Lurker > v_charon

Cool, curious to see your thoughts on it! I'm trying to decide on tonight's film still... think it's going to be Blood Flower on Shudder.

Yuffie
Freya
Basch
Zidane

mnk posted...

@v_charon is that official or fan art of Leon?

Official. It's from the FF trading card game. Artwork is by Toshitaka Matsuda.

Zom 100 was, thankfully, super enjoyable and charming. I really love these Japanese horror films that include a little slice of life style content, it's pretty unique since it isn't usually a feature of Western horror films. It really makes you care about the characters on a more personal level and goes a long way in selling the film itself as a whole. I haven't watched the anime or the manga that this is based on, but if they're similar I imagine they'd be great.

There are a lot of silly moments throughout this one but again, I just found the whole thing to be so charming and the characters so likable. A great one to end the day on after that steaming pile from earlier.

No

Kefka
Garland
Agrias
Steiner
Red Mage

There are no words.

The Unseen is one of the worst films I've ever seen. I really didn't think I'd run across something that would be F tier the rest of the year given how much I hated Outwaters and Skinamarink but this is just...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emFPMGAR4Cg

Now Skinamarink is still worse because it was 100 minutes straight of staring at walls and grainy screens but really, one of the worst written, acted and directed films ever. The plot is so disjointed, the dialogue is so cringy and every character in the movie has a complete lack of continuity. What a huge disappoint, holy shit I can't get over how bad this movie was.

We're going to be watching that other Unseen movie on Prime today just to say we watched those back to back, and then later going to check out Netflix's live action version of Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead.

I noticed The Puppetman. Might see it later this month, we'll see.

Zack
Vincent
Red Mage
Blank

S Tier: (100-95)

1. Scream VI
2. M3GAN
3. Talk to Me
4. Saw X
5. Evil Dead Rise

A Tier: (94-85)

6. Re/Member
7. Influencer
8. The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster
9. A Haunting in Venice
10. Satanic Hispanics
11. When Evil Lurks
12. Beau is Afraid
13. The Blackening
14. She Came From the Woods
15. Knock at the Cabin
16. Bunker
17. Birth/Rebirth
18. Cocaine Bear
19. Insidious: The Red Door
20. Final Cut
21. It Lives Inside
22. Appendage
23. Jagged Mind
24. Haunted Mansion
25. Renfield

B Tier (84-70)

26. 65
27. The Boogeyman
28. The Last Voyage of the Demeter
29. The Pope's Exorcist
30. Infinity Pool
31. Cobweb
32. Stalker
33. From Black
34. Inside
35. Nefarious
36. The Exorcist: Believer
37. The Nun II
38. Natty Knocks
39. The Ghost Within
40. Til Death Do Us Part
41. They Wait in the Dark

C Tier (69-50)

42. Huesera: The Bone Woman
43. There's Something Wrong With the Children
44. Malum
45. Bird Box Barcelona
46. Meg 2: The Trench
47. Kids vs. Aliens
48. Enys Men
49. The Royal Hotel
50. You're Killing Me
51. Run Rabbit Run
52. The Strays
53. Consecration
54. The Offering
55. No One Can Save You
56. Trinket Box
57. Spoonful of Sugar
58. Unwelcome
59. Hunt Her, Kill Her
60. Unseen
61. Don't Look Away
62. The Black Demon

D Tier (49-30)

63. Leave
64. The Headmistress
65. Children of the Corn
66. Fear
67. Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey

F Tier (29-0)

68. The Outwaters
69. Skinamarink

New Entrants: Influencer, The Royal Hotel, Unseen

I've given my thoughts on the other two. Kinda fell behind our progression a little bit this week due to unaligned schedules, will have to make up for it at a later date I guess. Tonight we watched Unseen (included with Prime). Not The Unseen, which is apparently a different movie, yet another horror from 2023 somehow. This movie's premise is that a woman is abducted by her ex-boyfriend and held hostage, and she has extremely poor vision without her glasses which are of course promptly broken early on. She manages to escape from him and dial a random number on her phone, which was broken by a fall. The random number was a wrong number call she received earlier, and it happens to be our other main character, a gas station employee, who has to help her escape from her ex by guiding her through a video call.

Premise wise... it's interesting. But the movie gets off to a really jarring start from me with some bizarre editing decisions. I guess it's to create a stylized film, but it never quite sat well with me. I was sure this would have to go into my D tier films but the narrative managed to turn it around during the middle part of the film and once they stopped with all the crazy editing. It's still not a particularly good movie, a lot of goofy stuff, but I wasn't offended by it (which I have to be to go below a 50 score overall).

I've noticed, personally, of course. I think you chose a couple of different images a few times but since I redid so many of those images recently they stand out in my mind. Was glad to see you making use of them!

Just wait until Rufus hits that Rebirth boost.

guffguy89 posted...

LoL, I just took the photos from vcharon's guantlet. Honestly, the original photo looks like a random chocobo from FFX. If it makes you feel any better, I don't think any chocobo is beating Squall. Let me see if I can edit the image though with the one you provided.

Yeah, I haven't played the series and researching that is kinda hard online when you have no frame of reference to what "Chocobo" looks like. I'll be updating the images in the gauntlet with this one here, thanks mnk.

Squall
Estinien
Edward
Braska

I feel like Roman is really underrated. He's still the first and only, probably ever, solo Ghostface

Aerith
Rikku
Rufus
Paine

I'd love to see them land one of the big slasher franchises and make something cool out of it. It's been too recent to reboot Halloween again I think; Friday has been in hell for ages it seems, would be cool if what's historically been the least well reviewed critically horror franchise could find a home where it might actually be able to come up with a good film.

Dillon Brooks being ejected 5 minutes into his first game is pretty hilarious.

Influencer was pretty good stuff. I had never heard of Cassandra Naud until watching this. Apparently she's going to be in another one next month called It's a Wonderful Knife. She has a very unique and noticeable birthmark under one of her eyes, it'll be interesting to see how she does acting. This particular film used the birthmark in the plot.

Absolutely diabolical villain in this one, in my opinion at least. Somehow one that's good enough to make you actually root for... influencers! I thought this movie would be a bit of a joke given the premise, but it's pretty gripping. I really liked Naud's performance as CW. I was really rooting for her to get her comeuppance by the end. She plays the character so very well, from cold and calculating, arrogant and then also unhinged and obsessed. My only critique of the film would be I wish I had learned more about her, why she felt this path was the one to go down. I suppose a person can easily infer as to why and probably be correct, but typically when I get interested in villains I want to know all about their backstory. I was able to correctly predict the ending of the movie early on, but the film did a good job making me believe that right up until it happened, it wasn't going to happen. So when it did, I was still pretty happy with it.

It's definitely a good one, strong recommend. Will have to make up for taking this day off from watching anything over the weekend again perhaps. A lot of stuff to dig into with Shudder still to catch up on their movies.

I'm pretty sure a seeding upset is happening today!

Cloud
Seymour
Ultros
Lulu

We caught the trailers for Soul Mates and Malibu Horror Story before watching that one, by the way. Hopefully that's a good sign those limited releases will be picked up locally and we can check them out; both are scheduled for October 20th.

Tonight's film is probably Influencer (Shudder).

So with The Royal Hotel... decidedly not a horror film, at least in my opinion. I'll put it on my list when I repost it after a few more movies this week on streaming services, but yeah, I don't think it really qualifies either. That being said, it's an interesting film. It places the two main characters in a situation where you'd think something was going to happen, and then well, it's sort of a trope subversion style of film I guess.

Layle
Fran
Yuna
Gilgamesh

Glad you enjoyed those two! Your thoughts on TSWWtC are pretty much exactly how I felt about it to the letter, though I do prefer Jagged Mind to it by a good bit. I'm more of a person that appreciates 80's horror rather than being a huge fan of it; I'm probably a bit more contemporary in my tastes in that regard. But that closing shot of Gilford's character before the end credits... most 80's horror thing ever, right?

Yeah, that scene was a killer for sure.

In the theater waiting for Royal Hotel to begin now.

Vivi
Relm
Garnet
Tifa

S Tier: (100-95)

1. Scream VI
2. M3GAN
3. Talk to Me
4. Saw X
5. Evil Dead Rise

A Tier: (94-85)

6. Re/Member
7. The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster
8. A Haunting in Venice
9. Satanic Hispanics
10. When Evil Lurks
11. Beau is Afraid
12. The Blackening
13. She Came From the Woods
14. Knock at the Cabin
15. Bunker
16. Birth/Rebirth
17. Cocaine Bear
18. Insidious: The Red Door
19. Final Cut
20. It Lives Inside
21. Appendage
22. Jagged Mind
23. Haunted Mansion
24. Renfield
25. 65

B Tier (84-70)

26. The Boogeyman
27. The Last Voyage of the Demeter
28. The Pope's Exorcist
29. Infinity Pool
30. Cobweb
31. Stalker
32. From Black
33. Inside
34. Nefarious
35. The Exorcist: Believer
36. The Nun II
37. Natty Knocks
38. The Ghost Within
39. Til Death Do Us Part
40. They Wait in the Dark

C Tier (69-50)

41. Huesera: The Bone Woman
42. There's Something Wrong With the Children
43. Malum
44. Bird Box Barcelona
45. Meg 2: The Trench
46. Kids vs. Aliens
47. Enys Men
48. You're Killing Me
49. Run Rabbit Run
50. The Strays
51. Consecration
52. The Offering
53. No One Can Save You
54. Trinket Box
55. Spoonful of Sugar
56. Unwelcome
57. Hunt Her, Kill Her
58. Don't Look Away
59. The Black Demon

D Tier (49-30)

60. Leave
61. The Headmistress
62. Children of the Corn
63. Fear
64. Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey

F Tier (0-29)

65. The Outwaters
66. Skinamarink

Made a few edits into my list to reduce the number of films in my B tier. Not because I care about how many end up there, but I sort of re-evaluated my opinions on a few of the films and found that was more in line with being upper C's than low B's. In my head I feel like the start of the C tier is somewhere around like a 69 overall film for me. 50 from me is what I consider "watchable but not necessary" territory.

Jagged Mind: Solid thriller. This is a slow burn and it takes a while to really figure out what's going on with the plot, and the start of the film is quite jarring. I do however feel the reward for getting to the truth behind the mystery is really worth it; I really like the story told here and the scary thought of what someone might do given such an ability. I wasn't expecting to like this one as much as I did, but I was again pretty surprised by this Hulu exclusive!

Huesera: The Bone Woman: Had heard a lot about this one, and have been wanting to watch it for a while but up until today we had not been able to watch Shudder on the TV and were instead confined to watching it on my PC. Not quite as relaxing or enjoyable so we've not been keeping up with all Shudder has to offer. I... am on the fence about this one. I feel like it has that high brow horror label about, but it doesn't quite hit the mark for me. It has some really good moments in it though that are creepy, and I do understand the message the film is sending it just doesn't quite do it for me I guess.

When Evil Lurks: What a bleak film. A lot of really dark moments in this film, and by the end there's not much left standing. The gore here looks very realistic and they don't shy away from using it a lot. Perhaps not quite on the level of Evil Dead Rise but it's certainly up there for brutality. I did like the characters here, even if they don't always make the wisest of decisions. Spanish language horrors are really bringing it this year. But yeah, I think the ending is one of the most depressing and bleakest conclusions I've seen to a horror film recently. Sometimes it's easy to mess up this sort of ending but I think this film did it just right.

I've only seen the trailer twice, but The Royal Hotel has shown up on UHM listed as well, horror. Research seems to indicate it's a lot more of a psychological thriller but there are plenty of sites that seem to think it's horror adjacent enough. This is probably a Willem Dafoe's Inside sort of horror, but there are limited showings of it so we're going to check it out tomorrow. Off to catch When Evil Lurks now.

I went out to get a Roku device so we can watch Shudder on the TV finally and can eliminated some of this big backlog, this one apparently came out way back in February. Now that I have it though I guess I'll be sure to add the V/H/S film to my list for this month.

Just watched Huesera: The Bone Woman. Don't know that I really liked it. Might just be sort of one of those films that's a bit over my head in terms of the message. Those kinds of films are hit or miss for me.

Noctis
Minwu
Golbez
Tidus

Yeah, I think I gave up after 3 expecting it to never really be my thing. Hopefully you're right!

I've always really hated the series but it has a name brand at this point so I am a little obligated to watch it for the purposes of my project here (impossible as it may be, I at least want to see anything most people have heard of). I haven't seen every one of them, but the ones I have seen seem to all follow the same format and there's not much deviation from the norm (sounds like that's the case again perhaps?). I dunno, I guess I'll find out eventually.

Today we watched Jagged Mind from Hulu. I have some thoughts typed up for it, but saving it to when I repost the rankings again. Will probably try to watch another movie during the day on Sunday before going to the theater tomorrow night.

Setzer
Barret
Faris
Reno

Yes

Seeing When Evil Lurks tomorrow night.

S Tier:

1. Scream VI
2. M3GAN
3. Talk to Me
4. Saw X
5. Evil Dead Rise

A Tier:

6. Re/Member 90%
7. The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster
8. A Haunting in Venice
9. Satanic Hispanics
10. Beau is Afraid
11. The Blackening
12. She Came From the Woods
13. Knock at the Cabin
14. Bunker
15. Birth/Rebirth
16. Cocaine Bear
17. Insidious: The Red Door
18. Final Cut
19. It Lives Inside
20. Appendage
21. Haunted Mansion
22. Renfield
23. 65

B Tier

24. The Boogeyman
25. The Last Voyage of the Demeter
26. The Pope's Exorcist
27. Infinity Pool
28. Cobweb
29. Stalker
30. From Black
31. Inside
32. Nefarious
33. The Exorcist: Believer
34. The Nun II
35. Natty Knocks
36. The Ghost Within
37. Til Death Do Us Part
38. Malum
39. They Wait in the Dark
40. There's Something Wrong With the Children

C Tier

41. Bird Box Barcelona
42. Meg 2: The Trench
43. Kids vs. Aliens
44. Enys Men
45. You're Killing Me
46. Run Rabbit Run
47. The Strays
48. Consecration
49. The Offering
50. No One Can Save You
51. Trinket Box
52. Spoonful of Sugar
53. Unwelcome
54. Hunt Her, Kill Her
55. Don't Look Away
56. The Black Demon

D Tier

57. Leave
58. The Headmistress
59. Children of the Corn
60. Fear
61. Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey

F Tier

62. The Outwaters
63. Skinamarink

Appendage: I quite liked this one! I was a little disappointed with my first taste of Hulu, thankfully this one turned it around for me. It doesn't have the hype or ratings around it, but I had a fun time watching this one. It's an interesting mix of body, comedy and psychological horrors that tells an easy to follow story that I think works. The acting in general is pretty strong here, I found the main character and several of her friends likable (and unlikable in one case, but as a villain that's a good thing). Cool concept.

There's Something Wrong With the Children: Strong 80's vibes from this one, which you will get immediately from the title card and then again from the very last scene before the credits. That being said I found it to be pretty competent for a film of its nature. I've read some mixed reviews for the children actors here, but I really thought they did a good job with the material. There are some times you'll have to suspend your disbelief a good bit and the movie doesn't always explain everything that's going on very well, but I like the idea of the movie and felt it was shot/acted above average. I didn't have much hope for this one, it's been on my to watch list for several months now, but was pleasantly surprised.

The Offering: This is a Jewish mythology based horror. Jewish mythos actually has a lot of pretty frightening stories within it; it's not explored often enough. This one has a lot of jumpscares here and there, and I like the idea of the monster... but I feel at times things don't really add up that well. Like, this demon is painted in the very first scene of the film as an "eater of children" and that it can be contained in an amulet. Yet there doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to what the demon attacks or what it really wants. I dunno, I like it as a concept but it sort of falls into the category of a lot of films where there's an interesting premise but the film sort of struggles to stay on course.

The Exorcist: Believer: This is not as bad of a film as critics have made it out to be. I don't think it's great, which is a shame because it probably could have been with a few changes. The film has a lot of great little scares, but they're almost all confined to the first act or so. They totally waste Ellen Burstyn here, which is a shame really. I know she's 90 and all but her character is sort of iconic in the realm of horror, and the trailers sort of made it seem like she'd have a major role but that isn't really the case. It was interesting to see Linda Blair cameo at the end, considering her history with this franchise. Ultimately, I think the film is done in by cast bloat. Some of these characters were totally unnecessary and like "who cares about ___" level fodder. But I appreciate the bold choice of killing one of the girls at the end. I don't know, I put it right there next to The Nun II because both sort of suffer from similar issues.

Yeah, I'll probably put that on my watch list for this month as well.

If Kadaj can put up the same number on Lightning than Ktjn put against Mog, then what could Kadaj do in another SMFFFC run!

Ramza
Shadow
Dad
Ardyn

I have a few Tubi horrors on my list, but I'm rather doubtful I'll get to them. Pretty low on the totem pole in terms of importance.

PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

@v_charon

I like your list a lot! It's looking like you have mostly stuff from this year selected for it. I've had my eyes on a lot of them, so we'll have to compare notes.

Yeah, it should be all stuff from this year. Trying to kill two birds with one stone; can do a little event for October while pushing myself to catch up on 2023 backlog. I doubt watching "every" horror movie of the year is really possible, but going to see how many I can actually get down will still be fun.

Kadaj
Mog
Ashe
Sabin

Sounds like it was a bit inspired from Don't Breathe perhaps.

I thought I'd share my list of what I'm planning (31 films for the 31 days) to see if there's any overlap beyond Appendage perhaps!

1. No One Will Save You (Hulu)
2. Appendage (Hulu)
3. There's Something Wrong With the Children (Prime)
4. We Have a Ghost (Netflix)
5. Clock (Hulu)
6. The Exorcist: Believer (Theaters)
7. Nightmare (Shudder)
8. When Evil Lurks (Theaters)
9. Huesera: The Bone Woman (Shudder)
10. Bad Things (Shudder)
11. Influencer (Shudder)
12. Unseen (Prime)
13. This Land (Prime+)
14. The Communion Girl (Shudder)
15. Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead (Netflix)
16. Quicksand (Shudder)
17. The Tank (Prime+)
18. Jagged Mind (Hulu)
19. Dark Windows (Prime+)
20. Brooklyn 45 (Shudder)
21. The Offering (Hulu)
22. Devilreaux (Prime+)
23. The Unheard (Shudder)
24. Murder, Anyone? (Prime)
25. Elevator Game (Shudder)
26. Slotherhouse (Prime+)
27. Five Nights at Freddy's (Theaters)
28. Blood Flower (Shudder)
29.
30.
31.

The last 3 are blank for now because there are 3 limited releases in theaters I can see for this month other than the 3 I know we'll be able to watch. If we don't even up getting to see those 3 (Onyx the Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls, Soul Mates, Malibu Horror Story) I'll probably fill the list with a few more things I'll have to pay Amazon extra to see. I really want to add Organ Trail to this list but I do not want to have to subscribe to Paramount to do it. These films are all 2023 releases, for the record (or at least that is their Western release date in a few cases).

The reviews for Exorcist Believer are awful. I'm super bummed.

Did I really abstain in a finals?

Yikes, so much stuff I love won't win a single match.

I personally liked the new Hulu original Appendage a whole lot more than No One Will Save You. Not as much hype around it, lesser scores across the board, but I think it's very worth the watch.