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DVDs and Films You Have Watched Recently 3 - The Final Insult


Devon Malcolm

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I really enjoyed IT. I think it was closer to a horror adventure than a pure horror. I've seen comparisons to Poltergiest and The Goonies which I agree with and I enjoyed it more because of that than I think I would if it was a straight up dark disturbing psychological horror which I think a lot of people were expecting. I've also seen plenty of people saying it's copying Stranger Things which is definitelu unfair as the film was being written and filmed before Stranger Things was even released.

Pennywise was utterly fantastic I thought. Felt totally inhuman and monstrous, like an evil thing imitating a clown rather than an actor playing a monstrous clown (if that makes sense). I enjoy Tim Curry's version but this felt like something so much more. The way it would stare and smile at the kids with so much hunger and hatred really left an impression on me.

It's not a perfect film by any means but I came out of it totally buzzing.

Edited by LaGoosh
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Picked up Sausage PArty on Bluray at the weekend. It brilliantly riffs on so many of the traditional Disney/Pixar tropes and is very slick in its execution. Some of the little visual gags are class (There's a Sgt Pepper turns up, and Meatloaf), but then something will happen that's tonally as far from the usual movie of this style as you can probably get which led me to laughing at the absurdity of it more than once.

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1 hour ago, jazzygeofferz said:

Picked up Sausage PArty on Bluray at the weekend. It brilliantly riffs on so many of the traditional Disney/Pixar tropes and is very slick in its execution. Some of the little visual gags are class (There's a Sgt Pepper turns up, and Meatloaf), but then something will happen that's tonally as far from the usual movie of this style as you can probably get which led me to laughing at the absurdity of it more than once.

I still stand by my opinion that it's one of the worst films I've ever seen.

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4 hours ago, johnnyboy said:

Stranger Things dropped on Netflix around the same time IT started filming in the summer of 2016

As an interesting aside to this, the brothers who write and direct Stranger Things pitched themselves to Warners to direct IT a few years back, but got knocked back because of inexperience, which directly led to their making Stranger Things instead.

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Watched Bone Tomahawk which is a Western knocking around on Netflix that came out the same year as Hateful 8 and also stars Kurt Russell.

It's not a bad horror/western crossover and it's got some really nice ensemble acting, but it also contains the GRIMMEST on-screen death I've ever seen.  I'm not that squeamish and have seen a lot of gory films over the years, but this just came out of nowhere as a really horrific scene and, frankly, probably a bit unneccessary.

The cannibals theme reminded me of an old horror movie, probably 90s, with the usual crazy-family-old-house-backwoods which near the end had a couple of weird pig-human freaks come out of the woodwork in the last reel.  Does that ring a bell with anyone?

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THAT scene will remain with me for the rest of my days. I went to the pictures to watch it and I've never witnessed such an audible release of breath from everyone, after that scene stopped.

The film is good, although I always find Patrick Wilson's Christian-esque balding cover job to be distracting.

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I absolutely adore Bone Tomahawk, one of my favourite movies of recent years. IIRC, it was made on a shoestring budget, in barely any time at all, and all from the first draft of the script, which is astonishing if true, because one minor plot hole aside, it all comes across as very coherent and well plotted.

In terms of what it reminded me of, I saw it as a kind of Western "The Hills Have Eyes" more than anything, thematically.

I agree on that scene being fucking horrific, and one of the goriest things I've ever seen, but one of the things I love about the film is that, up until that point, it's been violent, and it's been gory, but it's never really felt gratuitous. The gore all felt very gritty and integral to what was going on, and kind of made it compelling to watch what felt more and more like a surefire suicide mission...and then that happens, and it's brutal and horrible, but you've kind of been built up to expect it, as the violence through the film has escalated up to that point, and you need to think that this evil horrible Indian bloke is as cruel a fucker as anyone else that came before him.

 

The guy who wrote it also wrote a couple of Western books - A Congregation of Jackals, and Wraiths of the Broken Land - both of which, the latter especially, are pretty great, and equally as unrelentingly violent, and slightly unsettlingly imaginative in terms of the methods he comes up with, as Bone Tomahawk. Definitely recommend them if you enjoyed the film.

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19 hours ago, wordsfromlee said:

I still stand by my opinion that it's one of the worst films I've ever seen.

It's one of them. I can see why a lot of people wouldn't enjoy it.

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35 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

I agree on that scene being fucking horrific, and one of the goriest things I've ever seen, but one of the things I love about the film is that, up until that point, it's been violent, and it's been gory, but it's never really felt gratuitous. The gore all felt very gritty and integral to what was going on, and kind of made it compelling to watch what felt more and more like a surefire suicide mission...and then that happens, and it's brutal and horrible, but you've kind of been built up to expect it, as the violence through the film has escalated up to that point, and you need to think that this evil horrible Indian bloke is as cruel a fucker as anyone else that came before him.

That's why it got me, as up till then it'd been violent but with quick cutaways or whatever to mask it, and then that whole killing plays out in full view and full detail, and I actually WASN'T expecting it.  

Without getting all wanky about it, I think they needed to make you completely hate the cannibals to dispel the notion that was otherwise lurking around that the white men were at least somewhat the bad guys, invading tribal lands and so on.  It's very hard to make Westerns where the Injuns are the bad guys without a faint whiff of racism nowadays.

Like Descent, the whole thing left me wanting to know more about the backstory of that tribe, which of course we'll never get but they will live on in my 3 am thoughts when it's dark outside.

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9 hours ago, Loki said:

The cannibals theme reminded me of an old horror movie, probably 90s, with the usual crazy-family-old-house-backwoods which near the end had a couple of weird pig-human freaks come out of the woodwork in the last reel.  Does that ring a bell with anyone?

Yes, but can't place it.  Can you tell me more?

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