#cloverfield was kinda like this

[six-demon-bag]

AKSEL HENNIE as Sasha Volkov THE CLOVERFIELD PARADOX (2018) dir. Julius Onah

[steveharrington]

i love your taste in movies, do you have any recommendations for scary movies that are on streaming right now? i just moved and i'm planning to get a library card this weekend but until then i need something to tide me over :)

oh thank you!!! yes! this is just from taking a look around at some of the horror streaming guides i’ve seen online so hopefully these are accurate to which service they’re said to be on!

on netflix:

•train to busan (2016) is an all timer for me that i really think is just a masterpiece. even if you’re a little burned out on zombie media, i still say give train to busan a chance because it does zombies in a way that felt really refreshing and different. the characters in this movie are so well done and it makes me genuinely emotional every time i watch <3

•as above, so below (2014) is such a fun movie like omg….i simply was having the time of my life watching it. really leans into as many scares as it can possibly think of, doesn’t take itself or its subject matter too seriously, genuinely gives me sweaty palms sometimes with the claustrophobia of the paris catacombs. also has the rlly cute guy from cloverfield/super store who i have a big crush on

•some honorable mentions: zombieland (2009) is forever a comfort movie for me, scary stories to tell in the dark (2019) did a genuinely great job imo of adapting the book series, and pearl (2022) is just a great time

on HBO max:

•poltergeist (1982) is an underrated fav of mine <3 weirdly i think of it as like a family friendly horror movie? like i think you could sit down kids in front of poltergeist and they’d generally be okay, which i love and find so compelling in movies that genuinely are scary but also kinda work with younger viewers. feat. the iconic zelda rubinstein

•trick r treat (2007): THEEE halloween movie. its literally a movie ABOUT halloween and about the love of the holiday and the season. genuinely makes me feel so emotional about halloween and the beautiful lovely meaningful holiday it is for so many of us. just a fun campy time, everything ties together in such a clever way, and sam is a little baby. what more could you want?

•honorable mentions: of course the scream franchise (1-4) are classics and so worthy of rewatching, and i’ll recommend open water (2003) because to me it is absolutely terrifying and i find myself thinking about it very often

on hulu:

•the omen (1976) always hits for me. i love this movie and find it so effective in its horror. i LOVE a creepy kid. a bit of the omen trivia: in the final shot, damien wasn’t originally intended to be smiling. he was supposed to look dead ahead at the camera. but the actor was told to be serious and look stern, which made him giggle, so the smile at the end is genuine in that he was trying to suppress a laugh. they kept it because it came across so sinister and tonally perfect in the context of the movie :)

•sea fever (2020) listen no one EVER talks about this movie but i was blown away by it. ocean horror is one of my moms fav subgenres so if we can find a horror movie about the ocean you better believe we will be watching. i thought the concept of this movie and its monster (? if you can call it that) were so fresh and original. compared to its predecessors like leviathan or deep star six, i honestly think sea fever is more effective in its scares

•honorable mentions: hulu has so many good choices! alien (1979) and the fly (1986) are obviously beloved classics for a reason. also if you’re looking for a series, castle rock is near and dear to my heart and is very well done

on prime:

•hell house llc (2015) is another one of those classic Halloween movies to me like it truly is a love letter to the holiday…mwah. found footage is my fav subgenre and this movie does it very well. it has one of the most effective scares that truly took my breath away upon first watch and stuck with me ever since

•10 cloverfield lane (2016): ohhh the cloververse my beloved….i often speak highly of cloverfield (2008) because it’s one of my absolute favorite movies of all time, but i don’t as often talk about 10 cloverfield. not sure why tbh because i love it as well! holy FUCK john goodman is scary in this. it truly sets up a horrifying situation, does so much with a small limited environment, and again john goodman has me shakin in my boots. you don’t have to have seen cloverfield to watch this one! you can watch em out of order no problem

•honorable mentions: of course the thing (1982) is immaculate and gets me every single time. just getting reports right now that lisa frankenstein (2024) is already on prime, HIGHLY recommend, wish i could go back in time to the day i watched this in theaters alone in a new windbreaker i had just thrifted and felt so at peace

honorable streaming service mention: shudder is worth a subscription if you’re wanting to go all in on horror this halloween season. it’s got such a fun eclectic collection and amazing movies like late night with the devil (2024) and series like history of horror

[tx0r1a]

QUIET PLACE DAY ONE SPOILERS AHEAD

I went to see it in a theather with a friend of mine yesterday as a bday gift for myself and I expected alien movie with cloverfield vibes and Lupita Nyong'o as a lead (we both kinda went to see it for her lmao)

What I got from this is indeed alien horror with cloverfield vibes but also perhaps my favorite chemistry between horror characters since escape room movies (2019 ones) LIKE ???

the way they were looking out for each other SO MUCH I'm obssesed with all their little bonding moments like Eric looking for Sam's meds and the scene in spot where her dad used to play,seeing two really smart horror leads having each-other's backs is so nice and the ending fucking crushed me (: Maybe it's because I actually DON'T watch that many movies but fact that this ending is both so hopeful (unless you know the franchise and fact that angels are very much still later on BUT IGNORING THAT) and so tragic

also Frodo,,,,I'd die for Frodo and I'm glad that only thing I knew about this film prior seeing it was fact that he makes to the end

[ray-winters]

fav horror movie (besides scream, obv) or do you just have any good recs

Okay so some of my favs:

Insidious (iconic), Insidious 3 (solidly scary, Elise is the protag yayyy)

The Fourth Kind (that movie truly messed me up on my first watch)

Smile (Can get kinda intense & graphic but still so good)

Pearl (Golden age technicolor inspired horror is...inspired.)

Cloverfield (if it counts, found footage)

Paranormal Activity 3 (it's the best in the series IMHO)

The Others (More of a drama but SO INSANE- the ending is...like otherworldly good)

Halloween H20 (hot take, unpopular opinion, H20 is the best Halloween film)

Best horror I've ever seen, though is not actually in film, it's on TV.

AHS: Asylum, Haunting of Hill House, Midnight Mass, AHS: Roanoke are some examples of top fuckin tier horror.

[ichorandpride]

Fuck all these weird anons what was your monsterfucker beginning

i have so many potential answers to this because this is obviously one of those things that stems from childhood. the big ones i can think of at the moment are these three

Gwoemul from The Host (2006)

amazing movie btw go watch it. it's not just a Big Monster Killing People film. much like with godzilla, it's a huge criticism against western actions leading to horrible shit and references actual irl crimes

regardless, one of the best monster designs for the mid 2000's and the movie gets slept on so fucking much despite how good it is. it's one of those films where even critic reviews all say it's good if that matters

Sammael from Hellboy (2004)

because of course a del toro film is here. no explanation needed. where people fangirling over Hellboy, i was sitting there frothing over this thing

Kothoga from The Relic (1997)

like. idk. you can kinda see my love for big drooly teeth and maws lmao

some bonus mentions i guess because it's obvious they'd be here too but actually arent from my childhood

Xenomorph Queen aka she who has been sexualized so much already

Moder from The Ritual aka this is five things in one

idfk Clover from Cloverfield?

[dayonnight]

Heyo, have some Halloween headcanons for my modern aot au as a treat while i finish my art <3

(Extra note, this is kinda of my own au? But i do take a lot of stuff from attack on castes bc is hilarious)

🎃 While Mikasa goes all out on Halloween with the decorations and costumes. Armin might be just as bad as her, as he loves scary stuff because he was an unsupervised kid with internet.

🎃 Eren is pretty neutral, but gets the hype thanks to both his best friends Mikasa, and later boyfriend, Armin.

🎃 They decided to do a Halloween Movie Special once, Eren choosed a classic slasher, while Mikasa choosed something more scary and less bloody like, Armin found a movie so unknown that both Mikasa and Eren thought he actually found a haunted video and refused to watch it.

🎃 Eren is the most scared out of the three, but he will never admit it.

🎃 Armin will found the most horrific facts about the human body and tell them out of nowhere.

🎃 Jean thinks Armin might be a little scary, but he will never admit it. Sasha and Connie do say it out loud when he has some "interesting" facts about teeth.

🎃 Armin almost always has some sort of bunny themed disguise, almost. Mikasa always tries something witchy, but different time periods to have fun. Somehow they do match sometimes.

🎃 Eren is the best at pumpkin carving, probably because of the way he uses the knife, Armin has joked he could have been a killer in some life.

🎃 When they couldn't get together because reasons, they all do a video call and watch movies, play silly halloween music and tell scary stories. Mikasa's room is always really dark except for candles and pumpkins, Armin has colorful lights and decorations around, and Eren built a fort out of being bored.

🎃 Armin's birthday are close to Halloween, so he sometimes matches both and makes a costume party for his birthday.

🎃 Bold of you to assume Armin didn't had a FNAF Halloween themed costume. He definitely went as Bonnie too.

🎃 They disguised as heroes one year because of Eren, but he got his cape stuck in a tree and decided to follow Edna's advice of no capes anymore.

🎃 Mikasa's favorite movie is The Corpse Bride. Armin's favorite one is Cloverfield. And Eren's favorite is Friday the 13th (2009).

🎃 Armin spends most of the 30th on Mikasa's house, as she is the only one that knows how to put makeup smoothly, later Armin learns and helps Eren with his own makeup.

(I talked mostly of E.M.A. Here, if someone actually cares for my headcanons and want a specific character or something ask i don't mind <3)

[lesvegas]

ritchie’s🎃💀 ABCs of Horror Movie Marathon!! 💀🎃

Horror movie challenge prompted by @quintsmachete

Day Three - C is for Cloverfield (2008)

In the seventh grade, a kid newer than me would bring up this movie at least once a week. Any request for suggestions on activities was always met with "let's watch Cloverfield!" followed by annoyed groans from everyone else. I genuinely think he kept a Cloverfield DVD in his bag at all times because the one time, the one time our teacher caved in, he just happened to have brought it to school and was ready to go. We got about 5 minutes into the movie before the teacher ordered him to shut it off because the opening was a house party scene where someone probably mentioned sex or drugs.

After a cursory google, I discovered that a lot of people think this movie was way over-hyped back in the day, but I was too out of touch to have seen any of that, so I went into this with relatively tempered expectations. All I had to go off of was the trailer and two semester's worth of hype from one classmate from a decade and a half ago. So was whatshisname right about this movie being totally awesome?

Yes. He was extremely right. And I just KNOW he was seething when we were forced to stop watching just 2 minutes before it got good.

I always wanted The Blair Witch Project (1999) to be my first found footage movie, but I honestly have no regrets seeing this one first. It might not be the origin of the genre, but it's easy to see how it helped popularize it. The whole movie flew by and I was having a blast the entire time save for maybe the first five minutes or so and I was genuinely impressed by so much of it.

I was honestly shocked that the entire film (save for the opening and closing credits) was from the perspective of the exact same camera, even when it came to scenes that were non-linear. I was expecting there to be some non-'recorded' scene or a cut to another camera at any moment and was pleasantly surprised when the movie ended entirely contained within the one tape.

Through most of the movie, I felt invested in watching the main characters go through all this and wanted to see at least one of them make it out alive. I didn't fall in love with them enough to get disappointed when some died, but I did find them more relatable than a lot of other horror/disaster/monster movie protagonists. Off-camera and mentioned deaths felt like a genuine loss, too.

I also really liked how realistic and thus kinda fucking scary it all felt. Most of the choices made and logic followed felt reasonable, and any place you could think to escape through like bridges or the subway or shops and buildings were all tried and proven to be unsafe. And while some of the CGI hasn't aged the best, I'd say most of the effects fucking ruled and had weight to them, especially early on.

Genuinely way better than I was expecting and I'm glad I saw it. I will be getting it on DVD and keeping it in my work bag at all times just in case there's an opportunity to suggest watching it.

This one easily gets 5 fuckin clovers outta five babey 🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀

[dockaspbrak]

What most alluring horror tropes/ reoccurring imagery have you seen?? I’d be interested in your take on that

parents as loving and evil at same time. cannibalism. destiny set in stone, preventable tragedies as defined by the society that created them. also when theres a monster that wants pretty girl i think thats hot.

I love a beast, love to see designed creatures. love frankenstein type misunderstood things too uh idk if new movies are super like thatbut cloverfield lane i thought john goodman was hot until he put that guy in acid….idk. i like opera stuff too like in episode 7 of hannibal season 1 sorbet and that pagliacci clips from like seinfeld LOL

i wish someone would make an Amadeus remix where salieri keeps trying to poison amadeus.

also i liked crimson peaks, people manifest as grief symbolic of their inability to move on past smth creating violence in the present sucking people in that could have avoided the encounter. adrian mellon in it when its come back i guess kinda and like the people who didnt leave but survived to become part of the uncaring adults who promote evil in derry idk oops sorry thats loong ill add a read more I love the tragedy too of someone sacrificing themselves for others. i loved it in the cave when that monster guy killed himself to save the others like lowkey i was tearing up. in hannibal i always loved when hannibal was killing people who were annoying like that was so justice complex good like annoying asshole dead now haha oh shit same thing in Saw. ok one last one i also like whne theres just a weird guy like. i understand horror sort of unfairly has got so much gay rep and interesting counter culture because thats scary to people but like deconscrtucting the fact we're seen as perverts and scary its like nice to see people i could be friends with in stuff like who look different and arent all blandly goodlooking or hot. complicated complicated i love movies

[blindrapture]

it's time for DJay's Review Corner!

I've seen almost all of Christopher Nolan's movies now. just missing Following and Insomnia, which are also relatively obscure.

I am absolutely fond of his stuff. I even like The Prestige now, only took me three attempts. hell, I *love* it. such a cool movie with compelling themes. Tenet? takes a couple views, but there is depth in there, it is very much a less interesting Homestuck but it's also a lot more *impressive* for managing to convey the time travel stuff on film. Interstellar, took a couple views but it's an incredible space film, I kinda wish it didn't start with like an hour of Earth stuff but I wish the same about 2001 so that's just Space Film Tradition, and *unlike* 2001 I think Interstellar goes to a goddamn perfect place of human drama. Oppenheimer is, like, Actually A Perfect Movie, you don't need me to tell you that, it completely surprised me and shattered my expectations of how a biopic can be. Inception is Inception. the Batman movies are a whole-ass three-part opera cycle in modern times. Memento is okay! I'll like it more if I watch it a few more times.

but I am here to mention Dunkirk, which I just finished watching.

I don't know how long to spend rambling about it, as I don't know truly how much I care.

Dunkirk was.. cool! there were elements of it that got me engaged and kept me so. frankly it was the best world war 1 movie I've ever seen.

....what? it's supposed to be world war 2? haha, no, it'd be one of the *worst* world war 2 movies if that were the case. it rendered the warfare abstract, divorcing all politics and ideology from the matter (the, y'know, reason any of this was happening), and just instead focused *exclusively* on the viscerality and horrors of being there on the beaches, in the sea, in the air, leveraging any drama for the sole sake of suspense. it was a War Is Hell movie. and *that's* world war *one*, that was the War Is Hell war. world war *two* was the Ideology Is Hell war, where the Allies literally *chose* to put themselves back into the visceral Hell of war *because* of the *context*, the *fact* that their enemy truly seriously actually *was* that bad and *needed* to be stopped. to make a movie about a part of world war 2, have hardly any paratext, have hardly any *dialogue*, and never once even show a human from the opposing side, effectively make Cloverfield But With Humans.... well, that's just pointless, a movie that is already obsolete before even being created.

well. Dunkirk was that movie!

it is entirely true that I was not its ideal audience. I went into this movie having no idea *what* "Dunkirk" was. I did not know *when* in the war this took place. I could gather that "Dunkirk" was a *place*, but then I had no idea what was significant that *happened* there to warrant it being a.. self-evident name. like, people can say something happened "at Dunkirk" and everyone around them instinctively knows, "ah yes! you are discussing something that happened during the noteworthy evacuation of Allied Forces from the beach at Dunkirk in 1940!" before I watched this movie, I would not have instinctively known that.

*after* watching this movie, I would not have instinctively known that.

I just fucking looked it up on Wikipedia after the film.

the film did not just *fail* to communicate this context, it *had no interest to begin with*. that is a really interesting choice. not a choice I appreciate.

like. the film did at least communicate some things.

this was a War thing, taking place on a beach near a French town (there were signs with the word "rue" on them). I knew it was world war 2 because of the technology. the fighting had basically *stopped*, with a small number of German stragglers taking potshots at the 400,000 Allied soldiers who had lost interest in fighting ("no, there were definitely a lot of German soldiers, the Allies were losing" yes I know that *now that I have read Wikipedia*, I am telling you what the film, in a vacuum, communicated to me). honestly, if I didn't already know that the English and French were fighting against the Germans, I wouldn't have been able to tell from this movie either, as the movie *insists* on referring to the enemy as... "The Enemy." without fail, other than one implied exception during a rare instance of drama an hour and a half in. and, as mentioned before, we never even *see* The Enemy in this movie, so I wouldn't have been able to tell from their accent or anything.

so. beach near French town. the Allies want to retreat. there is a boat, but just one boat isn't gonna be nearly enough, so everyone has to wait indefinitely, hoping more boats will show up. is there a protagonist? yes there is! what's his name? I couldn't tell you! what does he look like? I cannot tell him apart from any other character! everyone in this movie is a narrow-faced soft-spoken English young man with short black hair, covered in mud and wearing an identical brown coat! well, what about his voice? oh the protagonist hardly speaks! this is not a dialogue film.

but wait, there's two other plots! this was pretty cool, I like having more threads to follow, keeps me engaged. the beach stuff was just plot 1, which the movie tells us takes place "one week." ....what? so like.. one week into a fight, I guess. plot 2 is boat stuff, taking place "one day," except when it.. skips forward in time, which I did not realize until the boat stuff was literally caught up to the beach stuff, because IT'S A FUCKING BOAT ON OPEN WATER, AND WE NEVER SEE IT AT NIGHT, IT'S ONLY EVER FUCKING DAY, I assumed it was always *the same day!* but at least the three characters *here* are very distinct from each other. they are on a civilian boat, this dingy little private yacht or whatever, that's on the way to Dunkirk to help evacuate. or. honestly when I was watching, all I knew was they were gonna deliver some life jackets. there's a young man who looks very similar to the Beach Protagonist, but he's not because the eyes are slightly different, and he dies off-screen after getting injured very quickly in a series of events that really could have been better explained (involving rescuing an Allied soldier only to LOCK HIM UP and NOT LET HIM OUT EVEN WHEN TOLD TO). the other two make it to Dunkirk and successfully evacuate a bunch of soldiers.

then there's plot 3, subtitled "one hour" even though I *highly doubt* the timing of that. three spitfires, planes up in the sky! above the water, and only ever at daytime, so similar problem with gauging passage of time. except we have a big clue this time-- one of the planes' fuel gauge is broken! at "one hour" he has about 50 gallons of fuel left, and periodically we cut back and it seems like fuel is dropping steadily, 5 gallons every..... hour, maybe? but he manages to not run out of fuel until his storyline catches up with the Beach, a fucking week later. anyway, most of this plot is just the other two planes getting shot down (one of those pilots gets rescued by the Boat protagonists!), and then at the end of the movie the guy without fuel manages to save the day, shooting down more planes above the beach even while he's cruising without a running engine. it's a great moment. I love that guy.

so then the bulk of the actual plot is Beach Guy, and his buddy who.. literally looks identical to him. one of the two turns out to be French, and I *cannot* remember which of the two that was. that whole scene was incredible, it felt like the movie acknowledging its own problem, as the whole point was all these other soldiers being like "WAIT THAT GUY, the protagonist, HASN'T SAID A SINGLE WORD, AND THE ENEMY HAS SOMEHOW FOUND OUR HIDING SPOT, HOW DO WE KNOW THAT QUIET GUY ISN'T ACTUALLY GERMAN, A SPY???" and they point guns at him and TWO FUCKING MINUTES OF THIS goes by before protagonist opens his fucking mouth and says "I'm French!" my guy, you *need* to *speak!* this fucking MOVIE needs to fucking speak!!! that scene was the one, the first moment, possibly the only moment in the whole film, where the word "German" is ever said!!! which just made me even more aware of this movie's aversion to, or even *fear of*, communicating any fucking REASON or MEANS OF THE VIEWER BEING ABLE TO DISTINGUISH anything at all.

this wasn't a fucking world war 2 movie! this was just a fucking war movie! as said before, this was Cloverfield!! context is entirely absent, you'd have to go looking on the internet to read up on all the lore. and we never see the antagonist, we just follow the Exciting Suspenseful Will-He-Make-It Action of protagonists, like, existing in the vicinity of explosions, then swimming in the sea, and listening to nearby soldiers say how scared they are or how not-scared they are.

and I *do* think this would have made for a brilliant format for a WW1 movie! that war is traditionally seen as, y'know, *horrific*, soldiers dying to gases and new machines, the *viscerality* of it all! WW2 *needs* the context! we did finally get a *tiny* bit of context at the end of Dunkirk, we got the Churchill speech, and, dammit, that did make all this a little more impactful, that emphasized how all this visceral panic amounted to *one losing battle* and they were gonna need to be committed to potentially a lot more of that. I think we needed even an *excerpt* from that speech given to us *at the beginning* of the movie. even just as text on a black screen.

(hell! this movie *literally started with* text on a black screen! and all it fucking told me was "ooh boy, these French and English soldiers, they're gonna need a *miracle* to get out of this mess!" ......fucking thanks???? literally redundant, literally something the cinematography was going to communicate. the movie needed some text telling us something the cinematography alone *doesn't* communicate!!! aaaargh!!!)

am I making sense here???

god at least it was only 106 minutes! that's like.. the shortest Nolan movie ever. that's a damn surprise to me. maybe this movie *should have* been three hours, just to put in some damn dialogue.

Dunkirk was *all* visceral, no way *in* for people who don't know what's going on. and then it was *hard to distinguish characters or even Times, Whens, from each other*, so even that fucking viscerality stumbled and lost its grip on my brain.

what a fucking *mess*.

will probably get better if I watch it more. especially now that I went and looked up the context *myself*. but dammit, even if this first impression disappears entirely and I end up loving the movie later, I think the shit I'm talking about has some *value*. it has... well, context.

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

Currently really digging this teaser for Osgood Perkins' adaptation of Stephen King's short story, THE MONKEY.

Everything. The typography, the words corresponding with the drum beats, the distorting organ rendition of 'I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside', the one glimpse of the horrors... It just works so well under 50 seconds... This is what I love in teasers, the classic kind that we don't always get these days. A short bite that effectively gives you an idea of what you're in for...

NEON rolled out a similar campaign with this year's LONGLEGS, and it's like... Yeah... Keep doing this kind of thing, someone. I think in some cases, it works out better for the kind of movie they're promoting. That is, if they have a hook to work off of. Then from there, they can be cryptic and mysterious and use different imagery instead of a jumble of scenes from the movie.

I feel Pixar did this well with their skit teasers circa 1998-2014, and I thought having a teaser without a title when Paramount started rolling out CLOVERFIELD was a stroke of genius. In fact, I kinda miss the days when a teaser ran in theaters only for about a weekend to a week, and then it would appear online a little afterwards. Apparently that was the case with THE MONKEY, which ran before CUCKOO on opening weekend. I caught CUCKOO the Thursday after and saw the teaser there for the first time, not online.

That was fun, honestly. Do that more often, please.

[heller-castiel]

watched 10 cloverfield lane and like normally horror movies don’t bother me but like old guy yelling + acid seems to be a combo that gives me the heeby jeebies. like urggh when whatshisface dissolved the other guy in acid. half melted bodies just don’t do it for me. the aliens were kinda boring tho

“half melted bodies just don’t do it for me” so you mean fully melted bodies do. i have no reading comprehension.

[kurgy]

watching cloverfield and remembering back in 2015 while i was in the hospital for a while and it was movie night, they had cloverfield in their collection so me and the only other person around my age (a few years older, she kinda took me under her wing) and we made the pog face at eachother when we found cloverfield in the box. we asked the tech on hand if we could watch it and dudes eyes bulged out of his head and he said "why do we have that" and said no bc it was rated R and would scare everyone. at this point the other patients wanted to watch it too like it became a thing, i insisted the movie was pg 13 and he insisted it was rated R thus not allowed and we bothered him about it until he finally googled it and deflated a bit when it said the movie was rated pg 13, and thats the night the whole psych ward watched cloverfield

[mx-piggy]

i'm trying to get used to the idea that i can have my own opinion of a movie even if people think it's kinda shit, so here's my little review of Grave Encounters, which i watched just now late at night/in the wee hours of the morning.

i loved this movie so much, way more than i anticipated. i've seen my fair share of found-footage horror movies, and i was expecting to like it well enough alongside films like Cloverfield and As Above, So Below, or think it was not very good but enjoy it nonetheless like most of the Paranormal Activity movies or the Taking of Deborah Logan, but i unironically enjoyed it and thought it was unironically good, too. it's definitely not as good as found-footage movies like the Blair Witch Project, Creep or Rec, at least in my opinion, but i'd say it's one of the better ones for sure.

it had plenty of slightly cheap jumpscares- like i expected it to- but was really good at building a sense of tension and dread throughout. it's like if you take the last 20 minutes of a Paranormal Activity movie and extend it out to feature-length.

unlike with most found-footage movies, i really actively liked the characters, or found them entertaining at the very least. i found it way funnier than i should have when the characters would tell Houston to shut the fuck up whenever he said anything at all.

i also really liked how the film crew had to experience the sense of entrapment and mental decline that the patients must have felt, and how you only really get to sympathise with Lance when he's gradually isolated and psychologically tortured by the hospital. the first thing that comes to mind when looking for a comparison to this movie is the Taking of Deborah Logan, which i feel could have been way better if they went down the route of her possession better reflected the gradual decline experienced by Alzheimer patients, rather than 'ooo she's possessed by the ghost of a child predator' or whatever it was. like, with Grave Encounters, you get to see a group of people who are cut off from the world and tortured by a mental hospital like the people who were once thrown in there.

so yeah. good movie. i've been watching quite a few horror movies recently, so follow me on letterboxd so i can feel like my opinions on movies matter.

[steveharrington]

hi sarah! if it’s not too much trouble can you give starter horror recommendations for a guy who feels some trepidation about the genre because i think it’s like, very cool and interesting and have been thinking about writing some horror stories but i’m also the easily frightened type so i was wondering if there’s a way i can ease myself in before working up to the super duper scary stuff?

yes!!! i will try to give you some variety of subgenres/subject matter but if you have like a specific type you’re looking for i can also add more recs based on that! but just in general:

•cloverfield (2008) is one of my all time favs and i think it walks the line of being scary but not like….disturbing. it’s not shield your eyes and grit your teeth type horror, it’s more like adrenaline and putting yourselves in the protagonists shoes and wondering what you would do in their situation. it’s found footage (it may or may not give you motion sickness so if you’re sensitive to rapidly moving camera work maybe watch it on a small screen or skip it) and i get full body chills when i watch it every single time because of how real it feels. despite all that, there’s very little up close shots of the monster and pretty minimal blood/gore.

•scream (1996) due to it being satirical and self-aware, a lot of the scary tense parts are cut by comedic moments and i think that helps a lot. i honestly think the scariest part is the opening sequence, so if you get past that feeling okay you’re probably gonna be fine throughout. there’s definitely injuries and blood but nothing i’d constitute as body horror, and again the movie likes to make little wink wink jokes which makes the tone pretty tame

•the cabin in the woods (2011) basically see above it’s also very self referential and subversive and also just like if you’re interested in horror such an amazing take on the genre, but it’s a little more intense than scream with the gore in certain parts

•poltergeist (1982) is considered a family friendly horror movie and i agree with that assessment <3 the silly little 80s practical effects make it hard to get scared despite the child actors absolutely slaying, and i think as far as horror creatures (villains?) go, ghosts and poltergeists and spirits are pretty chill

•the blair witch project (1999) is very iconic and like laid the groundwork for other found footage films, and luckily it is not very scary until the last like 2 minutes <3 and when it is scary, nothing gory/graphic is shown! for me the real horror of blair witch isnt even the witch, its the thought of being lost in the woods with no way out and the movie is just so realistic that i always start to panic a little on behalf of the characters. some people think its boring though! i dont i love it <3

coherence (2013) is not very well known but its (to me) the coolest fucking movie in the world. i think it has such a brilliant and original premise, and i’d categorize it as horror even though i consulted my mom and she thinks it’s more of a thriller. either way i highly recommend and there’s no blood or gore or anything like.....in your face scary? its more like a sense of dread that builds up over the course of the movie

they live (1988) is john carpenter <3333 and it’s pretty tame compared to other john carpenter movies. it’s horror but it’s also scathing social commentary and kinda action and again it has those 80s special effects so the scary little faces are less scary and more like...party city masks. its also referenced in a surprising number of other things (free guy feat. joe keery for one) and i think its a prime example of how horror can communicate such a wide variety of themes

and you probably already know about this but in case you dont: doesthedogdie.com has a comprehensive crowd-sourced list of potential triggers for every movie. the site does a great job including phobias/triggers that aren’t necessarily common and warning you if a movie has those, so it’s a great resource if you want to avoid certain subjects all together. happy horror watching <3

[adultswim2021]

Robot Chicken #80: “Especially the Animal Keith Crofford” | September 20, 2009 - 11:30PM | S04E19

Hey gang, we’re going to untasty this Tuesday with this bad blog entry I wrote last night, then forgot about and didn’t publish. For those of you who love reading me struggle to type out complete sentences for zero clicks, check this out: 

After watching this episode, I decided to take a luxurious bath before writing about it, allowing me to let the juicy comedy morsels marinate in my valuable mind. After the bath, while I was waiting to stop being wet, I went to consult the wiki to remind me what sketches were on it (I used my bath time to think about sexual stuff instead). I ran into a sketch that I swore up and down wasn’t in the version of the episode I saw. It featured Ghost Rider being irresponsible on his motorcycle because of a song. I checked the episode again, confident that it was cut on HBOMax. Shockingly, it was there all along. It’s very common for a Robot Chicken sketch to wash over me and leave me feeling next-to-nothing, but I usually remember enough about it to adequately ID it while perusing the wiki. That’s really something, I guess. 

As for the rest of the episode, it was a fairly mixed bag. Most of it was pretty typical Robot Chicken shit. I’ll highlight two sketches in this paragraph that I kinda liked: The Superman sketch, whose premise was actually pretty fun. That’s the one where baby Superman is in his pod, being nice, and listening to his dad’s educational tape before reaching Earth. There’s good lines in it. I also sorta liked the horror plumber sketch, which hit some satisfying notes for me. Not too bad. 

The absolute best sketch in this, and it might actually be in the running for my favorite Robot Chicken sketch: The Cloverfield sketch. In it, the Cloverfield monster gets scolded for evoking 9/11, and is told that his attacks are “too soon”. He eventually feels bad and starts trying to rebuild the towers, topped with an American flag. He wins the crowd back, who cheer for him. The inexplicable reference to the Mean Joe Greene commercial from the 70s at the end really tickled me, with the monster throwing the huge jersey on top of the crowd. I laughed a genuine laugh!

The episode ends with it’s customary season-capping navel-gaze sketch. Featuring a parody of Louis Armstrong’s “It’s a Wonderful World”, it rivals Sealab’s “We’re Only Joking” for being disgustingly self-congratulatory. It’s only a little bit better written than that song, which is damning it with the faintest of praise. Seriously, click that link and rewatch that thing. Ignore the retards who are puffing it up in the comments for being refreshingly cancellable; it's one of the most strikingly poorly-written pieces of comedy to ever air on television.

The episode ends with Mike Lazzo (not real) doing a lot of unfunny dances, and announcing that the show is canceled. If only!

MAIL BAG

I got some Mail Bags.

We haven't chatted in a long while but do you remember the part in Home Movies where McGuirk slices up those doors with two katanas and then said, "spaghetti time"? Did you like that scene. Break it down.

Hello, I remember you well, and I cherish you. I remember this moment, because I remember it receiving backlash from the one message board I posted at, for having McGuirk be too wacky. I remember thinking it just felt like a forced way to connect his subplot to the skunk scouts subplot.

In my opinion, he should've had a big gun instead, and that's what causes everyone to run out in terror. He can explain to his friends (who are children) that he found out he could get a huge gun for all of his swords on a trade in. Then he suicides by cop in front of them and the rest of the season is about Brendon starting a cool gore website and using his video of McGuirk getting blasted, and they change the name of the show to HOME PAGE

Tasty Tuesday! No blogs today! I need to enjoy my tyuesday

If it's any consolation to you, I'm not having fun tonight, I'm mostly feeling extremely sleepy. Goodnight everyone (voice becomes supernaturally deep) what do you think I'll dream about

[subzeroparade]

Creeping into your inbox with the great joy that we have such similar taste in horror! I was wondering what your favourite horror movies/shows/books are? I'm always on the lookout for more stuff :D

Oh! Well. *◡*

Some off the top of my head (shoving this under a cut for the long, rambling opinions in which I hope you find something useful). 

Movies: My current, contemporary favourite is definitely The Witch. It’s peak everything - period-piece, atmosphere, folklore/religious horror - everything I love. Absolute masterwork of minimalist horror.

As for what’s stuck with me, The Mist - took it like a fist to the face and still think about it all the time. There’ve been some other decent religious/folky horror stuff I’ve like over the past few years - Let the Right One In (book and movie both) The Omen (excellent buildup) and more recently Antlers (doubles as a monster movie), because I am obsessed with Wendigo lore. I know they’re kinda spoopy now but when I was a tween I was also a big sucker for The Village and Signs, ha. Again, mostly for the atmospheric buildup of dread, and The Village for its evocation of folksy, Puritanical horror. 

I’m a sucker for some monster movies as well, even semi-trashy ones like Cloverfield. I love the big monster-reveal moment. Prometheus, for the same reason. More interestingly, The Host (which is Korean) but adjacent to that are some of the classic Japanese horrors like Ring and the Grudge, especially The Grudge - both versions - which changed me forever. 

Series: Midnight Mass (just a Bloodborne modern AU honestly) has some interesting ideas on life after death, and Hamish Linklater’s performance is to die for. I’ve watched it twice and loved it both times. Archive 81 for the spooky ancient-god/slow burn dread. Huge fan of The Terror series which I think you know (I love Jared Harris, the best modern-day Cassandra if you take Chernobyl into account, and nice to see Tobias Menzies playing someone way less pathetic than Edmure in Game of Thrones lol). The book is a little more dry but still good, and I just started the series’ second season (Infamy) and love it already.

 Also worth mentioning a French series called Zone blanche (translated as Black Spot of Netflix), a little under the radar, which was great. Very much the subtle “the forest is a dark place beyond human understanding” vibe. I’m actively still going through Del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities but enjoying the variety of episodes so far: "The Outsider" (which frankly I just read as a queer/lesbian awakening story) and "Pickman’s Model" in particular (cannot avoid Lovecraft lmao, I’m so sorry). 

I don’t know if I can add the absolute incontrovertible masterwork that is Dark here, though it has some very, very itty bitty inconsequential minor horror elements. But I will watch it again and again until I die. 

In addition, some looser, genre-defying or multi-genre “horror” works like Get Out, Attack the Block, and the Southern Reach Trilogy (book only, the movie just couldn’t capture the peak high concept eldritch horror).  I would add the recent film The Wonder to that which has very subtle religious horror elements but is not supernatural whatsoever. I adored it. 

For books, any goddamn thing by Joyce Carol Oates but especially "Poe Posthumous; or, the Light-House" as I’ve made abundantly clear already; also I’m currently going through this excellent treasure trove of short horror stories collected in this post here (there is a second list somewhere too, if I recall, and they are even sorted by sub-category!) 

At the top of my must-watch list is Lamb right now, and eventually The Ritual and Midsommar, as well as The Lighthouse for obvious reasons. Any other recs are always welcome! I took two classes in CEGEP on Gothic lit and horror films and learned, fundamentally, that the horror genre is an incredibly useful and dynamic way to chart humanity’s anxieties over the past two centuries or so. (Dr Kris Woofter if you are still out there, you absolute hero, those were the greatest classes of my then-short academic life and I carry them with me always; or tucked neatly under my floorboards, where they writhe and groan ominously.)