First rule of Horrorthon is: watch horror movies. Second rule of Horrorthon is: write about it. Warn us. Tempt us. The one who watches the most movies in 31 days wins. There is no prize.
In the opening scene, a man wakes in a room naked and confused. He breaks a fish bowl containing a single gold fish.. THAT is the crux of the movie. What a great movie it is too.
Mr. Murdoch exists in an experiment orchestrated by the Strangers and Dr. Shreber. The Strangers are a race that is in decline and close to extinction. They have learned to put humans to sleep and alter reality, they call it Tuning. The scene where you see the city morph to something new is amazing. Slowly, Mr. Murdoch begins to unravel the "fish bowl" and expose the Strangers (through Dr. Shreber's help). This is a big movie, dark and glorious.
I cannot say enough about the movie. It is a combination of film noir, Dr Who, Paranoia nightmare, 1984, and Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer all rolled into one. You can compare The Matrix with Dark City, and The Matrix comes up way short.. And Jennifer Connelly is MUCH hotter than Carrie-Anne Moss (aka, the chick who needs to eat a sandwich)
Toad Road is an old legend from near where I grew up. Located in Lancaster, PA (some say York area), the Toad Road is the true entrance to Hell. You pass through seven gates as you continue down the path. Eventually, you will reach the final gate and enter Hell. This is a legend I have explored with members of my paranormal team and I am still here. I cannot decide if I like the movie or not. It is a challenge to sit through, but the thoughts of the movie still linger after a few weeks. Kinda like Taco Bell can linger for a few days. Anyway..
This drug induced film centers around the main character and his love interest. They are heavy drug users and eventually the drugs lose their ability to entertain them. That is the best way to put it. She learns of the urban legend "The Toad Road". As one walks the path, they pass each of the 7 gates of Hell they become disoriented and eventually lose themselves to Hell. I will stop there, the synopsis will give too much away.
The idea is fascinating because of my knowledge of the legend and the setting. However, the movie is a challenge to watch. Not because it is bad, but because it is very heavy. You feel as if you are part of the path they follow. The cinema-photography is rich, each level they pass brings a new visual element that can be subtle at times and less than at others. As a side note, they actress who played Sarah died of a drug overdose after filming was complete.
Like I said, I am not sure if I liked the movie or not.. But it stuck with me.
It is hard to not express this movie as an "I know what you did last summer" like movie. The movie opens up with our clown having a little fun with a local trollop then is called to duty. He arrives to the party and begins to do his best, he is not a very good clown. The children make his life difficult and he dies. Tragically... Always ALWAYS close the dishwasher. I think you can imagine the rest and you would not be wrong. But then you might...
This movie is an Irish ghost flick that is fun. It is gory, it uses old school makeup effects, minor uses of CGI to enhance (not take the stage), blood by the buckets, and even built a small mythos. Where in the states it would be boobs and butts, nothing wrong with that, there is a sense of humor to this one. The foul language used by Stitches in his Irish accent is pretty funny.
The ending is the kicker, the mythos is created. A sequel is set up, but no idea if it has been made. I enjoyed it for what it was, not serious, but creative. Enjoy. Oh yea, the trollop returns.. :-)
Wait, Bong Joon? Is that like Bongcheon-Dong and that ghost?
The Host (2006)**
Anyway, "The Host" is a Korean horror film about a mutated fish-monster that comes out of the Han River, mostly from that bad chemicals that was dumped in by a US military guy who is a complete douche. It gets a pretty big death count fairly quickly because no one notices anything and DOESN'T FUCKING RUN AWAY. The main character is a guy who trips over his own feet and, while he does help, he is pretty much perpetually looking around like an idiot and is not the brightest bulb. Also everyone suffers from the falling-over bug that plagues most horror films, and overall everyone is an idiot who doesn't hear CROWDS OF PEOPLE SCREAMING. Not to mention that a lot of people in the government are played off as incompetent, while the military, both the US and the Korean one, are shown as doing their best to hide how much they are to blame for this.
While mostly CGI, the creature design is pretty good. The monster is not just ugly, but also weird enough to be some monstrous thing that comes out of the river. In some ways, this is more a bit of a comedy than a horror, but I just can't get invested in the characters or in their struggle. The only fun parts are when the monster appears or attacks. The main characters are not all that interesting and spend most of their time yelling at each other or about how things are going, to the point that I don't like any of them and have almost no investment in their safety.
"The Host" is a fairly good horror movie, with good scares and an interesting, terrifying monster. The politics aside, most of which is focused in Korea, still give you the sense of dread as people try to deal with the monster. At the same time, I just...can't get invested in the movie or the characters, though the daughter is someone that I enjoyed following, since most of her screen time was also around the monster's lair or doing her best to escape it or hide from it.
See, this is why I listen to stories about colorful talking ponies being horribly murdered.
"...a similar, horrible fate, yet different in ways too terrible to image. For those children...would shortly die, unable to live on candy alone. But...with her heart so full of love for life, did not. She lived, and lived, and lived..."
I am doing a "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" fanfiction audio reading. Why am I doing this instead of some movie or another tv series?
I just watched STONEHENGE APOCALYPSE for this blog, I'm allowed to listen to something where colorful ponies are put into the cannibal version of Saw with a Halloween Nightmare Night theme and a monster made of candy. And also something that actually scares me.
"Something Sweet to Bite" by Knackerman, and the twosequels plus one side story, can be found here on FIMFiction. (***1/2 for each story - yes, I've read them all)
"Something Sweet to Bite" fanfiction audio reading by Emogak can be started here on Youtube (five parts at about 30 minutes each). (***3/4) (only the first story has an audio reading so far)
Some quick notes before you go in: "Nightmare Night" is basically Halloween, but with some twists because of course there's twists. The story we hear in the episode it first appears in, "Luna Eclipsed" (s2e4), explains that in order to not get 'eaten' by a being called Nightmare Moon, the kids leave some candy before a statue of said being. Also said being is actually one of the princesses of the kingdom that our mane (get it?) six characters healed because the rainbow does that now, instead of causing explodey death like it did in the original show.
80's cartoons DOES NOT FUCK AROUND.
And in Friendship is Magic, we get...
KAMEHAME FRIENDSHIP!
Because one character causes issues throughout the whole episode, another ends up a bit depressed, but in the end there is still fun times. It does still hang over Luna's head because she went Evil and that resulted in her becoming basically a Halloween Nightmare Night monster.
The author of this fic, as a fan of horror films and older Halloween tales, wonders if there's a similar story for Equestria - as in why would they give their treats to Nightmare Moon? Why create a statue in a far-off and usually dangerous area of what should be a dangerous villain?
Second definition is about the classification of the story - Grimdark is a title that comes from Warhammer 40k, and which basically describes "the grim darkness" of the work. In this case we can say that a grimdark fantasy would be A Song of Ice and Fire as compared to The Lord of the Rings. It's a type of story in fandom now, describing stories that tend to go for torture, death, and relatively no happy endings. Oddly I've seen most grimdarks for stuff in things like MLP, though already darker fandoms can have these, but with MLP, it always feels weird, even if there are enough 'dark' things for you to play with.
So we have a story based on something that results in no saving of people who die, about a scary time of year, and also magical and colorful ponies! MLP Grimdarks tend to be disturbing in their own way, with some being more notorious or well-liked than others due to not only keeping everyone in character for the most part, but also making the happy land feel more like a dangerous place, or at least more dangerous. In the case of this Halloween Nightmare Night horror, the audio reading is better because you not only get some great fanart for the different points (all free of gore, for the most part) but also hear the horrible sounds that the readings add in.
I said it was cannibalistic for a reason, they kill two ponies and eat one by the fifteen minute mark in this story. One is horribly burned and traumatized by the ten-minute mark. And they have the sound of someone being burned. This is before horrible death and candy murder.
I'm not joking about that last one.
The only thing to cause some confusion is the flashbacks. The events basically take place over the week before Halloween Nightmare Night. One part that a few have issues with (as it's basically sequel-bait) comes in mid-part 2. It's a bit harder to justify it being in, though it's as scary as the rest of the parts, and overall the story doesn't suffer too badly for it, but it does feel out of place. The rest is fairly gore-filled and not only scary, but atmospheric, though I will also add that I don't believe (as some reviewers of this do) that it was the fault of 'non-belief' that resulted in the attacks, but rather that a) not all the candy had been collected, and b) the ones who made the candy weren't the ones who offered it. Old myths being reborn do have people failing to completely counter them because traditions are easily changed or lost, which tends to be why that trope exists and is normally very deadly in horror movies, books, or fiction.
The audio reading is better in some cases than the original writing because of the soundtrack and vocal actors and actresses who add in their voices as narrators or as the characters. The sounds and music also do a great job of building up the atmosphere, enough that anytime I listen to this at night, I tend to get very easily scared by small sounds. It's a great story for Halloween, and equally great if you want to get into the wonderful and terrifying world of scary MLP fanfiction. Or go and listen to The Lost Narrator, she mostly does scary MLP readings or creepypasta stories. It's great, and she's responsible for the editing, music, and sound effects in this story.
I love this audio reading. The whole thing is scary and makes you shiver all throughout, not to mention that the ending and some of the ways that others are killed never quite comes off the same. The stories are great for the same creep factor, but if you want the best result with this, I highly suggest the dark and creepy stories involving magical ponies. Because a lot of these are great.
Holidays is a horror-anthology film with 8 – short films,
one set around each of the following holidays:
Valentine’s *
St. Patrick’s *
Easter *1/2
Mother’s Day 1/2
Father’s Day **
Halloween ****
Xmas ****
New Year’s ****
The quality of these films is widely varied, and
thus, the non-commital 3 star rating overall, but I’ve provided a quick
star-rating on each segment listed above.
Here’s a quick summary of each:
Valentine’s:Awkward student has crush on gym teacher who also happens to need a
heart transplant.Bet you can figure out
how that one will end.
St. Patrick’s:
A Rosemary’s Baby rip-off, but with snakes!
Easter: A really f---ing creepy Jesus/Bunny/Chicken
zombie comes to life.
Mother’s Day: A 2nd Rosemary’s Baby
rip-off! 2 of these in the first 4
shorts!
Father’s Day: Daddy departs for another
dimension! Very sci-fi.
Halloween: written and directed by Kevin Smith. If you like his comedy, you’ll like this one.
Xmas: Virtual Reality xmas present shows more than
expected!
New Year’s: an online dating website matches two perfect
mates.
I did enjoy the last
three, but had to suffer through the first five.
Ethologist* Marco Contrado roams the woods in a remote Italian hillside in order to catalogue the movements of nocturnal wildlife. Using small cameras mounted on the animals enables him to study their behavior. While reviewing footage he is surprised to find that something is killing the animals. One day he stumbles across two bloody dresses in a river. Crossing the river to investigate leads him to an abandoned village. Deciding to set up camp in the village proves to be a mistake when heavy rain floods the river and traps him. Wandering around the creepy village (mostly at night for some reason) he soon learns that he is not alone. In a parallel story a rescue mission searches for him (mostly at night for some reason). Slowly Marco begins to understand the true nature of the danger he has encountered.
I really enjoyed this! Make no mistake; this is a very slow burn. Most of the film is Marco wandering around a Silent Hill-like town piecing together a very old mystery. He is essentially the only character and there is very little dialogue. The soundtrack is quiet and creepy and effectively ratchets up the dread of his situation. There is clearly a Lynchian influence here (including a black lodge) as well as Blair Witch undertones. This is the kind of film that you either love or hate. I prefer slow horror films with creepy ambiance rather than in-your-face jump-scares. This is the perfect film to watch alone in the dark with the sound turned up.
Michael Ironside plays Dr. Daniel Marcus a psychiatrist for the criminally insane. He has some very unconventional methods of treatment and he has chosen a small group of murderers to inflict thus treatment on. The treatment forces them to confront the sequence of events in their lives that led them to murder. Each person's story plays out in reenactment so the film winds up being more of an anthology but with a solid common thread, that being the doctor. As with all anthologies some segments are better than others but all are interesting. Each patient is driven to murder uniquely including some brushes with the supernatural (ghosts, vampires and zombies). Patient Seven, albeit predictable, brings forth a uniqueness that is seriously lacking in modern horror. Each story is fresh and engaging on it's own. One of the segments stars Alfie Allen (Theon Greyjoy) and he does a bang up job as a cold serial killer. Overall we found it very enjoyable.
"We have your Death Note DVD, do you want it?"
"Yes!"
*receives DVDs*
"Sweet, I can't wait to rewa--"
"...damnit..."
(2008) *1/2
"Sealing my own fate is the only way to outwit Death."
So, I'm one of the weird people who liked the original live-action Death Note movies, at least the first two. The story was compressed to mostly focus on the first half of the story, leaving out other characters and events that, while interesting, made me a bit annoyed by the end of it all, and left more than one fan a little annoyed by the outcome.
But the first two movies kinda fixed that.
This movie...didn't.
This movie is focused on L and the organization that he comes from, as well as his 'final mystery' in the days before his death. Oh, yes, spoilers for the first two Death Note movies, and what I like about this movie over some parts of the manga - L and Kira have a final showdown instead of L's protege's tracking down Kira and being damned lucky in actually cornering him (I have yet to meet someone who likes the ending of the manga or anime beyond one scene that they got in the second movie). However, the result in this final play is L having only about a month to live. During that time, he finds out about one final case - a virus because of course it's a freakin' evil doomsday virus, with only a few kids as the carriers of the cure. Because if we're doing an unwritten chapter, let's have it be with an evil virus created by ecoterrorists because human overpopulation, with someone trying to sell it because he's an evil money-grubbing war-monger! I'm sure you can add in another cliche too after having the only people with the cure being kids! *groan*
I love L as a character. The actor they got for the live-action version of Death Note was great at keeping in his odd characteristics and way of acting, and the relationship he had, as well as the ones he later gained, through the Kira case is great in a way of humanizing L and making Kira a little less sociopathic. Not by much, granted, but it shows a different and equally valid path that another character could have taken, and it makes the ending of the story far more bittersweet than the ending that occurs in the anime and manga. I do still like those two, but I just like the way they ended it here instead. Hopefully the Netflix show will take the best of both and make it a great show.
But back to the movie...oh my goddess, this was not needed. L's characterization was established enough! We didn't need to know he was overall a good person, we knew that! It's worth seeing it for L and the actor who plays L, and to see a final few bits of him interacting with Light and Watari, but overall it's unneeded in the Death Note story, and only good if you want to say you've seen all of what Death Note has to offer before the Netflix show comes on.
L: Change the World was pitched as the "Unwritten Chapter of DEATH NOTE", and probably should've stayed unwritten.
A carload of teenagers get sidetracked by car woes, which leads them on a search for help and quickly to a now-defunct museum run by a weird but friendly old coot (Chuck Connors). Before long the youngsters are being menaced by a mysterious telekinetic killer who creates and psychically manipulates mannequins.
Urg, I had heard and read good things about this movie so was pretty disappointed. Without question, if I had seen it as a teenager, it would have scared the bejesus out of me, but the predictable plot and excessive helplessness of the young women (running into the woods and falling down is rarely an effective move) detracted from the potential creepiness of the animated mannequins. Curious whether others have seen this and found it scary in its day?
*checking through other movies I have on my computer*
"Wait, what is...oh...oh goddess...no..."
(2010) 1/100 (can I give it a zero star rating? I will)
THERE IS ONLY ONE REASON I WATCHED THIS PIECE OF CRAP MOVIE AGAIN!
him. he's the only reason.
This sexy bastard.
So the way that Misha Collins described this when asked was that he was approached, basically he didn't read what was going on. He only thought "hey, a movie, starting me, yes, I'll do it and I'll take it VERY SERIOUSLY". Then he remembered it was a made-for-Syfy-on-Saturdays movie, meaning most of the people watching would already be drunk.
I have no alcohol to help me through this movie. I only have my hopes that I can rip into this as badly as MST3K or Rifftraxs would.
Or at least that I won't turn it off and delete it in a fit of rage.
The basics is that there are somehow unnamed prehistoric things left by...something of uncertain origin, which are linked to pyramids and standing stones and weird things like that, are suddenly activated to start re-forming the planet because why not? People start to notice this when the areas basically become death-traps full of bad CGI fire, but mostly the guy who won some big awards and is a conspiracy-theory nut of leylines (so a step up from Ancient Aliens, but not quite). He manages to bend time so he can get to Stonehenge, realize what's going on, and bend it again to get back and confront the evil person, who totally wants him who would like him to join them in their cult because reasons.
I hate this movie. I hate it with an unholy passion. I know it's basically Syfy Saturday night shlock that gave us 'Sharknado', and I get it's not even b-movie territory at this point, but...it could've worked if the writers hadn't been drunk themselves. Or high. I'd say both but I've seen the weird shit that Stephen King put out during his time while on benders, so I'm guessing some of it is ok. But this...is...painful.
Seriously, the only thing that keeps me watching throughout is Misha Collins and his ability to be serious about a robot head on the moon and ley lines and pseudoscience so pseudo that even conspiracy theorists think you're a bit crazy. Also attempting to figure out where I've seen the other actors without actually checking Wikipedia or IMDB because that at least gives me something to think about. If I don't, it'll be torture.
So yeah...no stars. If I have to leave a star, it's not a full star. it's the barest minimum of a star that I can leave.
