Final chunk!!
Okay, first, let's finish off "100 Scary Movie Moments"....
When a Stranger Calls (1979)
As I said in my review of "Pandemonium"...
And is it weird I have a crush on Carol Kane in this?
..and in "Taxi".
..and as the fairy in "Scrooged".
..and in everything else up to and including the old lady in "Gotham".
Just the last one?
All right then.
Well, add this to the list.
So, it starts out with the urban legend of the crazy person making phone threats, and the cops trace it to inside the house.
Carol Kane is the babysitter that survives this, then the middle chunk is years later, and the killer gets out, then the third act, we come full circle back to Carol Kane again, now married with children.
Eh....third act and ending were kinda weak, but entertaining overall.
Dunno if I'd recommend it though.
Okay, if you have a Carol Kane crush, go for it.
Don't Look Now (1973)
I wasn't sure I'd like it, because Bravo seemingly revealed the twist ending, and the twist was retarded, BUT, there's a twist after that twist that brings everything full circle, and then it's brilliant again.
It's a veeeerrrry slow burn though.
Lot of these 70's psychological horrors take a long scenic ride to get to where they're going.
I recommend it, but pack a lunch.
The Haunting (1963)
I dunno, this is one I have to keep thinking about.
Like, the things I didn't like, was it just me, or did the movie intend for me to feel this way, and therefore, it's genius?
To me, everything that happens can be attributed to hysteria and self-hypnosis.
BUT, even if it is, I guess it can be about the power of fear.
And the poster kind of even says that.
Hyla's missus, Mizmstie, did a whole thingy on the novel the film is based on, so again, I get to be lazy.
);-)
And, that ends the 100 list!
Now, for "30 Even Scarier Movie Moments"....
First, back to ones I've seen before, but haven't blogged....
The Hand That Rocks The Cradle (1992)
Virtually the same thing I said about "Single White Female".
'Nother "Fatal Attraction", clone.
Some critic somewhere even called it "Fetal Attraction".
Red Eye (2005)
Mentioned it before here.
Very good, nice little thriller, a return to form for Craven, but all I could really keep thinking about, was how Rachel McAdams looked like a re-incarnation of Heather Langenkamp in this.
The Grudge (2004)
The one with the meowing little boy ghost.
I own this for some reason.
Buffy is in it.
I'm scanning my brain for memories, but nothing comes.
It didn't leave an impact.
Cape Fear (1991)
Take the original, and add more blood, some sex, and DeNiro giving off enough ham to open a deli, and you've got this one.
I repeat what I said there...
Check out both this, and the remake, they're both good.
Cabin Fever (2002)
Mentioned it here.
The only Eli Roth movie I like.
Haven't seen "Green Inferno", yet though.
And now, right back into ones I watched just to kill this list...
Play Misty For Me (1971)
The original "Fatal Attraction".
Clint's directorial debut, if I remember right.
Very good, recommended.
Fear (1996)
Absolute fucking garbage.
Do not watch this.
I had no enthusiasm to see this, and it met my lowest expectations.
It's basically baby-boomer yuppies being scared of gen-xers.
Same bullshit fear of teenagers the WWII generation pulled with "Rebel Without A Cause".
We're just going to keep doing this as a culture, huh?
*Head shake*
I have a sneaking suspicion these later lists were a deal with a couple studios to advertise their garbage.
Imagine and Lion's Gate being the biggest culprits.
The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005)
Mentioned before here.
Another one I had no enthusiasm for...but, it actually surprised me.
Based on a real life case where a Catholic douche-nozzle caused a girl's death, and the film actually literally puts exorcism on trial.
I won't dance around it, I'm firmly on the "exorcisms are a cute word for torturing the mentally ill", side of it.
I'd've fried the sonovabitch.
Stars the sister from "Dexter", which was a nice surprise.
The Stepford Wives (1975)
I liked this a lot, in that it made me angry, and it was supposed to.
I despise the kind of stunted dickless men in this that want a robot Geisha instead of a fun woman with humor, and personality, and ambitions, and dreams, and guts.
How hopelessly boring their inner mind must be.
How pathetic.
But men like this fucking exist.
They're sadly not a radical feminist paranoid fantasy.
You look at the deep south, and the middle east, and the planet is loaded with the miserable shitty fuckers.
And that's just the ones that are out and proud about it.
Gotta wonder how many are sneakier, and closeted, and would take advantage of this shit.
Humans are pretty horrible.
Another diamond in the rough.
Recommended.
Kinda curious to the see the sequels and remakes.
Probably not as good.
Open Water (2003)
This was as much of a bummer as I thought it was gonna be.
I didn't feel good until I Wikipedia-ed the real case, and found out the boat company was sued into oblivion.
Hostel (2005)
Mentioned before here.
Stand by what I said in "Cabin Fever".
And, that kills off 30 even scarier...
Now, finally, "13 Scarier Movie Moments"...
First, the one I saw before doing this list...
The Strangers (2008)
Eh, I liked the idea, and the trailer, but the flick itself didn't really do it for me.
Sorry.
And now, to ones I watched for the list....
The Descent (2005)
Really, really, REALLY good....and then the ending fucking ruins it.
If it ended just 5 minutes earlier, it would have been just right, but they had to try to be all artsy, and Shyamalan-y.
Watch it, and scene skip past the last few minutes.
Bug (2006)
Starring Michael Shannon just 4 years before becoming General Zod in "Man Of Steel".
About a paranoid schizophrenic who thinks he's full of bugs put into him by the military, and how he sweeps his girlfriend up in the fantasy.
I really dug it.
Not the greatest thing ever, but enjoyable.
Worth a watch.
Hostel: Part II (2007)
Like it even less than the first Hostel, because I have a crush on Heather Matarazzo, and I hated seeing her get hurt.
Nope, not an Eli Roth fan.
Just haven't been impressed.
Gave him a fair shot.
Cloverfield (2008)
Another "meh".
Liked the clever core idea of the style of it, and some of the scenes, and the performances were good, but...it hasn't stuck with me, and I'll probably never see it again.
And...DONE!!!
Next time, the compilation of all 143 in order!
7 comments:
"When A Stranger Calls - Carol Kane wasn't much of an actress IMO. I like the guy's voice though. If you have a crush on her then that makes you and Woody Allen both.
"Don't Look Now" - I own the DVD of this. It's...good enough. Nice and atmospheric. I like the thing with the dwarf, IMO, mostly because she's creepy looking, although it's sort of retarded how she kills Sutherland with just one hack on the neck. She must have hit him really hard. Weird that you'd like it since it's a movie favoring irrationality (second sight) over rationality (Sutherland is a rationalist who gradually gives in to his second sight.) "Walkabout" is a better Nic Roeg film IMO.
"Cape Fear" - Okay I guess. I didn't really mind De Niro's hamming. I just sort of liked watching Scorsese do a big budget mainstream horror.
"Cabin Fever" - the pathetic, totally unnecessary remake has ALREADY disappeared!
"Fear" - Garbage (I wouldn't have even predicted Witherspoon and Wahlberg would have gone on to careers, let alone Oscar nominations, based on this) but I did note your comment about "Rebel Without A Cause"....I don't quite think that that's what that film's about...It's actually sort of a call out of that generation's aimlessness, but it's not REALLY fearmongering. It has too much compassion for its characters to be that way.
"Exorcism Of Emily Rose" - Didn't see this, but I know one critic really hated it and walked out of it because he thought it was glorifying the church. Odd.
"The Stepford Wives" - Never saw this but avoid the remake like the damn plague.
"The Descent" - Didn't like this one as a horror movie much, and REALLY hated the stupid ending.
"Bug" - Never saw this but Michael Shannon can be spotted all the way back in "Groundhog Day" if you look close enough.
"Cloverfield" - In retrospect a horrible disappointment. Every good moment in the movie was in the f***ing trailer. At least most of it. Try harder, Abrams!
Update:
Uh, guess what's getting pretty good reviews....(and it also apparently has next to nothing to do with "Cloverfield"...)
http://www.metacritic.com/movie/10-cloverfield-lane/critic-reviews
I'll answer all your posts as soon as my eyes stop bleeding form doing part 4.
Hey, take your time, no biggie :-)
"Don't Look Now", I don't mind supernatural stories if they follow an internal logic within their own world, otherwise, the force in Star Wars would piss me off.
The vision on the boat being the funeral at the end tied it all up into a nice time loop, and I liked that.
I didn't HATE the midget, but if it ended there, I might have been annoyed.
"Cabin Fever", remake. It's dead? Good.
"Emily Rose", critic walk out. Funny, the only flicks that TRY to "glorify the church", are movies made by religionists like "Passion Of The Christ", and they make religion look WORSE!
"Stepford Wives", oh yeah, I've since done my homework, and the sequels and remake are all abominations.
I think I might have even caught the end of the remake on TBS.
"10 Cloverfield Lane", I've heard positive reviews, but I'm still not rushing out to see it.
"Fear", yeah, all right, point taken.
Couldn't think of a better movie, but I know there had to be teen fear-mongering movies.
Is "The Wild Bunch", the one I'm thinking of?
One of those.
"Don't Look Now" - At any rate I would take this over any Shyamalan movie barring possibly T6S, and T6s isn't what it once was.
"Rebel Without A Cause" - What you're probably thinking of is a combination of a)"Reefer Madness"/Ann Margret "Kitten With A Whip"-type MST3K schlock from the 50s and early 60s, and b)your own disgust for that whole generation, which in this case, I'm guessing, stems from that said generation's tendency to overrate James Dean, who only appeared in three films before he died, two of which had him playing marked
When you say "The Wild Bunch," I'm pretty sure you mean "The Wild One"--that's the 1950s movie that had Brando playing the biker who responded to an authority figure's question "What are you rebelling against?" with "Whaddya got?" That was the fourth or fifth movie he did. "The Wild Bunch" is a bitter, boundary-pushing (in terms of onscreen bloodshed and violence) 1969 Western directed by Sam Peckinpah (who was a great film director and total douche as a human being) told from the outlaws' POV and which doesn't have anything to do with teenagers at all.
But yeah, "Fear" still sucks, you don't hear the actors who were in it talk about it much.
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