31 Days of Halloween (October 1st through 31st)

[simbob4000]

31 Days 31 Monsters

October 1st Daimajin: Monster of Terror (1966)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062851/

Attachment 40465





Daimajin is a Kaiju film (giant monster) from 1960's Japan, though the story takes place in Feudal times. So when the Kaiju goes all smashy he's not facing tanks and planes but old guns, spears, and chains. But Daimajin takes more of a less is more route, 75% of the film is Kaiju-less, the monster in the mountains is something that we know is coming but the director delays it until the climax. Normally this would feel like a cheat, a way to save money but the reality is the movie is gorgeous. Daimajin is at it's heart a morality tale, it's the story of a town whose lord has been usurped by a villianous samurai and his cohorts. The lord and his wife die but the two children escape with several vassal's agreeing to return in 10 years to take out the usurper.

In those 10 years the usurper runs the village into the ground, forcing the peasants into slave labor, mocking the mountain god and being a generally bad guy. For over an hour he's winning at every turn, he decides to then commit one last act of evil to the mountain god, sending a group to destroy the Samurai statue. That was a big mistake...the Kaiju comes to life and the last 15-20 minutes are pure rampaging glory where the god punishes not only the bad but also the good.

I wouldn't even say the movie is a slow build, you basically have this great samurai movie which turns into a monster film. It balances heady subject matter like spiritualism and environmentalism with giant monster killing things.

This was a great movie Daimajin: Monster of Terror (1966) ****1/2 stars

Next up, a US atomic monster film

Was also planning on watching this. Was gonna try and watch all three.

[simbob4000]

Even though I'd been watching horror movies the week before, I ended up not seeing any horror films on the first. Oh well.

October 2

Watched two horror movies that ended up acting as a nice double bill...even though they've got nothing in common as far as the stories go. The first was last years The Hidden, the second was Park Chan-wook's 2013 Hollywood debut Stoker.





One a "zombie" movie with shades of I Am Legend (the book, not that shitty movie) about a family hiding from danger in a bunkers after a mysterious virus as infection the families town. The other about a globe hopping uncle that's returned home as his brother mysteriously dies and and his niece has turned 18. Both were really good.

[Sean Whitmore]

I love Son of Frankenstein! Ygor, Inspector Krogh, and Wolf Frankenstein are all terrific characters, the sets are expressionistic and crazy, and while the Monster doesn't do as much it's kinda the point: he's become this legend that means different things to different characters, and his diminished mental capacity is explained in the story.

Son Of may be my favorite of the series, edging out Bride by the narrowest of margins. Ygor is a match for Pretorius as far as great villains go, and although the Monster certainly loses something with his diminished intelligence, Karloff plays it as well silently as he did in the first movie. That scene in front of the mirror is fantastic.

It also helps that Wolf is so much less sniveling than his father. And the very concept of Krogh...having a cop hounding the doctor as he does his work...is so good that it's hard to believe it wasn't there from the beginning of the series.

[Siddon]

31 Days 31 Monsters

October 3rd, The Living Skeleton (1968)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0203635/








Bad news...titles a lie we don't get a living skeleton rampaging across Japan, good news we get a better version of "The Fog". For the person doing sea style horror films this is a good one. It centers around a massacre at sea where a half of the ships crew turns on the other murderers them and dumps them in the sea. Amongst the dead is a newlywed wife of the ships doctor, who also has a twin sister. Several years later the killers are slowly murdered one by one as the who and the why comes out, Ghosts, doubles, masks you've got a number of campy and spooky scenes and at 80 minutes practically no filler. I'm actually going to watch this one again to catch all the stuff I missed the first time, and I assume I missed quite a bit the first time around.

October 1st - Daimajin: Monster of Terror (1966) ****1/2 stars
October 2nd - Tarantula (1955) ***1/2 stars
October 3rd - The Living Skeleton(1968) ***

Next Up...a film that was recommended in this thread

[Da Boat]

Comments so far: Tarantula looks pretty badass. I saw another Atomic Monster movie a few years ago called Them! about giant ants and it was surprisingly good. About Stoker, I had no idea it was that kind of film. I'll check it out.

October 3- Harlequin



Starring Robert Powell, Jesus himself as "Wolf Gregory" a magic man that cures a Senator's boy of the illness of leukemia and becomes important to that family as a result. That magic man may be a supernatural being or a con man trying to find stuff from the Senator. The Senator's dangerous friends meanwhile try to find stuff about the magic guy. Also the guy has enormous influence on the kid and the Senator's wife falls for him. Pretty interesting mix and a unique story and plenty of gore but the ending just comes out of nowhere just when it gets interesting. We never know what the guy was about. I wish he have been super-demonic or just a spy, it is never explained.

The Harlequin thing is explained cause Harlequins were clowns-type in Greek theater shows that were visible only to the audience and not to the characters in the plays and that provided the humor.

[Angilasman]

Comments so far: Tarantula looks pretty badass. I saw another Atomic Monster movie a few years ago called Them! about giant ants and it was surprisingly good.

Man, I enjoy Tarantula but I love Them! It's rather like Jaws in that they have to shoot around the fact that the actual monster prop's limited mobility: the shark in Jaws could be represented by John William's terrific theme music, but the giant ants in Them! are like 90% that incredible chirping sound effect!

[BaneBreaker]

Oct 2: Dogman
Oct 3: Monsters in the Woods

Dogman wasn't too bad. Larry Joe Campbell made it pretty entertaining. Not bad for a low budget creature-feature. Monsters in the Woods was just bad. Like really bad. It was almost as if they made it up as they went.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2069756/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1686902/

[Jared]

October 1. The Crooked Man
October 2. Creature

October 3. Twins of Evil. (1971)




Last year (or the year before, they kinda blur), I watched all the films in Hammer's Dracula series. This year I decided to check out other vamp films from the British legend. Peter Cushing is on hand, playing a puritan witch hunter in Europe, a fanatic arguably more dangerous than the evil he's supposed to be fighting. Instead of Christopher Lee's Dracula, the undead fiend is Count Karnstein, a bored, decadent Styrian (?) noble who dabbles with Satanism until he makes the ultimate plunge and becomes a vampire. Cushing's nieces, two buxom beauties from Venice come to stay with him after being orphaned. Of course, one is good and pure, and the other is rebellious bad girl who is drawn to the Count.

As with all Hammer films, there's a lot of day for night shooting, gothic sets, plunging necklines, and British accents everywhere. Though relatively standard in comparison to to 80s slashers and onward, the level of erotic content as well as the explicit satanism in this must have been something at the time. The twins are played by playmates, and while I'm sure they never won any awards for acting, they really do a surprisingly good job in their roles. The biggest flaw is a sense of missing scenes; elapses of time aren't clearly conveyed, soem characters and potential subplots just kind of vanish and some deaths occur without consequence. Still, this is one of the better vamp flicks I've seen from Hammer, the Dracula films were a bit of a roller coaster in quality. There are two or three more films in this Karnstein series, this one apparently being something of a loose prequel to The Vampire Lovers. I don't know if I'll check out all of them, but I may.

Starring Robert Powell, Jesus himself as "Wolf Gregory" a magic man that cures a Senator's boy of the illness of leukemia and becomes important to that family as a result. That magic man may be a supernatural being or a con man trying to find stuff from the Senator. The Senator's dangerous friends meanwhile try to find stuff about the magic guy. Also the guy has enormous influence on the kid and the Senator's wife falls for him. Pretty interesting mix and a unique story and plenty of gore but the ending just comes out of nowhere just when it gets interesting. We never know what the guy was about. I wish he have been super-demonic or just a spy, it is never explained.

Sounds like it's inspired by the tale of Rasputin and the Czar's family. Incidentally, has that been a horror movie yet?

[Da Boat]

Man, I enjoy Tarantula but I love Them! It's rather like Jaws in that they have to shoot around the fact that the actual monster prop's limited mobility: the shark in Jaws could be represented by John William's terrific theme music, but the giant ants in Them! are like 90% that incredible chirping sound effect!

Exactly! You watch this and you clearly see that it's in competent hands, they knew they didn't have the best effects(still pretty good for the times but still...) and they cleverly limit the appearances of the ants and it works like a charm. It's pretty impressive. I was expecting some cheap 1950s B-movie but was shocked at how good it was. The storytelling, writing, directing, acting, etc....I don't understand why this movie is not more hyped.

[Da Boat]

October 1. The Crooked Man
October 2. Creature

October 3. Twins of Evil. (1971)





Last year (or the year before, they kinda blur), I watched all the films in Hammer's Dracula series. This year I decided to check out other vamp films from the British legend. Peter Cushing is on hand, playing a puritan witch hunter in Europe, a fanatic arguably more dangerous than the evil he's supposed to be fighting. Instead of Christopher Lee's Dracula, the undead fiend is Count Karnstein, a bored, decadent Styrian (?) noble who dabbles with Satanism until he makes the ultimate plunge and becomes a vampire. Cushing's nieces, two buxom beauties from Venice come to stay with him after being orphaned. Of course, one is good and pure, and the other is rebellious bad girl who is drawn to the Count.

As with all Hammer films, there's a lot of day for night shooting, gothic sets, plunging necklines, and British accents everywhere. Though relatively standard in comparison to to 80s slashers and onward, the level of erotic content as well as the explicit satanism in this must have been something at the time. The twins are played by playmates, and while I'm sure they never won any awards for acting, they really do a surprisingly good job in their roles. The biggest flaw is a sense of missing scenes; elapses of time aren't clearly conveyed, soem characters and potential subplots just kind of vanish and some deaths occur without consequence. Still, this is one of the better vamp flicks I've seen from Hammer, the Dracula films were a bit of a roller coaster in quality. There are two or three more films in this Karnstein series, this one apparently being something of a loose prequel to The Vampire Lovers. I don't know if I'll check out all of them, but I may.

Twins of Evil is Great. I discovered it last year and was shocked I knew nothing about it. It's without a doubt one of the best Hammer vampire movies(along with Vampire Circus). Like Circus, it's so decadent and sinful. Cushing is supposed to be the hero yet takes quite a pleasure at whiping his nieces. It must have been a ball being Peter Cushing doing all these movies. lol

Sounds like it's inspired by the tale of Rasputin and the Czar's family. Incidentally, has that been a horror movie yet?

Strange I never thought about Rasputin when watching it but it's true, it feels pretty similar. I think Christopher Lee made a Rasputin movie for Hammer if I'm not mistaken.

[Sean Whitmore]

October 1 - The Body Snatcher (1945)
October 2 - Isle of the Dead (1945)
October 3 - Dead Men Walk (1943)

This one was pretty weak. I didn't even realize it was a vampire story until a decent ways into it. And not just any vampire story, but Super-Budget Dracula, right down to having Dwight Frye play the Renfield. Still, it's public domain, so have it on Youtube in the background if hearing stodgy old men talk about "black magic" puts you in the Halloween mood.

[simbob4000]

Ended up playing video games with people online and missed watching any horror movies for the third.

October 4th

The first film I watched was interestingly enough brought to my attention by Joshua Goldberg, it was a movie he brought up on a movie site talking about Australian censorship...little did any of use in that thread know how much of a thing he had for Australia. That film would be Found, and I've got to say, for a banned that sounded pretty crazy, it's pretty subdued. Pretty subdued for most of its running time anyways, and once stuff starts happening you really don't see it. So found it the story of a boy named Marty that finds a human in his brothers closet. Mostly the movie just plays like a low budget indie drama about this kid that's bullied at school and is dealing with knowing his brother is a serial killer. This should have made for a good movie, but it's pretty average at best. Every once in a while I was reminded of a somehow resent movie I saw called Kimg Jack, which was a far better movie about a kid being bullied, it also felt more dangerous despite there not being a serial killer in the room next to that main character. The serial killer brother also made me think of the movie Teeth. These would probably be better movies to watch than Found, Teeth also being a horror movie means in would fit right in here too. Needless to say, not everything does well for the family with a serial killer son.



The next movie I watched, which I just finished watching, is Beyond Re-Animater. It kind of like Re-Animater, only its not as good and it's set in a prison. Still, despite not being as good as the first film, and more or less being the original movie all over again, it's pretty fun, and it's got lot of nice looking FX and some cool designs. It's actually interesting enough that I'm a little surprised it's not a more talked about movie, at least among those that talk about horror films. So, not great, not as good as the first, still pretty fun when all is said and done. Oh yeah, a penis fights a rat at the end of it. It's in silhouette, so it's pretty tastefully done. Bringin' it back to comics...book movies, it's got Elsa Pataky in it, who's married to Chris Hemsworth; seems she's also been in the last few Fast & Furious movies.

[Angilasman]

Exactly! You watch this and you clearly see that it's in competent hands, they knew they didn't have the best effects(still pretty good for the times but still...) and they cleverly limit the appearances of the ants and it works like a charm. It's pretty impressive. I was expecting some cheap 1950s B-movie but was shocked at how good it was. The storytelling, writing, directing, acting, etc....I don't understand why this movie is not more hyped.

I love the leadup when the two cops are just driving from incident to incident trying to figure what's killing all these people. It's does a great job of leading you from a world of straight realism into this fantastic story about trying to save the human race from giant ants.

The '50s produced some of my favorite (and in my opinion some of the best) Hollywood sci-fi movies ever: Them!, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Forbidden Planet, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Thing From Another World, The Creature From the Black Lagoon, The Incredible Shrinking Man, Journey to the Center of the Earth, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and... no doubt some others I'm forgetting. Sure, there were a mountain of cheap B-movies, but they were following the lead of some very well done hit movies, often by major studios. I mean, you take one look at Forbidden Planet or 20,000 Leagues and can tell that they spent a helluva lot of money on those.

The MST3K-ready B-movies could be fun, too, and plus there were several decent mid-level "not quite classics but pretty decent" movies, like the aforementioned Tarantula.

[Da Boat]

I love the leadup when the two cops are just driving from incident to incident trying to figure what's killing all these people. It's does a great job of leading you from a world of straight realism into this fantastic story about trying to save the human race from giant ants.

Yea they take their time to lead the Giant ants, it feels like a real situation with every people from the cops to politicians, etc...coming together to face the situation. The whole concept of the movie, the way it's told is great. Even the trailer where they don't tell the audience what it's about.

Yesterday I learned that Them! was the first of his genre. And that must be why it was well made, cause it was a bold move and it wasn't just a way to advantage from a phenomenum for cheap like most of the other atomic monster movies.

But it's a whole genre that I like very much regardless.

The '50s produced some of my favorite (and in my opinion some of the best) Hollywood sci-fi movies ever: Them!, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Forbidden Planet, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Thing From Another World, The Creature From the Black Lagoon, The Incredible Shrinking Man, Journey to the Center of the Earth, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and... no doubt some others I'm forgetting. Sure, there were a mountain of cheap B-movies, but they were following the lead of some very well done hit movies, often by major studios. I mean, you take one look at Forbidden Planet or 20,000 Leagues and can tell that they spent a helluva lot of money on those.

The MST3K-ready B-movies could be fun, too, and plus there were several decent mid-level "not quite classics but pretty decent" movies, like the aforementioned Tarantula.

Badass 50s monster features rules. That is why I liked the comic-book series Planetary so much cause they went into that genre pretty heavily.

--------------

October 4 - The Wave(2015)



Norwegian disaster movie that has some good moments. Not bad but it's not something that different from a US disaster movie.

[simbob4000]

Watched The Wave back when it first showed up on Netflix. It's ok, but god damn does it have some really stupid moments. Seems weird this guy that was so sure this was all going to happen didn't get his family out right away when leaving was something they were already doing, or at least get them to the high place he already knew would be safe beforehand. Hey guy, maybe just tell your wife to take her last day off and drive up this one mountian you've already told her about in the past because you're pretty sure this whole town will be underwater. I know your happy to see your wife dude, but maybe wait until you aren't underwater to make out with her. It's weird that this not melodrama disaster movie just starts going for melodrama at the zero hour. It also seemed weird that the only thing that brought the dad back was the kiss of life from his son. Like, it feels like it's meant to be symbolic, but it wasn't like the father and son had a bad relationship and the son just wasn't giving up on him even after the mom stopped trying CPR. It feels like a Sleeping Beauty moment, only between father and son, and after the wife couldnt get it to work. Very strange...and maybe the true horror of the movie? No? Whatever. Not bad, not really all that good either, worth a watch on a lazy Sunday if you can't find anything else of interest. Would say Aftershock and Bait were better disaster movies. Bait's wave comes with sharks, and being trapped with them in a store and parking garage.