Saw

[jwinston2]

I went and saw the Saw. It was a pretty good movie, as good as Silence of the Lambs,  no. All the same it was decent and I would give it a 7.5/10. What does everyone else think? I would say more but I don't want to ruin anything for those who have not seen it.

[ajax34i]

The review I've read rates it as a pretty good horror movie, but unfortunately I'm not into horror, so I'm not going to see it.[/url]

[Samwise]

I'm interested in seeing it.  Is it gory/psychological or monsters jumping out of closets?  I got my "boo" fix from The Grudge already.

[jwinston2]

It is gore/psychological. Very similar to silence of the lambs in some ways. The gore is a little toned down but still very present. I enjoyed it and if nothing else it was entertaining. I will def. say I never saw it coming.

[doubleplus]

Sounds like a good Halloween flick. I'll check it out on your recommendation.

[Morfiend]

My friend just got back from seeing it. He said the acting was so bad in some parts the majority of the thearter he was in started laughing. And it wasnt a comedy part.

[schild]

My friend just got back from seeing it. He said the acting was so bad in some parts the majority of the thearter he was in started laughing. And it wasnt a comedy part.

Your friend is a pompous douchebag who thinks horror movies have good actors. The only horror movie that had acting worth mentioning was Silence of the Lambs - and it got Oscars for it. The only other thing that comes to mind is Tim Curry as Pennywise the Clown. The rest is crap. Acceptable as such. (Japanese horror movies have good acting).

[jwinston2]

yup the acting was the only complaint but some of my buddys but what the hell did they expect as schild said its a horror flick.

[Ardent]

The only horror movie that had acting worth mentioning was Silence of the Lambs

Yep, you're right.

Oh, except for Anthony Perkins in Psycho. And Ellen Burstyn and Max Von Sydow in Exorcist. And the cast of Alien. And Shelley Duvall in The Shining. And Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby. And the whole cast of the original Vanishing. And Timothy Balme in Dead Alive/Braindead. And Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie in Don't Look Now. And George C. Scott in The Changeling ...

Oops.

[schild]

The Changeling and Rosemary's Baby (both of which I own on dvd) are fucking terrible. Or at least they are now. Exorcist, I'll give you, even though it's only scary to people who fear god. I find it a fascinating movie. But given my beliefs, it doesn't scare me one bit. Alien? Sci-fi. It's billed as sci-fi/horror. But I would classify Predator as sci-fi as well. There's notthing really horrifying or terror-inducing in either. Maybe when I was 5 there were, but I also remember being scared by a certain episode of the Muppet Babies.

As for the rest. Yes, good acting. But the only one that got recognized by the community as a whole is still Silence of the Lambs. As such, horror movies are about as respected as furries who larp.

How did you not mention Jack in The Shining? The whole cast of the orignal Vanishing? Hmmm, I guess. I did enjoy it, never thought of it as horror though. Seeing as it's like 99% suspense, 1% claustraphobia. Perhaps With a Friend Like Harry is a better example? What I think is good horror is probably far removed from what you think so. Hell, what most people think is 'horror' is far removed from what horror is. The whole thriller/suspense/horror/mystery line will make it even harder.

So, do you want to dance? I'm willing to throw my encyclopedic knowledge of film up against anyone here. But I don't suggest you go there.

[Hanzii]

How did you not mention Jack in The Shining? The whole cast of the orignal Vanishing? Hmmm, I guess. I did enjoy it, never thought of it as horror though. Seeing as it's like 99% suspense, 1% claustraphobia. Perhaps With a Friend Like Harry is a better example? What I think is good horror is probably far removed from what you think so. Hell, what most people think is 'horror' is far removed from what horror is. The whole thriller/suspense/horror/mystery line will make it even harder.

So, do you want to dance? I'm willing to throw my encyclopedic knowledge of film up against anyone here. But I don't suggest you go there.

Why don't you go there first?
So far you only managed to disagree with conventional labelling on the films he mentioned - you didn't bring anything new to the table.
Vast encyclopedic knowledge my ass. Just because you didn't find Alien or the Excorcist scary doesn't make them less horror films for that.
Alien has more in common with conventional horror than sci-fi, the fact you feel diffrent, doesn't make it so.
The kids today...

Try arguing your points, instead of always telling how many films you own/see - as if that automatically makes you an expert.

[stray]

The only straight up horror films I can think of with over the top acting were from the silent age. Lon Cheney (not Jr.) can scare the shit out of me and make me weep, all at the same time. Most horrors after that are meant to be disposable, I think. I like them, sometimes for the comedy or style, but I can't think of one with really good performances in them.

But if we broaden the definition to include any film with scary elements, that all changes, I guess.

[angry.bob]

How did you not mention Jack in The Shining?

Maybe because Jack is in all reality a really bad actor. Sure, he gets 40000 billion dollars a movie, but he's got absolutley no real talent and has spent his entire career playing minor variations of exactly 1.5 characters that anyone able to speak and make scrunched up faces could play.

Hey, look at me, I'm a crazy out of control writer!
Hey, look at me, I'm a crazy out of control mental patient!
Hey, look at me, I'm a crazy out of control werewolf!
Hey, look at me, I'm a crazy out of control shore patrolman!
Hey, look at me, I'm a crazy out of control wine merchant!
Hey, look at me, I'm a crazy out of control control writer!
Hey, look at me, I'm a crazy out of control Satan!
Hey, look at me, I'm a crazy out of control mental patient but this time I'm depressed!
Hey, look at me, I'm a crazy out of control crazy guy who yells a lot!

[schild]

Just because you didn't find Alien or the Excorcist scary doesn't make them less horror films for that. Alien has more in common with conventional horror than sci-fi, the fact you feel diffrent, doesn't make it so.

An acid-dripping alien that happens to like dark places and scares audiences doesn't make a movie horror. Hell, Altered States is more horror if you want to go with assault of the senses. And I don't know many people who would think of it as Horror.

And what point did I make other than Silence of the Lambs is one of the only horror movies that has good, nay excellent, acting. At least for an American film. I mean we could go into the differences in horror between countries and cultural lines. The way horror is shown on film to an audience in America is far different from the way asians or africans see horror.

Horror is the result of our scary stories. The stories parents tell children before they go to bed to keep them from walking around the house. The stories a scout leader will tell around a campfire to keep kids from wandering off. The urban legends we hear.

Movies like Se7en (goddamn, I hate that spelling), Exorcist, Stigmata, and others in that vein surely scare hardline (or even middle of the road) Christians far more than they scare the atheist. And no doubt the two types are scared in a completely different way. The Christian will be scared by the reasoning behind the possession in Exorcist or Stigmata while the atheist will be scared of the crab walking, crotch stabbing little girl.

Odds are neither of these films would have much of an effect on an Eastern audience, at least not to the extreme that some of us can be scared.

Let's take a look at Nosferatu vs. Interview vs. [Bram Stoker's] Dracula. All three of these movies, arguably, had excellent acting - somehow Dracula was overlooked in that department when it came to Oscar time. I don't even think they got a single nod for acting. Anyway, all three were constructed in a completely different fashion. One was a shadowplay, one was a look at the subculture and growth of the vampiric being (and more of a purely commercial endeavor), and the last is a loose remake of the original. Or The Original, since the people that made Nosferatu never secured the rights to the book on film so they had to make a sort of knock-off (though it is credited as being the original Dracula on film). Taking some of the shadowplay and horrific elements of Nosferatu, Dr. Caligari or any of the other original German masterpieces and inserting them into a sci-fi setting with people stranded on a boat with an alien being does not a horror film make.

If we want to talk about sci-fi/horror films that crossed the line into pure madness (or... horror), we're going to have to look at Event Horizon, Solaris, and The Thing. Or even the more recent Dreamcatcher. But Alien? No.

Once you start straying from the hard lines of genre, you cross into very dangerous waters. Where things like Alien become the pinnacle of more than one genre. Sci-fi is tough, it consists of everything from Alien to Star Wars and Bladerunner to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It's never been an easy genre to discuss and people are always willing to bend the lines in order to fit their needs in an argument.The argument that they can exist in two genres is always reasonable, but it's more of a copout than anything else.

Hanzii, I'm not entirely sure what points you want me to argue other than the fact Ardent was trying to be a wiseass when I said something that's pretty acceptable in terms of scholarly film discussion. Anthony Hopkins delivered a performance that made almost all other performances look Bad in comparison. When I say bad I mean Jack's performance in the Shining wasn't even comparable. A sort of bad that makes the most lavish productions of Phantom of the Opera look like a high-school rendition of Oliver Twist. I'm not sure if you were trying to play devil's advocate on this one, but look at all the shit you made me write just to prove Ardent wrong. You bastard.

[schild]

Maybe because Jack is in all reality a really bad actor.

No one could have played the Joker like he did. Just like no one could have played the devil in Devil's Advocate the way Al Pacino did. The fucking parts were written for them but they turned them into gold on film.

Edit: Condensing my posts:

Just to indulge you, a list of my favorite horror movies would consist of the following (in no particular order):

Silence of the Lambs
Ringu
With a Friend Like Harry
The Vanishing (Spoorloos)
Friday the 13th
Nightmare on Elm Street
Caligari (but only once in a blue moon will I watch it)
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Dario Argento's Opera
Stephen Kings 'IT' (only up until they go back into the sewers, after that it becomes abysmal)
28 Days Later
Event Horizon
Interview with a Vampire

[jwinston2]

Whats funny about that list Schild is I liked Event Horizon alot but have heard nothing but bane for it. I guess many people felt it was crap but I still really don't see why, fine the acting was subpar but besides that what was wrong about it? The story wasn't that bad and the effects were pretty sweet.

Whatever, anyway Saw wasn't bad and the ending was easily the best part of the movie.

[WonderBrick]

Jacob's Ladder is my favorite horror movie to date.  You just can't beat a real-world-based loss of your mind.

On a seperate, barely relatable note, I normally shy away from zombie movies, but the recent Dawn of the Dead remake was a pleasant surprise for me, not from a horror point of view, but from the perspective of society breaking down under a national/global disaster.  And the way it captured the newscasts perfectly.  From the horror angle, the flat-out-maximum-speed-the-human-body-could-achieve approach the zombies had, mixed with the ease of contagion, was frightning.

[Boogaleeboo]

You really shouldn't be allowed to watch films.

When the people involved in making a film say it's horror and the majority of the people watching it say it's horror, it's horror. The fact you  don't find it scary or think that Eastern audiences wouldn't find it scary means exactly jack and shit. People like you need to be kept in a fucking box to keep from ruining everyone else's good time.

I like how you call your grasp of films encyclopedic, as it came off boring and rote when I read it. Please, go there. Because not only have I seen more films than you, I'm willing to bet dollars to donuts I'm a hellava lot smarter too.

"Horror" isn't just fear. Horror is, basically, the entirely negitive emotion of wanting something pushed away. Horror is repulsion in mind and body to an idea or image. It's quite powerful, and it's insanely hard to capture with a film if you aren't one of those people that suspends disbelief at the drop of a hat. You can get fear with a jump scene. It catches some people off guard, and it gets a quick fear reaction. It's a nice setup [so nice that pretty much every movie trying for suspense has used it as some point or another] but it isn't horror. Horror movies try to bend our sense of the expected and flat out hurt our mind by playing on primal fears, and the better ones do it by hitting us where we live. And sure, they can also be campy and silly and stupid. But being a genre filled with failures doesn't define the genre itself. Horror is about the taboo, the dark, the secret things we don't mention in polite society, and the little fears everyone carries inside.

Which is how something like Silence of the Lambs and even Single White Female can be called horror by some people. There isn't a convential monster, no sign of the supernatural, and they aren't even strictly slasher flicks. But they are attempts to mind fuck the audience. Jaws is one of the most effective horror movies of all time simply because it took an easy to accept idea that everyone has thought about in the back of their mind at some point and played it to it's logical and totally believable extreme. Shit, they've FOUND great white sharks around here before. And they have killed people. And it's as simple as that to get your hook into people and run wild with their emotions.

As for Aliens being Sci-Fi? "Sci-Fi" isn't a genre, it's just stage dressing. You tell a romance in the year 3000, it's a romance. It's not "Sci-Fi". You tell an adventure in the year 3000, it's an adventure not "Sci-Fi".

Aliens took place in an old, spooky house and you wouldn't be having this conversation. The fact there is cold sleep and it's not a demon makes you act like a dick though. Entirely based off your personal feelings having nothing to do with external reality.

I mean shit, I found most of the Ring movies boring and thought artisticly the American Ring conveyed what they were trying for a lot better. I thought A Friend Like Harry was more suspense than horror. IT the tv special lacked most of the punch of IT the book. 28 Days Later wasn't even remotely scary, but it was interesting. Interview with the Vampire makes the list what, because it has vampires in it? It plays more like a drama than a horror flick though. It plays more like a gay porn than a horror flick. Anne Rice story too. I've seen bookstores place her in Science Fiction/Fantasy, and I've seen then place her in plan old "Fiction". Something like a Barnes and Noble almost invariably doesn't put it's Stephen King or it's Dean Kontz in a Science Fiction/Fantasy, even when that perfectly describes the content involved. I wonder why that is?

Movies are even more fucked up. Walk into a rental place and you'll find monster flicks under action, drama, and even comedy. You'll find something like Henry: Potrtrait of a Serial killer under horror in some places [A few blockbusters I know put it there] and under drama in other places [I know a no name local place that had it there].

And yet here you come, saying it isn't horror despite the reaction of audiences and critics and the people that were involved in making it.....because?

The way horror is shown to an American audience is all that matters when talking about a movie designed for American audiences. This is not a fucking group concensus. The fact that I think a bunch of Asian horror flicks are barely above the level of quality you'd get out of the 70's in America doesn't make them any less effective in their home country, and it certainly doesn't change their genre.

The fact that you think a bunch of movies that happen to have religious themes are only effective when seen by people with a strong religious bent shows how closeted your mind is. You can't understand how people might be creeped out by a whore being slammed with a razor sharp strap on that have no strong feelings about Jesus either way?

Christ, they just had a top horror films of all time countdown on Bravo where an atheist made a molestation joke and talked about how the Catholic Church was supposed to be protecting us in the film, and they still made us believe it. When an atheist tells me it's a good horror film, I somehow think it's intended to appeal to a wider audience than Bible Thumpers. Who I think might object to the whole crucifix masturbation thing and refuse to see it. Which is just creepy no matter what you believe. Because oddly enough people tend to be people at the end of the day no matter what sky god they believe or disbelieve in.

Odds are neither of these films would have much of an effect on an Eastern audience, at least not to the extreme that some of us can be scared.

And if you didn't see some of Reagan in that bitch from Ringu you are sadly fucking mistaken.

All three of these movies, arguably, had excellent acting

Nosferatu had the best acting, and considering it's a silent movie that's saying a lot. Interview was homoerotic overacting, and certainly not the best work of....basically anyone in it. Dracula had a ridiculous performance by Oldman, a woodern performance by Reeves, and her tits were acting more than Rider was in that flick. It wasn't entirely horrible, but Oscar worthy? You are smoking something.

Event Horizon

And yet THIS is horror, while Alien isn't? Ok, yeah. I don't know, is it the mention of "hell" that somehow makes it more horror? Chick being impaled by alien penis/tail Sci-Fi, guy ripping eyes out horror. Have to remember that.

Solaris horror? Why, because it may or may not had the living dead in it?

And you call the farce that is Dreamcatcher horror, but Alien sci-fi. You ARE a joke at this. I especially liked when you bitched about the quality of acting in horror films and then talked about "the community as the whole recognising them" after making fun of Rosemary's Baby. Having opinion's is fine, but never ever try to bring up wider acceptance when you talk about them. Especially film nerds like you that have no fucking idea what the people films are actually made for think.

At what point did you think you understood movies? You have this vast wealth of information to draw on, please, enlighten me.

[stray]

Heh, before I even read your post, Boog, I just knew you were gonna mention Henry somewhere in there.

[Boogaleeboo]

It's in the same vein as many of the films that get labled "drama" or "suspense" that are actually horror. It's just one that gets recognised as being horror a lot more. You make the monster some sort of undead and campy, it's a horror film. You make a totally straight and amoral serial killer and it's a drama.  In this case though they made it so extreme that most people recognise it for what it is. Horror gets a bad wrap, especially with 20k pop outs made in the Eastern Bloc countries in the space of 3 days that flood the straight to video market.

When fucks like him pop out and insult the genre this close to Halloween I get....perturbed.

[ahoythematey]

I suppose if I were to go by the Boog definition of a Horror movie, then Schindler's List would probably be the top dog on my list.

For generalized terms, however, An American Werewolf in London and the aforementioned Jacob's Ladder are the best that I can currently recall.

[stray]

American Werewolf is one my favorite...Comedies. If only because of Griffin Dunne. Then again, that scene where the family gets shot up (by God knows what those things were) fucked me up bad when I was kid. I could never watch the Mupper Show again.

[schild]

I was going to write a response until I saw this:

When fucks like him pop out and insult the genre this close to Halloween I get....perturbed.

What? This close to Halloween? Get the fuck over yourself. I guess I'd feel kinda bad if you were completely disfigured or something and could only go out on Halloween but I don't think this is the case.

Edit: Well, I can't help but comment about this:

It's in the same vein as many of the films that get labled "drama" or "suspense" that are actually horror. It's just one that gets recognised as being horror a lot more. You make the monster some sort of undead and campy, it's a horror film. You make a totally straight and amoral serial killer and it's a drama.

No douche, it's called "drama" or "suspense" or even "biography" because it's based upon Henry Lee Lucas' confessions and exaggerated a bit (like ALL films are) for entertainment. Just couldn't help but try to throw a reasonably obscure picture in there, could you?

You really shouldn't be allowed to watch films.

I shouldn't? Under your definition the horror section in blockbuster would be bigger than action, drama, and comedy combined. You are a goddamned freak.

[AOFanboi]

If personal preferences enter the picture:

I consider Pet Cemetary to be an utterly predictable, by-the-nose-dragging pile of boredom. Others consider it a horror masterpiece. I don't understand those people.

I likewise consider Kubrick's The Shining to be a boring art-film piece where Jack Nicholson gets to be standard Jack Nicholson. The only good thing about it is the very last bit where they zoom in on the photograph. To others, it's the best horror movie ever made.

Both still belong in the genre despite my misgivings.

Anyway: Hollywood is predictable in that it prefers recycling formulas, and has written or unwritten "rules" like "crime shall not pay" and "the good guys win". I like movies that are unpredictable or don't have a happy ending, and that taste is rarely satisfied by Hollywood. (Can I name movies like that, or is that considered a spoiler? Bah, everyone has probably seen Terminator 3 by now. That is an example of what I think of: The whole movie seems to lead up to a happy ending - which does not come. More like that kthx.)

Horror movies are even worse, because the formulas are so entrenched: At least one of the "good guys" will survive, and it is often quite clear who it will be early on. And the camera and music is used to remove any suspense by unsubtly indicating danger for the characters. I mean, what is the point in making more of those movies? Just reissue the earlier productions. Perhaps with updated effects if necessary - think Lucas.

[Shockeye]

Scariest movie I've seen in the last few years was Kangaroo Jack followed closely by Boat Trip.

[Morfiend]

"The Internet film geeks are salivating over this one. But humans who live above ground, including horror fans, will find themselves only fitfully entertained and more consistently appalled."

Heh

[Margalis]

I have to say that Alien is horror, for sure. It's a monster in a haunted house movie, just in space.

I don't agree that sci-fi is just a setting or a trapping. Some sci-fi, both books and movies, really plays up the future or scientific angle. (So call "hard" (boring) sci-fi books are a good example)

I disagreed with the person who said before that Requiem for a Dream was horror. I don't think that something that is horrific is a horror film. But, Alien is just a typical, well-done horror film transposed onto a different backdrop. Big evil creature chasing people through dark corridors.
---
For the record, I liked Event Horizon, mostly because I like both Laurance Fishburn and Sam Neil. (Even though I probably spelled one or both names wrong)

[angry.bob]

Scariest movie I've seen in the last few years was Kangaroo Jack followed closely by Boat Trip.

Boat Trip had a lot of funny parts. And Roselyn Sanchez in see-through clothes is a big plus too. There are far worse movies to watch

[Margalis]

I think the point of horror films is that they intend to scare and shock as a primary objective. Whether or not they succeed is another story. I agree that The Shining is incredibly boring for example. And Pet Cemetary was just plain lame. But, they are horror movies, despite the fact that my only fear would be being forced to watch them again.

[Shannow]

Jeez ppl, to each their own.

Typical horror films don't do much for me.

But 'Event Horizon' fucked me up for days.

[Abagadro]

A local reviewer said that Elwes' was the worst performace ever put to celluloid.

[stray]

Well, I went to go see Saw earlier...But walked out after 45 minutes or so. I wasn't there to look for anything bad either. I was willing to shell out for myself and another person, but we both came to the conclusion that we had much better things to do. We weren't alone either.

I rarely walk out of films (I mean, I even stuck it out with AvP and the TCM remake, for crissakes), but Saw isn't even lame in a good way. It's not funny, it's not as gruesome as you're lead to think it'd be, and most of all, it's definitely not scary.

Maybe I'll get around to watching the second half on TV (probably not), but I'll go so far as to say it's not even rental worthy.

[stray]

A local reviewer said that Elwes' was the worst performace ever put to celluloid.

Yeah, it was bad. But Elwes is actually a good actor, y'know? It was the writing that made him look so bad, I think. Still..It's his fault for not changing it up a bit.

[Abagadro]

If you left early, you apparently missed his worst from what I've been reading. Apparently he just goes over the Shatner threshhold in the second half of the film into uncharted territory of suckitude.

[stray]

If you left early, you apparently missed his worst from what I've been reading. Apparently he just goes over the Shatner threshhold in the second half of the film into uncharted territory of suckitude.

Hmm..Very tempting, but I think I'll pass.