Thirith on 9/10/2023 at 13:33
How scary, and in particular how jump scares-heavy, is Midnight Mass? My wife isn't massively into horror, but if it's heavy on characters and themes it could work. I think that Haunting of Hill House would've been 95% okay for her, but the remaining 5% would've ruined it, sadly.
Tocky on 10/10/2023 at 04:18
There are no jump scares in Midnight Mass. Well... there is one of a sort. It's not the kind to catch you waiting for it though. It comes a bit out of nowhere without preamble and fits with the story. It just happens to happen swiftly. Mostly it is slow build to one scene of ultimate horror. It's talking and thinking and leading you there. I don't want to give too much away.
This one has a plot. It does not depend on jump scares. It is plodding and dialogue heavy and you see where it is leading you but when it does get there you are well and truly startled that they took you all the way there and did not hold back. I liked how my daughter related it to MAGA in it's surrounding you horror.
It's like The Empty Man if it had coherence and the build led somewhere that made sense and connected on a deep level of revealed horror. Some scenes are horrible but with this one the reveal isn't something nebulous. It makes perfect sense when you get there. Too much sense. We have all seen people like this. King knows them well.
Thirith on 10/10/2023 at 06:22
Cheers, that definitely does sound intriguing!
We finished Succession yesterday, and while I felt a few times during season 3 that they could've probably tightened the storytelling, I very much liked the final season. I don't think I've seen much that blends comedy and tragedy this deftly and on so many levels, and while the majority of these people are quite horrible, I'll miss them. I think this is up there with the early to mid-'00s HBO greats, and I hope that the actors will find similarly good material following this, because with some of the cast of The Wire etc. it did feel like they'd done their best work and everything that followed couldn't help but be disappointing.
demagogue on 11/10/2023 at 16:25
I don't know if other people have experienced this, but very recently for me YouTube finally started cracking down on ad blockers, to the point of disabling all videos if you have an ad blocker running. In all of these years of using them, I hadn't noticed that an ad is playing every other video or more, and when you're watching something like music videos where they're only 5 minutes or less, that really adds us (heh, I first wrote ads up there).
But the point I want to make is, it's such an icky feeling to be harangued by a constant barrage of insipid commercials, especially if you've been watching things like indie music and videos on mysticism that are from such a different world. I guess I grew up with it watching TV and didn't notice it, but it's very noticeable & a drag now. Okay, this complaint is literally over 100 years old with the advent of radio shows, but so it goes.
Edit: Ah, it only applies to commercial videos ... obviously. That's just pushing me towards non-commercial content, a good number of them people supported by Patreon.
henke on 20/10/2023 at 14:58
This Spooktober I have watched some spooky movies, including M Night Shyamalan's 2 latest.
OLD - y'know what, I'm coming to the realization that I like ol' M Night's movies even when they're "bad". Yeah there's a lot to pick at in The Village and The Happening and this one but I'm always entertained.
The Visit - this one's pretty fucked up! Good acting from the kids, good pacing in the build up of increasingly weird shit and a finale bursting with literal shit.
Chopping Mall - buncha teens get locked up in a mall with the new high tech security bots and then a lightning bolt hits the building which OF COURSE turns the security bots into murder bots. UH OH! This movie was... exactly what it sounds like.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (70's one) - how had I not seen this one before!? (think I've seen the 50's version previously) I love how ALIEN the aliens are, that whole opening sequence was fascinating and terrifying. Fucked up visual effects that are still haunting 45 years later. This was a dang GREAT movie!
Tocky on 21/10/2023 at 02:55
Yeah the scene with Donald Southerland is an iconic scream meme.
Inline Image:
https://i0.wp.com/www.moviesinfocus.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/invasion-of-the-body-snatchers.jpg?resize=300%2C225&ssl=1I still prefer the fifties version. There were things they got right then that could be seen differently but just not improved upon. It's like the 1953 version of War of the Worlds. You can show an updated version which is interesting but you cannot capture the fear and capitulation a tad better. We did our best but our best was not good enough. I recently watched that version and my wife said she could see the little boy in me as I watched it. That was very astute. I watched it first when I was three years old. I was supposed to be in bed but snuck out to watch at the end of the couch below the level the adults could see. I even drew pictures in one of my dads books of the action on screen. They weren't very good. I wish I had that book today though. I would frame that end scene of the alien arm dying in the opening of the ships egress.
People often eschew the early horrors to their detriment. That was one of the reasons I did my little horror host gig. The original idea cannot always be improved upon. Seen from a different angle, yes. But the original often struck the core of an issue at a less oblique angle. Direct is often more of a bullseye, more of a lasting impression, sometimes enough to effect a lifetime.
SD on 22/10/2023 at 21:06
Quote Posted by henke
OLD - y'know what, I'm coming to the realization that I like ol' M Night's movies even when they're "bad". Yeah there's a lot to pick at in The Village and The Happening and this one but I'm always entertained.
I think I'd agree with this. For instance, The Happening is a hot mess, but I couldn't say that it was boring.
Still blows my mind that he wrote Stuart Little.
Harvester on 22/10/2023 at 21:13
I also liked Knock At The Cabin and just picked up the book it was based on at the library.
In other news, I can recommend Mike Flanagan's newest mini series The Fall Of The House Of Usher. Go see it if you liked his other stuff like The Haunting of Hill House/Bly Manor and Midnight Mass. Carla Gugino is sensational in it and I liked seeing Mark Hamill in a Ripburger (from Full Throttle) type enforcer role.
Tocky on 24/10/2023 at 02:11
The ending of The Fall of the House of Usher is beautifully brutal and honest. It's no wonder it was based on a drug company. They took Hendrix, Elvis, Prince, Petty and I'm sure a dozen other rockers from us. They have taken millions of others not so talented. They didn't take away the pain. They took away the people and left us with the pain. What cost for wealth? And in the end who is truly rich?
mxleader on 3/11/2023 at 12:06
I'm watching Ted Lasso again for the fourth time. Such a great show.