No. I'd like to.

I'm sure you'll like the Kaufman version, shot as well-done 1970s-trademark Watergate-influenced conspiracy thriller.

And Ferrera...not as everyone is down with his BODY SNATCHERS but I am. More minimalistic, less sensational in the thriller dynamics than Siegel and Kaufman, and something quite visually brilliant he does in shooting all the soldier with the lighting behind them. Thus obscuring their faces, and making the argument that like the Pod People, the military forgoes individuality in favor of collectivism.

Not seen the Kidman/Craig INVASION, no interest really considering that hellish production with the director fired and many scenes reshot uncredited by the Wachowskis.

Though I wonder why with 4 movies so far, no version has yet adopted the ending of the original source novel: Where the pod aliens say fuck it, and leave.

Capo was speaking of the 3D glasses. I am trying to think of what movie I used those glasses. I believe it was one called "13 Ghosts". If you don't want to see the ghosts, take the glasses off. And yea, they were red/green I believe. It was neat at the time. I can' remember what other movies required these glasses. It seemed like quite an accomplishment.

I took my grandkids to see "UP" a couple weeks ago and they had the 3D glasses for that movie, BUT not for the showing we went to (unless I wanted to pay another $9.00, which I opted not to do). I think they would have liked it though. Maybe I should have.

Oh, and now On Demand is giving away free 3D glasses but I forgot for which movie.

TIS

To give 13 GHOSTS director William Castle credit, he knew how to market a gimmick and make profit for his pictures. I remember seeing that particular picture on TCM and thinking it was alright.



I noticed no particular difference between the two versions, specifically no advantage for the 3-D racket.

Though I quite liked UP, which proves again that Pixar is the gold standard of animation. I mean who else (especially not Dreamworks) can make me moved by that whole emotional roller coaster moment when the back of that scrapebook was revealed.

With the new 10 rule with the Oscars next year, I would be surprised if UP didn't get nominated.

Well RR, thanks for the info on "UP." I'm glad now I didn't pay more for the glasses.

Btw,the "13 Ghosts" movie I was referring to was in the late 50s early 60s. You were just a gleam in your father's eye at that point I think. I know they made a more recent version, and I assume you are talking about that one.

Then again, maybe not, you do know your movies.

13 Ghosts


TIS

Btw, Capo & RR, you guys might (if you already haven't) have some good conversations on movies. You both seem to enjoy critiquing and know a lot about them.

i seen the remake of 13 ghosts...it was decent at best...no urge to re-watch it.

RRA, I don't know what you mean by "no advantage". I saw it in 3D and ofcourse it is different from 2D. All(or at least most of) the scenes were in 3D, which definitely gives a different viewing experience. I paid $10 for the ticket and it was worth it.

TIS, plan to watch Ice Age - 3 (dawn of dinosaurs) in 3D. The 3D trailer looked good, at least your grandkids will like it. I can't wait to watch dinosaurs (which were not shown in the trailer I saw) in 3D.

Well, it's not that even the 1960 version stands out in my mind as a great movie, but rather, I just remember it being pretty cool back then to watch in 3D.

I think I saw only part of the newer version of the movie.

SVSG, I have heard of Ice Age. It sounds like something they'd like. I assume it's a G rating so then can see it no?



TIS

TIS, IMDB says "Rated PG for some mild rude humor and peril". I doubt if it will have anything really objectionable for the kids, but again I have a very different view on the ratings.

if you seen gremlins it wont be like that, so it should be good. i hope the humor stays good though.

I think they'll be fine with it. When does it come out anyway?



TIS

july 1

That's tomorrow! Perfect!!! Maybe I'll take them over the weekend sometime.

Thanks

TIS

no problem. hey just want to get an opinion from some of those who experinced the horror films of the 50's and on wards. are horror films now a days great compare to those of the 50's,60's or 70's?

Speaking of 3D{

At least one horror movie, "House of Wax" (1953) had some scenes in 3D. Starred Vincent Price, with a relatively unknown actor named Charles Buchinski (later famous as Bronson) as an evil assistant named (what else?) Igor.

If compared to 70s and 80s horror cinema, Hollywood Horror today for the most part I would say

NO

Most contemporary American horror is lazy with Xerox mentality without anything for the brain, only concerned about filling out the gore quota, etc. In short, not giving a fuck about their project, or even the genre itself.

Then again, people used similar words for the 1970s/80s. The difference is...take a random popular sample from that epoch, like say Tobe Hopper's THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, Wes Craven's A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, Clive Barker's HELLRAISER and of course the original HALLOWEEN. I'm not including intentional important genre entries like THE SHINING to make this point.

Those others I mention, were given funding and released as exploitative schlock at drive-in theatres and your local ghetto theatre. But each has its own unique pleasures for a cinemaphile.

NIGHTMARE and HELLRAISER both had fascinatin premises, and pretty much follow through with them. HELLRAISER is even intelligent with its unique if old school take on Theology. NIGHTMARE taps into the random (and fucked-up) shit that we dream sometimes without the help of Freddy Krueger.

TEXAS basically took a true story (Ed Gein) and only made it a carnival of horror by giving the chainsaw-wielding Leatherface...well, a leatherface. Otherwise the other insane stuff in that household was inspired by the Gein case. Besides, unmasked Gein was basically already done in PSYCHO. Despite what folks think, TEXAS didn't invent the slasher genre, the Italians did. But TEXAS refined it to a new brutal-pushing step and much like Capo's favorite movie THE FRENCH CONNECTION, its influence is so wide-spread and taken for granted, people forget sometimes what was so unique about the original in the first place.

In short, no TEXAS, no ALIEN. Remember that. Also, no HALLOWEEN either, which Carpenter took the TEXAS dynamics and made it more of a mythological uberman without becoming fucking silly (like the sequels.)

F13, which purposely ripped off TEXAS and HALLOWEEN, I would argue is actually sorta underrated, a surprisingly engaging thriller which reminds us of what made us so frightened of the dark in the first place. I mean when the slight movement of a shower curtain in a latrine during a night storm provokes unease and fear within the viewer....the movie did its job.

So in varying degrees of which CApo may or may not agree with me, those pictures I mention intrigue in different fashions beyond just the basic jump scare or whatever the shit. Now with Torture Porn, which gets some folks off on some perverted danger thrill....where's the mental stimulance in that nonsense?

A few recent horror movies I did enjoy: That decent LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT which turned out better than its original infamous Craven version, and even Sam Raimi's DRAG ME TO HELL. Legit scares mixed with legit laughs, and Raimi doesn't ever pussy out with the correct perfect ending. Of course his EVIL DEAD kicks ass too, but thats besides the point.

Yes its different, but I didn't get any lasting impression that my extra $$$ was worth it in the difference.

Though the TOY STORY 3 teaser trailer maybe was.



How old are your GK? I'm sure they'll like it. I saw the second one, which basically typifies non-PIXAR animation these days: Overpaid major star-voice castings, humor relying mostly on pop culture references and silly puns, no bother if maybe going for some emotionalism, etc. Not bad at all, just...not my thing.

But I'm sure they'll enjoy it. I did love that squirrel though. In fact, those teaser trailers starring him I probably enjoyed 10x more than that one movie of the series I did see.

Well since I mentioned that I saw it on TCM, usually the Old People Movie Channel...:p



TIS, you might have given Capo a migraine when he read that you put me on an equal plane with him.

You should have been there at the FCM Wars. Those were fun.

Don't forget the horror films from before then!

If we're keeping to American productions (though we ought not neglect the Germans!), Tod Browning should get a look in; James Whale's two Frankenstein films, too; I'll vouch for Robert Siodmak's The Spiral Staircase; Val Lewton and Jacques Tourneur need to be mentioned here, too. There are many more, and that's so selective it's almost offensive, but you know...

(If I may, I'll throw in a British recommendation: the multi-story Dead of Night, made in 1945. Talking ventriloquist dolls? Great stuff.)

As for horror itself, it's a very broad term. Most mentioned here are of a certain style; they deal with supernatural elements, the literal unknown. There's much room for social and political allegory in these films - Turnbull notes the Cold War allusions within 1950s Hollywood, and Godzilla as a mirror of a post-H-Bomb world; likewise, RRA notes the potential flexibility of revisiting the originals and making them mirror something else - Watergate paranoia, for instance.

But there are other kinds of horror, too. The most effective (and affective) for me is, for want of a better term, a horror that grounds itself in naturalism. It's psychologically plausible and scientifically coherent. It takes a materialist view of the world and instead of creating a horror from it, it exposes a horror already there. I'm speaking of films such as Gaspar Noé's Irreversible (2002), or Tobe Hooper's masterpiece The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974). At a push (in terms of categorisation), Blue Velvet (1986) and Don't Look Now (1973). These two latter films are suggestive of the supernatural, of the unknown, but they're so rich and exploratory they need a mention.

I very much enjoyed Douglas Buck's short film Cutting Moments (1997); it's a claustrophobic and horrific view of (a) suburban marriage. The horror of The American Dream appeals to me very much, as a theme; as does anything that might attempt to tackle the horrors happening as a result of capitalism and its ongoing decay. Check out Bruno Dumont's films.

As for what Hollywood is currently offering us in terms of horror, I can't say much because I really haven't seen much of it, but I will go with the general consensus and lament the seeming lack of invention or creative investment. It all seems a bit financially cynical and intellectually inept; not to mention a sense of very poor craftsmanship.

That's not to single out horror, though; Hollywood has very little to offer in general. Moral: look elsewhere!

In recent years, Wolf Creek (2003) is a confident and effective piece of filmmaking; beautiful to look at, with post-card views of Australia's outback juxtaposed against the brutal horrors happening in its vast, lonely landscapes. It's economic, and it doesn't neglect character or plausibility.

There's very little of that on evidence in mainstream America.

!!!

I say, "No", for a simple reason. They've taken out the human side, the storyline and replaced it with great effects. Great effects go only so far and are no substitute for a storyline.

To wit, "Them" (1954) is just an average (monster) theme and the "monsters" (giant mutated ants) are kind of silly (certainly by today's standards) BUT the story is well written and a lot of it concentrates on the humanity. The first 30 minutes of the movie are as chilling as any 30 minutes I've ever seen on the silver screen and you don't get to see the ants in that time. The gore is minimal but the movie doesn't need to count on that (gore). Sadly, a lot of today's movie makers don't understand that a well told story will deliver more than gory special effects.

One exception to this is "The Thing"; both the original and John Carpenter's remake. The remake kept a good story going and its effects were really decent BUT it lacked the rat-tat-tat fast paced dialog of the original.

There are some decent horror films from recent years but in general I believe the 1950s' films were superior. (Then again, some of the '50s films were real stinkers, too).

BAM, make a point of seeing "Them". The balance of the movie is just another standard, run-of-the-mill monster flick but you'll see what I mean about the opening!

I have always been a fan of horror movies, from the time I was very young. Considering the fact that I seldom go to see any horror movies at the theater, I guess the short answer would be no, today's horror films don't compare.

I don't mind (and enjoy to an extent) many of the special effects used in current films. Perhaps SC is correct that the human aspect is taken out of the newer films. What about the "suspense" aspect, you know, anticipation of the monster or horror. The scenes that you don't see coming? The scare that makes you jump out of your seat.

I didn't mind the first Elm Street movie or Halloween movies, but those genre of movies transformed into slasher type films spawning too many sequels and more of the same kind of movies with the same kind of sequel. And, it's not because i'm squeemish with bloody scenes, because I'm basically not. I just think blood and guts, all the time,is not scary, forget entertaining.

That's not to say they don't make "any" good horror films today, just fewer. Then again, like I said at the top, I very very seldom see a horror movie at the theater anymore. I liked the newest Omen (good for remake IMHO)I think that was the last horror film I saw at the theater. Before that it was the newest King Kong a couple years ago. There you go. The two times a horror movie draws me to the theater in recent years, it's remakes of what were one time blockbusters.

TIS

As noted earlier, "Gojira" was made just months after a huge H-bomb test in the Pacific irradiated a Japanese fishing boat. The made-for-US version, "Godzilla," had Raymond Burr scenes added. But "Gojira" is more than "Godzilla minus Burr--it's considerably longer. That's because "Gojira" contains scenes of Japanese directly confronting each other over the horror that the US test unleashed--not only on Japan, but the world. It seems that the blast not only awakened the Big Lizard from his slumber, and mutated him to 300 feet tall--the blast made him immortal. So, the irresponsible Americans not only started a nuclear arms race by bombing Japan, they also created untold horrors of nature.

Note that in the climax, Dr. Serazawa, the good scientist, uses good Japanese science to create the dreaded Oxygen Destroyer--the only weapon that can defeat the Big Lizard. And he does The Honorable Thing by destroying the weapon's plans and documents--and cutting his air hose, so no one can make him tell how to build another. The message is unmistakable: What the Americans unleashed by brute force can be subdued only by Japanese science and honorable deeds.

"only by Japanese science and honorable deeds."

I'm sure Korea and Peking remember them very well.

Forgive me for being a bit late on this one, but, I lived for 50's horror flicks. Ah, the memories; drive in movies with my family to see "Creature of the Black Lagoon" (nightmares), going to the movies to see "Tarantula" and running out of the theatre when the opening credits were shown. How about "Invaders from Mars" with that drill thingy in the back of the neck! Loved, "Them", "The Blob", "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and then anything with dinosaurs or huge creatures; yes SC...."The Crawling Eye", "It Came from Beneath the Sea", "Forbidden Planet" (Ann Francis was hot!, and Leslie Nielsen was a young stud), probably the inspiration for "Lost in Space." Oh, the corniness of it all, but the shadows and the lurking behind them. "Godzilla", "Rodan", "Mothra"! "House on Haunted Hill".....Vincent Price. Oh, to be 10 again.

I most would perhaps agree that THEM! and DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL and maybe FORBIDDEN PLANET* were the best of that bunch and definately most worth watching.

*=Which also inspired STAR TREK. That's a plus.