VHS and Betamax You Have Recently Rented

[LaGoosh]

1 hour ago, FLips said:

I think our next films are Child’s Play and Killer Klowns from Outer Space. 

I love Child's Play. Great score, grimy look and atmosphere.

[Devon Malcolm]

2 hours ago, FLips said:

I think our next films are Child’s Play and Killer Klowns from Outer Space. 

I showed this to my son as our Halloween film. He liked it but didn't find it even slightly scary. He was 10.

No pressure!

[FLips]

Just now, Devon Malcolm said:

I showed this to my son as our Halloween film. He liked it but didn't find it even slightly scary. He was 10.

No pressure!

In my defence with that one I'm not expecting to find it scary, but it got recommended on Amazon and I thought it looked stupid enough to give a go. That and Dollman.

[Merzbow]

Red Letter Media did a great two parter on the Puppet Master series and I'm tempted to go through them, even if they fall off the tallest cliff after the second of even arguably the first film.

[Hannibal Scorch]

10 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said:

I showed this to my son as our Halloween film. He liked it but didn't find it even slightly scary. He was 10.

No pressure!

I would say it's a horror comedy, emphasis on the comedy. It was a fun haunted house at Universal Studios a few years back.

[Devon Malcolm]

1 hour ago, FLips said:

In my defence with that one I'm not expecting to find it scary, but it got recommended on Amazon and I thought it looked stupid enough to give a go. That and Dollman.

Oh it is very stupid but also very funny. The klown design work is awesome too.

[Cousin Jim Bob]

On 10/21/2024 at 8:38 PM, Chris B said:

The popularity is a mixture of one of the murder/torture scenes in the second film going quite viral (almost in a 2 Girls 1 Cup way), mixed with a genuinely prettty great performance from the guy playing Art.

The second one gained some actual notoriety as a result, and also gained quite a lot of fans - add in some savvy marketing and the fun of it being a Christmas movie, and I'm not that surprised it's done well.

And, if I'm honest... it deserves to.

It feels like the guy behind them has been taking notes and criticism on board, and toning down what doesn't work, while toning up what does.

I watched the second one, and it was overlong, badly paced, and misogynstic in the way it focused on women suffering and being tortured and degraded. But it also introduced an overarching story, along with a likeable Final Girl who, to be fair, got a load of stuff to do. 

I didn't like it, but I almost did. It was a film that was being too edgelordy and getting in its own way - and it had NO business being as long as it was.

But individual scenes were pretty good, and Art is definitely a fun character.

I checked out a scene from an earlier film (the short in All Hallows Eve) and it was even more overtly misogynistic - with Art carving slurs into a woman's skin. So I didn't bother any further with the previous ones. But still, Damien Leone had clearly already moved a bit away from that, and did seem to be improving.

The new one, I actually liked. It was still a bit overblown, but it got the balance between the gore, the humour and the storyline better, it was a lot less misogynistic, and it lingered less on suffering. And it's surprisingly really well shot and filmed on 35mm, so looks great.

Yes, it's still a lot, but it's interesting seeing it improve as a series, and it got a lot less in its own way.

Basically, it's not going to convince anyone that didn't see promise in earlier ones, but part of the popularity is simple - Art is really popular, and the closest thing to a new Freddy Krueger.

 

Edit: Jericho has a cameo in the second which is longer than it should be. He turns up to be quickly murdered in the third.

If Art has done nothing else, he's escaped the vortex.

 

Could you just start with the 3rd one and be ok ? Like a Friday the 13th film?

 

I'm interested but a lot of the reaction to the earlier ones here and elsewhere is extremely mixed.

[Chris B]

11 hours ago, Cousin Jim Bob said:

 

Could you just start with the 3rd one and be ok ? Like a Friday the 13th film?

 

I'm interested but a lot of the reaction to the earlier ones here and elsewhere is extremely mixed.

There's some backstory, but the effort of finding out what's going on probably doesn't add that much. If you assume "there's probably a reason for that", you'll be fine, mostly.

Very quick sum-up:

Spoiler

Sienna is the final girl, and there are religious overtones. During her final fight with Art to save her younger brother, she had a sword that had some magical properties, which she decapitates him with.

Art is explicity undead by the second film and may be a demon. In the post-credits of the last film, a former torture victim of his gave birth to his head, after he was decapitated. (Chris Jericho plays a nurse in the hospital she's in, but he isn't in it long in either film).

Can't think of anything else you'll need.

[FLips]

Killer Klowns from Outer Space

Just stupidity and goofiness from beginning to end. Despite the concept every single actor that appears on screen puts in the effort and hams it up and the practical effects are brilliant. The theme song is a killer too.

Not one I’d watch on my own to enjoy the quality of the film, but definitely one I’d put on with friends to have a good laugh at.

What are you gonna do? Knock my block off?

[SaitoRyo]

18 hours ago, LaGoosh said:

I love Child's Play. Great score, grimy look and atmosphere.

I loved the Chucky films when I was in my early teens. I re-watched the first Child's Play the other night and it is still really good! Just a fun, imaginative horror film that gets in and out in under 90 minutes. 

[Devon Malcolm]

22 minutes ago, SaitoRyo said:

I loved the Chucky films when I was in my early teens. I re-watched the first Child's Play the other night and it is still really good! Just a fun, imaginative horror film that gets in and out in under 90 minutes. 

Most of the Chucky series is really good, too. There's only one I didn't care for (can't remember which one) but it might be the most consistently good long-running horror franchise there has been. Even the reboot with Aubrey Plaza was decent.

[SaitoRyo]

48 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said:

Most of the Chucky series is really good, too. There's only one I didn't care for (can't remember which one) but it might be the most consistently good long-running horror franchise there has been. Even the reboot with Aubrey Plaza was decent.

Yeah, they were in heavy rotation on both VHS and DVD in my house back when. I had a fondness for them all, though I haven't watched Seed of Chucky as much as the rest. Just seen that the first season of the Chucky TV series has been added to Netflix so I might give that a shot at some point. 

[Chris B]

Good shout with Chucky for consistency. What other franchises do you think have maintained a high consistency throughout?

The Friday the 13th series is obviously hit and miss, but it's got (for me) a remarkably high hit-rate in terms of being enjoyable throughout. Part V and ...In Manhattan are the least interesting ones. The 'Crystal Lake Memories' documentary on Shudder has made me even more fond of them all.

Halloween is way too hit and miss. For every good/great one, there are two stinkers. The original, III, H20 and the recent remake, I liked a lot - the rest were middling to outright poor.

The Psycho series is an interesting one. The first is obviously a masterpiece, but the second one is really good in its own right. I used to dislike the third one, but with the context of Perkins exploring elements of himself, and the giallo-themed visual style has made me like it a lot more. IV was competent rather than good, but still - that's not bad overall.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre drops off a cliff after the first one. My personal theory for why the second one is so different is that it plays up the weird humour a lot - but I think it was meant to be there in the first one, and didn't land. But it missed the landing in such a way that it just turned into hysteria and further terror.

Nightmare on Elm Street stays consistently interesting, to be fair - parts V and VI aren't great, but they're not terrible either. You can see something of a battle between different groups trying to keep things interesting versus producing more of what was popular. And New Nightmare is the best of the entire run.

[Devon Malcolm]

I was surprised that Texas Chainsaw didn't really fall completely off a cliff until the most recent two. There are watchable parts in all of them to that point, even when they're not that great.

Nightmare on Elm Street just goes utterly to shit, for me, towards its back end.

Friday the 13th is choppy. Wasn't a fan of the first two, then it starts to take itself less seriously and becomes a lot better.

Halloween is all over the place.

I just think Chucky is one that stays the course and wasn't afraid to change its tone up when needed.

I forgot Critters! All four of those are fun. They should reboot that franchise.

[SaitoRyo]

Evil Dead? Haven't seen the most recent one, but the original trilogy is great fun and the 2013 reboot is decent from what I remember. I like all of the original Nightmare on Elm Street films, besides Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, even if a couple of them aren't great. I am also a fan of the first three Scream films but can take or leave the rest.