Rate the Last Film You Watched

31 Days of Halloween!

Day IX: House IV: The Repossession (1992, Lewis Abernathy)
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The final entry in the House franchise that feels more similar to the first two films. It was slightly better than The Horror Show but I wasn’t all that enthused by the end. 3/5
 
31 Days of Halloween!

Day X: Nosferatu (1922, F.W. Murnau)
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A film I studied during sixth form and one I have a soft spot for despite its age and limitations. 3.5/5
 
31 Days of Halloween!

Day XI: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003, Marcus Nispel)

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A remake/reimagining of Tobe Hooper’s horror masterpiece that takes a different approach to the story and sadly fails to live up to the originals sheer grotesque brutality and relentless discomfort. The 2003 attempts to flesh out the characters somewhat but just looks too slick and clean.

There’s also plenty of gore but it doesn’t have the same affect that the original had. R Lee Ermy was great in this though and in the prequel they made later on which I liked more than this. Overall not a bad film on its own but as a remake it pales in comparison to the original. 3/5
 
31 Days of Halloween!

Day XII: Blood Bath (1966, Jack Hill)
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A film with four different versions and an infamously difficult life behind-the-scenes, Blood Bath is the edit that ended up being released to audiences back in 1966. The result is a confusing horror film that has some solid scenes but is the product of a troubled production which shows. Arrow Video went all out with their set and I checked out all four edits which was fascinating to do. 2.5/5
 
31 Days of Halloween!

Day XIII: Dark Water (2002, Hideo Nakata)
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A more quietly unnerving kind of psychological horror than Ringu, this is another Hideo Nakata offering that delivers some solid performances and a relative lack of music that adds to the atmosphere as the sound of rain and water is highlighted throughout. 4/5
 
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31 Days of Halloween!

Day XIV: Lisa and the Devil (1974, Mario Bava)
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A supernatural horror from Italian Director Mario Bava, otherwise known as “the Master of Italian Horror”. The film was very solid and Telly Savalas is always fun. The plot is a bit scattered in places but the best thing about the film is its atmosphere and camera work. It takes full advantage of the house setting and Bava manages to make the story work. 3.5/5
 
Previously

Host
Personal Shopper
Cat O'nine tails
Pet Semetary (remake)
House That Jack Built (recommend)

Resident Evil 2

It's gulty pleasure product but i still very much enjoyed it. It's dumb and goofy but on way that put's a smile to your face if you let it. This time i skipped the first film because i have seen it more times (i think this was second time watching RES2) and i want to get to the other sequels which i have never seen.

We Need To Talk About Kevin

I was expecting much poorer and more horrory sort of movie but what i got was a pretty good drama about mother not ready for parenting (played by Tilda Swinton) and her "deranged" child. It's not really a spoiler because the story is told mainly in flashbacks so let's just say that the boy ends up doing something horrible eventually and part of the film is about figuring out why and how his and her's mother relationship affected the outcome.

A horror film it's not even though horrible things happen but as a drama film i recommend it.
 
31 Days of Halloween!

Day XV: Brain Damage (1988, Frank Henenlotter)
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A horror comedy from the director of the Basket Case Trilogy and Frankenhooker, this was a very bizarre outing indeed. The acting isn’t great but the special effects are very solid though I overall only found this to be okay/average. 3/5

Day I: Tales of Terror (1962, Roger Corman)
Day II: The Haunted Palace (1963, Roger Corman)
Day III: Phantasm IV: Oblivion (1998, Don Coscarelli & Phantasm V: Ravager (2016, David Hartman)
Day IV: Ringu (1998, Hideo Nakata)
Day V: Rasen (1998, Jōji Lida) & Ring 2 (1999, Hideo Nakata)
Day VI: Ring 0: Birthday (2000, Norio Tsuruta)
Day VII: The Changeling (1980, Peter Medak)
Day VIII: The Horror Story (AKA House III) (1989, James Isaac & David Blyth)
Day IX: House IV: The Repossession (1992, Lewis Abernathy)
Day X: Nosferatu (1922, F.W. Murnau)
Day XI: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003, Marcus Nispel)
Day XII: Blood Bath & various versions (1966, Jack Hill)
Day XIII: Dark Water (2002, Hideo Nakata)
Day XIV: Lisa and the Devil (1974, Mario Bava)
Day XV: Brain Damage (1988, Frank Henenlotter)
 
31 Days of Halloween!

Day XVI: Joker (2019, Todd Phillips)

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More of a psychological thriller and character study but very much unnerving in the way it moulds a pathetic yet somewhat sympathetic figure in Arthur Fleck. I won’t spoil the film here but the setpieces and key scenes were great and the film flew by in a whirlwind of uncomfortable chaos. One I need to Rewatch soon. 4.5/5
 
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In today's episode of "What did Grav watch this time in normie land", I watched the 2018 film by director David Robert Mitchell (It Follows) called Under the Silver Lake. This is a neo-noir mystery film as Wikipedia describes it and it is a weird film to talk about. Watching this felt like the film was going through an acid trip because so much bizarre stuff happens and you just have to roll with it. The story's premise is actually really interesting but it suffers from pacing and I felt the runtime is longer than it should be, as you have a ton of stuff happening that I question whether any specific parts were worth being shown when I look back at it.

This is not a bad film by all means but rather a divisive one. I don't think the film is rewatchable in places but I can't help keep being amused by what goes on in some places. Heck, there's content that doesn't make sense or reference well to the answers that we seek but the main premise does get resolved in a reasonable manner. Andrew Garfield (The Social Network) does a great job with his performance though I was literally more concerned about his flat bills than the actual story which says a lot.

Overall Under the Silver Lake has a great premise, interesting direction, and performances but its pacing and storytelling have its faults.

3/5

Under the Silver Lake is available to own on Blu-ray from distributor MUBI and is available to stream on MUBI and Amazon Prime via the MUBI channel.
 
31 Days of Halloween!

Day XVII: Das Cabinet des Dr Caligari (1920, Robert Weine)

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Another expressionistic film that I studied back in sixth form. I have an admiration for this film and all the surrealist approaches Weine took to create the project. The ending is great too and surely inspired certain narratives in for decades to come. 4/5
 
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Had some wine and rewatched

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The plot is really basic but i give Fulci credit for not having any conspiracy **** going on. Characters basically have no personality and act like idiots all the time but the zombie makeups look really good and so does the gore effects. I also really dig the theme.
 
31 Days of Halloween!

Day XVIII: Leprechaun (1993, Mark Jones) & Leprechaun 2 (1994, Rodman Flender)
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A forgettable slasher with a gimmicky antagonist, the Leprechaun, played by Warwick Davis. Davis really puts in his all but whenever he isn’t on screen the film is just a bit dull. 2.5/5
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A better film than the first due to some decent main characters and more screentime for Davis. The violence felt a bit lacklustre but overall this is was one of those rare horror sequels that improves upon the original. 3.5/5
 
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31 Days of Halloween!

Day XIX: Leprechaun 3 (1995, Brian Trenchard-Smith)

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Better than the first film but lacking the side characters of the second film. The humour was a bit better and the Vegas setting suited the greedy nature of the Leprechaun but I’m not expecting the remaining three films to be very good based on their premise alone. 3/5
 
31 Days of Halloween!

Day XX: When a Stranger Calls (1979, Fred Walton)

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“Why haven’t you checked the Children?” Another psychological horror for the month, and other one released by Second Sight. This is a solid little film that was later riffed on for Scream’s iconic opening. The opening itself is very different from the rest of the film which I wasn’t expecting. 3.5/5
 
31 Days of Halloween!

Day XXI: Spider Baby
(1967, Jack Hill)

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A real love letter to Todd Browning’s “Freaks” and a macabre character piece. Lon Chaney puts on a great performance and the rest of the cast fit their bizarre roles pretty well. 3.5/5
 
31 Days of Halloween!

Day XXII: Prince of Darkness (1987, John Carpenter)

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This was quite the atmospheric film. The cast was also great with Donald Pleasance and Victor Wong on top form. The narrative slowly grows more gruesome and gory as it progresses and I thought it was very good. 4/5
 
Black Dynamite (2009)

A lovingly made and frequently very funny pastiche of '70s Blaxploitation film, with a great turn from Michael Jai White as the titular private detective, out to avenge his murdered brother. Its commitment to the tics and tropes of that style of filmmaking are so absolute, however, that I think it definitely helps to have seen at least a couple of the films being sent up here - anyone unfamiliar may be a little bemused by the intentionally bad karate, overexposed film and glaring continuity errors.

Dolemite (1974)

The story of an affluent hustler, framed for drug smuggling as part of a larger conspiracy, Dolemite is one of the key films of the Blaxploitation movement, and made an unlikely icon out of struggling comic Rudy Ray Moore (soon to be played in a biopic by Eddie Murphy). For the first while I was ready to write this one off as being a lesser film than its more broadly comedic sequel, The Human Tornado, but I actually enjoyed it more as it went on. Although rough and ready, there's a sort of verite quality about the filmmaking that really catches a sense of time and place. Moore too initially seems clumsy as an actor (he clearly can't fight for toffee), but his cheeky charisma carries the film, and even extends to surprising pathos in the more serious moments. I will maintain that Human Tornado is a better film, but it's not hard to see why Dolemite is so well regarded.
 
31 Days of Halloween!

Day XXIII: Scalpel (1977, John Grissmer)

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Another psychological thriller for the month and one that firmly plays out as a character study before ending on a solid twist. The premise was decent and was executed well enough. 3.5/5
 
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