2023-24 Horror Topic: Executive Producer - Jason Blum

Did anyone go and see Abigail on opening weekend? We saw it last night, pretty good stuff! I'm glad to see Universal able to put out a well-received and universally liked in general vampire film. I personally liked Renfield last year but I know that's a minority opinion. Abigail felt very fresh though, pretty unique stylistically speaking to most any vampire movie in recent memory. I was impressed by the character work of the supporting cast, and there's lots and lots of blood if that's a draw for you.

Seeing it tomorrow!

Framed #777


https://framed.wtf

I completely forgot this was still happening.

https://twitter.com/BDisgusting/status/1783893674331460046

Augh, Paramount+

We're about to head off to see something on the big screen called Dancing Village: The Curse Begins. I wasn't aware of this film in the slightest until it showed up on the release radar this week. It's an Indonesian film that's getting a limited theatrical release here for some reason, I haven't read much into why. But I enjoy watching foreign horror films for the most part, and I'm curious to see if there's going to be much of a turnout. When we saw Exhuma in theaters last months tons of people came out for that one, but we live in a pretty densely populated Korean area. Either no one will be in this film but us, or I'll learn something about our demographics I guess. I'm not sure what to expect from it; I don't even know the plot synopsis nor have I seen any trailer for this movie. It's fairly long, which could be a popular thing in Asian countries perhaps since these will be two of the longest horror movies we've watched this year.

We watched something I had been meaning to check out for a few months now last night called The Seeding. It had a limited run at some point early this year but I couldn't find it playing nearby. It's a folk horror movie... which means I didn't care for it much. It reminded me a lot of Midsommar in theming at times, which I also really didn't care for. At least with Midsommar there are some moments, mostly early, where I did feel like I was gonna like it. Here that thought vanished pretty quickly. It's competently made; visually it looks fine, it's acted fine. I just don't like the story decisions; it's bleak, too bleak. Unlike a movie from last year like say, When Evil Lurks, it didn't have any characters I could enjoy that were at the heart of the film. That's why I liken it more to Midsommar because again, the cast is very unlikable. Kind of a disappointment, but at least I finally watched it.

So apparently that film was a prequel to what's apparently Indonesia's highest ever grossing original film from a couple of years ago. I don't feel like having watched that first film would change much since as a prequel this is intended to stand on its own, though I'm sure there would be things to catch if you did know. I thought it was pretty good; there are times when I struggle to follow along with and keep up with films from this part of the world, but this told a very easy to register story with a cast of characters that didn't really get lost in each other. A few really visceral moments and a couple of decent scares. It is a little long at just over two hours, but I had a good time with it personally.

Shudder has added a new original as of yesterday also, a French film called Infested (after just mentioning the lack of spider movies, there are two in just a few weeks now!). This is one of those "2023" movies but I'll be watching it as part of this year since this is the first time it's available for watching (legally speaking at least) in the US.

So out of nowhere, Amazon's Them came out with another season.

Just watched the first episode but holy fuck that was an outstanding first episode. It's black horror, and so far it absolutely rules. I'll let everyone know if it keeps up the quality.

Yeah that dropped completely out of nowhere. I liked the first season a lot. Definitely let me know about the quality because I heard it's a little iffy and I'd rather spend my time watching Shogun right now I think.

Just saw that Anthony Perkins' son wrote/directed Longlegs, my interest just went up 1000%

I am almost as hyped for Long Legs leading up to its release as I was for Hereditary . It has been SOME TIME since I've been this hyped for a horror film and I can't wait til July gets here!

Snake5555555555 posted...

Yeah that dropped completely out of nowhere. I liked the first season a lot. Definitely let me know about the quality because I heard it's a little iffy and I'd rather spend my time watching Shogun right now I think.

Okay well absolutely spend your time watching Shogun first because there isn't much that touches Shogun in quality.

Three episodes into Them: The Scare and it still holds up. I have absolutely no idea where this show is going but it's doing a lot of really good stuff.

So I binged the rest of Them Season 2 and honestly? Pretty outstanding. Compelling plot. The directing, like the first season, is outstanding (look out for freaking Ti West directing the finale). It does a lot of really clever things with the plot where I expected on thing, and they gave it to me but then also added a twist to it. And then ANOTHER twist to it later.

The scares are great, but admittedly better earlier in the season than later. I also feel like the plot kind of unravels slightly towards the end. But I can't say I'm disappointed for a show that I didn't even expect a second season of. But now I hope it keeps getting more. Because damn, this is a strong show.

Rewatching Bone Tomahawk and admiring the writing, some of the best dialogue ever in a horror movie. It's so good, the movie doesn't need a soundtrack.

So we watched something last night on Tubi called Gacy: Serial Killer Next Door.

It's of course about the infamous serial killer, but it's a partially fictionalized take on it. Well, mostly fictionalized I guess. The only parts that are real are Gacy himself and maybe a few details about his kill style and victim choice. Essentially the movie is "what if John Wayne Gacy had a nosy next-door neighbor who immediately suspected he was up to something". It starts out decently, maybe anyway. The actor who portrays Gacy isn't really a bad actor, I doubt he's playing Gacy though. I'm not a huge serial killers nerd, so I realized I knew a lot less about Gacy than I thought I did. The character pictured here is clearly very Joker or Pennywise inspired with a lot of over-the-top clown stuff, which I doubt was actually Gacy, but he is sufficiently creepy and unsettling.

That's about all the good I can muster to say about this movie though. Yikes this was bad, like bad Lifetime movie sort of levels. The writing is abysmal, especially for the main character's parents. At one point they're all in on believing their son, so much so that the dad goes out to follow Gacy around and even goes to get a gun saying he's going to take the law into his own hands. Then literally less than a minute later he's telling his son that he's overreacting and Gacy hasn't done anything wrong. There are a lot of distracting scenes that go nowhere and are full of bad actors. Interestingly it's not shot poorly at any point, but what's being shot is often mind-numbingly bad. It being about a recent enough serial killer that still has people affected by what he did doesn't really bother me so much, I'm a fan of SKYND for example. But this lacks any quality and outside of being disrespectful or whatever to the victims' families, it's just a badly written and acted film.

I don't usually watch horror but tonight I went to a viewing of I Saw the TV Glow and it was incredible.

I'm excited for that one! Glad to hear it was good!

Also, they fucked up Exorcist: Believer so bad that they're going to the man who rescues franchises: Mike Flanagan. Lol

I'm really upset I Saw the TV Glow didn't come out at my local theater this weekend

Yeah I need to have seen that like yesterday T_T

We didn't get it either. It should expand to more locations over the next two weeks I think.

I was laughing at you guys like "Hahaha If only they lived in San Francisco, where they always put every obscure movie out in at least a few theaters."

And then I looked and I Saw the TV Glow is going to be at the Alamo Draft House and that's it. And my ass isn't going that deep into the city to see it. Plus my fiancee would kill me because we save that place for long movies only to enjoy the experience fully.

And then there's so many movies I have to catch up on this month because I didn't have the time. Lol

Congrats to you guys that actually got it nearby at all, because according to BoxOfficeMojo it played in only 4 locations across the entire country last weekend. It should have a wider release in two weeks, so we'll be on the lookout for it for sure. Meanwhile there was another horror movie out this weekend... that should be in theaters everywhere, Tarot. Obviously we had seen the trailer for this one many times at this point, and word of mouth was very poor.

That being said, and this probably won't be a popular opinion, but I didn't think it was bad at all. In fact, I'd call it competent. It doesn't create any new ideas or do anything particularly well, but it does everything at a level I'd say is fairly decent. It's sort of a throwback to a late 90's-early 2000's style of teen/young adult horror movies that feature a mid-sized cast of characters getting killed off in various ways. It does have its hands tied a little bit with the PG-13 rating, but it pushes the boundary just about as far as it can to make stuff still look pretty exciting. The monster designs are, for the most part, pretty good looking and there are definitely a couple that standout. It is a pretty predictable experience, but I don't think that makes it bad. People that are saying this bad are simply not watching enough horror movies; there's a huge list of things way worse than this.

https://twitter.com/DiscussingFilm/status/1787675744396587515

Well that sucks.

?

https://bloody-disgusting.com/tv/3811041/crystal-lake-a24-has-not-pulled-the-plug-on-their-friday-the-13th-tv-series-exclusive/

Well that doesn't suck.

Am I the only one who finds it interesting that Disney+ seems to classify horror and disaster movies as "thrillers"? Then again the international Disney+ seems to have a lot more movies than the US one - just found it interesting to think of stuff like Volcano, Independence Day, and The Omen as thrillers.