with one of the most shocking openings i've ever seen!)... they all look 'of their time', but still hold up in their own way I think. Some of the others have definitely aged more poorly though.

silliussoddius · 06-10-2023 12:33am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121199243#Comment_121199243

I watched The Fog recently, I thought it help up ok. I thought it was a very good ghost story.

El Gato De Negocios · 06-10-2023 10:23am

Halloween is the GOAT horror movie for me and easily top of Carpenters pile. Also have alot of love for the Thing and the Fog. PoD, BTILC and They Live are less serious/ bordering on cheese but still alot of fun.

pixelburp · 06-10-2023 10:31am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121199416#Comment_121199416

I watched Escape from New York in the cinema a few years ago and god help me, I was bored. I think I had forgotten just how sedate the film was, the visuals and memorable characters holding up the nostalgia above all. Carpentry was a very makeshift director who succeeded despite constant constraints - and sometimes that shows. Good shout on Starman: that's a good dark horse for Carpenter's best of.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121199743#Comment_121199743

Yeah good ghost story, though very much a mood piece that'd potentially look a bit tepid against what came after.

Potatoeman · 06-10-2023 1:51pm

The Thing holds up for me mainly due to the animatronics, something about them being physical makes them more believable.

Fysh · 09-10-2023 8:38am

I stuck on In The Mouth Of Madness over the weekend and was quite impressed by it - I'd heard a couple of middling reviews, and thus did not have great expectations, which may have helped. I would say it works better as one of Carpenter's Apocalypse films than Prince of Darkness, which I think has a reach that exceeds its grasp.

As it turns out, while I had not seen the full version of ItMoM before, I had seen a short version of it in a fanedit anthology called Lovecraft Actually, which is a very fun anthology presentation combining In The Mouth of Madness, The Mist and Deep Rising - all knitted together through cosmic horror as a theme and the added music of the Beach Boys (which sounds bonkers but actually works really well).

pixelburp · 09-10-2023 8:42am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121212518#Comment_121212518

Wait, Deep Rising ... as in that old Stephen Sommers monster movie on a boat? Now there's a fun little nugget from the past!

Space Dog · 09-10-2023 11:16am

I watched Totally Killer on Prime, a teen slasher comedy in the same vein as Happy Death Day with a time travel twist. It was entertaining enough for what it was.

I also started watching V/H/S/85 (out on Shudder), but I wasn't really in the mood for found footage and the first two segments weren't great. Might finish it this week.

Shudder is also releasing When Evil Lurks this month, which has good reviews, so I'm looking forward to that.

And since I'm a sucker for the Hell House LLC series (I even enjoy part 2 and 3, which are admittedly not great) I can't wait for Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor.

Fysh · 09-10-2023 11:21am

I stuck on V/H/S 85 over the weekend and thought it was pretty decent. The second short was the weakest despite having a really good idea - it sounds weird to say about a short, but it felt like it was dragged out too long. It doesn't help that the acting was, uh, not great - strong bang of daytime soap opera from it. The final feature is the best executed one, I reckon, although I did enjoy the Unsolved Mysteries style wraparound story.

mrcheez · 09-10-2023 11:41am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121213081#Comment_121213081

aye, was watching Hell House the other night ...first time for the other half .. she had a few nightmares... I'm an evil bastid 😁

Man Vs ManUre · 09-10-2023 12:42pm

I really liked Hell House Llc, totally original film. Another one I watched recently and liked was ‘lucky bas+ard’. There are a lot of cheap and nasty horrors on Amazon Prime that are a good watch.

Homelander · 09-10-2023 2:23pm

I actually watched "Hostile" on Amazon last night. Good movie but not at all like I expected, puts itself forward as a post-apocalyptic horror but really it's a drama-romance about grief, loss, acceptance.

Anyone who has seen "After Midnight" will know exactly what I mean. Still would recommend though, it was solid and well-acted, found it very compelling.

Amazon does have a decent catalogue, but there's an awful amount of utter garbage, seems there is zero quality control. I don't just mean "bad" films, I mean z-grade, zero budget efforts. Last night there were about 3 different low-budget "Dune" rip-offs with PS1 era special effects.

gmisk · 09-10-2023 9:11pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121213081#Comment_121213081

Enjoyed totally killer, not a patch on happy death day but fun, blumhouse really do churn stuff out!

eightieschewbaccy · 09-10-2023 10:00pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121199416#Comment_121199416

Christine while not a great movie, has some great scenes. The fiery drive plus this guy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oezKQEF0deY

fatbhoy · 10-10-2023 10:38pm

This is exceptional: The Old Dark House (1932). Very atmospheric and entertaining. Not exactly a horror, though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QON5i4GQ7ho&ab_channel=JuanCarlosCa%C3%B1a

Fysh · 11-10-2023 2:35pm

The Old Dark House is a cracking watch, it reminded me a bit of Young Frankenstein in terms of tone.

johnny_ultimate · 11-10-2023 2:53pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121199243#Comment_121199243

I only watched Prince of Darkness for the first time a few years ago, and I’d honestly rank it as maybe my favourite Carpenter - at the very least under-appreciated and worthy of mention alongside the obvious classics. It’s a taut, tense, masterfully crafted example of what he does best.

routetoot · 11-10-2023 3:05pm

Happy Death Day movies

Ready or Not

The Babysitter movies

Fysh · 11-10-2023 3:13pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121224009#Comment_121224009

I'm also a comparatively late arrival to Prince Of Darkness, although I'm not as enamoured of it as you - amongst other things the ending feels a bit weak compared to The Thing and In The Mouth Of Madness.

I would still say that PoD has more to offer than Carpenter's do-over of Village of the Damned, which is one of those films where a great premise seems really well-suited to the director until you actually watch the result :(

johnny_ultimate · 11-10-2023 3:27pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121224111#Comment_121224111

I love the form and craft of Prince of Darkness more than anything - it's a really pared-back story compared to a lot of his films, so it allows Carpenter's superb score and visual storytelling do the hard work. And he's firing on all cylinders in that regard IMO. It just has a particular swagger and confidence to it - maybe it was because I was semi-expecting 'lesser' Carpenter due to its limited reputation compared to his earlier films, but I was utterly engrossed by it.

I'd definitely put it on a whole other level to the fairly dire Village of the Damned and a lot of the forgettable nonsense that followed. The Ward is a miserable end to an esteemed director's career... assuming he keeps to his so-far staunch retirement. If he's happy playing video games and giving rollicking interviews, more power to him - he deserves it for both the great films he made and the rough time he had navigating the commercial system. Although I'd be equally happy to see someone like A24 just put up the funds and creative freedom for one last Carpenter joint.

pixelburp · 11-10-2023 3:40pm

Carpenter's been burned by so many studios, executives and has had such a torrid time just making the films he has made, I can't imagine him breaking that decision to retire. At this stage, why would he want to? He seems very happy playing video games, touring with his music and talking shít when people wanna remake his films. I could see Blumhouse maybe tempting him, but they're hardly known to break out the chequebook either, and that was a problem often enough down the years. And especially now the Exorcist film seems destined to be their biggest failure (no idea what the cost breakdown is for the various players there)

mrcheez · 12-10-2023 7:00pm

The Boogeyman on Disney+ at the moment (based on a Stephen King short story) has some decent jumps and spooky enough to get some Halloween atmos 👻

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFqCmIU0-_M