PeterPanfan wrote:Lazario wrote:Okay, just checked Allmovie.com and... those New Line jerks totally threw away the bonus disc. That bonus disc had more than 3 hours of stuff on it. All you get are the movies. Try to get the old set. Unless you just care about the movies.
Yeah, that one seemed best. Thanks! And I love reading your thoughts on my mini MoH reviews!
I recently went Tales from the Crypt insane and if you've never checked that out, it's vastly superior to Masters of Horror. But now... I might have to revisit MoH again myself. It's actually been quite a few years since I watched any of them other than Jenifer.
PeterPanfan wrote:And to conclude what seemed to be my Night of Horror,
A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) - I have never seen any of the originals, but went to see this for some reason. I really liked how you were tricked into thinking Kris, played by the awesome Katie Cassidy, was the main character... and then she dies. The movie then moves over to feature on Nancy, and less importantly, Quentin, played by Veronica Mars's Kyle Gallner. Freddy Krueger seemed much less comical in this film than he did in clips I've seen of the others. His one-liners were actually really creepy, not in a good way, and my friends and I that went felt uncomfortable during those scenes. I can't tell whether that's good or bad. For example, he tries to drown Nancy in a pool of her friend's blood, and goes, "How's that for a wet dream?". Ick. The back story was also very creepy, and I've heard that it's new to this remake. There's definitely going to be a sequel, from the way this one ended.
I read a review that said the remake tries to turn Freddy into a pedophile. The original Freddy was just a killer, not a rapist. At least, that's all we were told. The most he ever did was lick someone's face. He wagged his tongue around a lot. That was it. The review also mentioned they're just copying scenes from the other movies. So, there's absolutely no reason to see it if it's all a copy. I've already seen all the others several times. And we don't need a new Freddy nor does the horror genre need a hornier Freddy than we already had.
Speaking of horror, I actually re-watched a couple classics last night:
Though they are based on the stories of different writers, this movie really is something of a sequel to Tales of Terror (1962). You still have Vincent Price, 3 stories, and both are probably trying to be groundbreaking in their own ways. I prefer this somewhat to Terror because none of the tales here are as weak of "Morella" was. The first is the least, with Jungle Book's Sebastian Cabot and Great Mouse Detective's Vincent Price as two old friends who discover a kind of water that brings them back their youth. Then they use it to bring Cabot's dead wife back to life leading to betrayal and murder. It goes on a wee bit too long, takes too long to reveal the twist / secret, and feels like it lacks full sincerety. The second story - about a scientist who turns his daughter poisonous to any living thing that touches her - is still a little long and maybe too mean in a way but the visuals really sell it and the acting is very good. The 3rd story is the one that really makes this movie a must-see in the classic horror pantheon. I dislike ghost stories because nothing ever happens. Well... something happens here! Perhaps that's because this movie is very low budget and they sell to a different audience. One that wants more shocks, maybe less sophistication. Well this is sophisticated anyway because of Vincent Price. But it's also really spooky and the stakes are much higher than they were in The Haunting or The Uninvited or The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. They even try a little gore. Very little, but I appreciate the effort. And though the sets are SO ultra-cheap, the image of the bleeding ceiling is so creepy! The acting is perfect as well, with Beverly Garland being genuinely haunting as the possessed wife and Jacqueline DeWit doing a great job of creating tension.
Obviously, this is a classic horror dream-team of actors. All of whom had already done a Corman / AIP film previous. Price, Lorre, and The Adventures of Ichabod & Mr. Toad's Basil Rathbone in Tales of Terror, and Price, Lorre, and Boris Karloff in The Raven. Then, they brought back "abundantly blessed" (so says
the trailer) Joyce Jameson from Tales... which right there tells you this is pretty much all-comedy. She just doesn't do serious in
AIP-territory. The best thing about the movie is probably the writing. Almost every sentence spoken by even the most would-be dumb character is over-stuffed with big words. I still don't know what half of the words meant. So, they put in a scene where Price comforts a grieving woman who keeps going, "huh?" after he speaks and he has to use smaller words ("he's dead," "I'll bury him for you," "remove the carcass"). Cat People's (1942) Jacques Tourneur directed and I liked this a great deal more than that film (remade in 1982 and that film stands as one of the only truly great horror remakes ever). The movie is filled with gags (much like 1963's The Raven) and some of them don't lead to much (Amaryllis's bad opera singing). But the ending is a masterpiece of farce comedy antics with some "old dark house" spook moments tossed in for the heck of it. Lots of memorable moments. And especially noteworthy is Karloff's performance as Amaryllis's old father who throws an adorable tantrum everytime he doesn't get his medicine. His eulogy scene is equally funny. As is the "if he wasn't dead already" one-liner right before that. Highly recommended.
