Eraserhead (1976)

Really don't think i have enough graduate degrees in film study/literature to say any more than "this movie is totally amazing."
Also i think this is the oldest film i've done here to date !

[REC] (2007)

This is the diamond in the rough. This is the film I've wanted to see since Blair Witch. [REC] is a first-person haunted house story. It is a cast of unknowns and amateurs. The directors didn't tell the cast the script until they shot. All the rehearsals were recorded on straight-up handycams. The film was shot sequentially with 20 minute takes. On the last day of shooting the lead actress was kept entirely in the dark as to what was going to happen to her so her reactions could be real and pure. It is shot entirely with practical effects. It feels so real and so visceral. [REC] is the horror film to beat. Forgoing any message deeper than "don't trust the government/church," it relies on effective action, real scares, and the pleading invitation for you to fully suspend your disbelief and Become Pablo. Anyone who has read anything I've written before knows that I value suspension of disbelief over all else. This is the film that rewards that. There is not a single lagging section in the film, there's not a moment that pulls you out of the action. It throws itself at you full force and its all you can do to fight back. I don't want to write too much plotwise, because its so good, but let me assure you that this film makes you believe in it. [REC] is the holy grail.

Dark Remains (2005)

Antichrist-lite. A generally poor film about a sad couple but instead of delving into the meaning of loss, sexuality, and probing the danger of repression, it settles to be an average slasher with a few ghosts. Whereas Antichrist requires a full page to summarize the same story, Dark Remains takes a paragraph. Unfair2Compare? Perhaps, but like, screw it, Dark Remains is better than a lot of films ive watched for this blog. The ghosts had me watching the negative space more than the film and i dont know if that was intended or not but i liked it. Gives me an idea: Horror movie filmed in "letterbox" that, in the climax, breaks the frame and goes full 16:9. No, that's a terrible idea.
Dark Remains is not a bad horror movie. It makes me think, however, that maybe horror is a bad genre, but I'm sure a lot of that comes down to the dross that I watch. For every Friday the 13th there's a Jason Takes Manhattan and a Part 3D and a Jason Goes to Hell. I guess the payoff for watching the latter is finding the diamond in the rough that makes the Friday 1s and the Final Chapters and the Sleepaway Camps, and even the Antichrists that much sweeter.

Moon (2009)

Sucked. Plodding. Gimmicky. Boring.

Antichrist (2009)

Brutal, haunting, serene, and effectual. I think its funny how a lot of critics have charged Antichrist with misogyny just because, as far as i can tell, it invokes negative sexuality and the villain is a woman (flawlessly portrayed by Charlotte Gainsbourg). The movie, a case study in post-traumatic stress, follows a couple's journey of self-discovery after the accidental death of their toddler son. The Man (a psychiatrist played by Willem Dafoe), in a foolish display of chauvinism, attempts to "fix" his wife's fractured psyche by making her face her physical memories and anxiety triggers. The Woman, blaming herself entirely for the death, responds aggressively at first but soon breaks through to another level of self-hatred. The vanity-layer of blame hides her blame of sexuality and of her essential woman-hood. The Man, by breaking down her self-protection, draws out a sadistic monster. Sexually voracious and hyper-violent, she begins to attack The Man, evolving through various stages of sexuality, from emotional manipulation to rape to smashing his penis with a brick to stabbing him repeatedly, lets say penetrating him, with a shovel. The film expresses the dark sides of human sexuality in a very brutal, yet tasteful, way. It reverses the gender expectation of a film like this (see Don Cosacrelli's Masters of Horror episode Incident On and Off a Mountain Road) and the imagery is stark, natural, and, most importantly, alive. The woods, the cabin, the dead tree, the revenge animals, they are as much a character as The Man or The Woman and the pain, emotional and physical, feel so real. Not a horror film in the sense of this blog. Art.

District 9 (2009)

Good movie, awesome aesthetic choices that are unfortunately abandoned for a weak narrative after the first act,  and frankly amazing technical work. The sound design is awe-inspiring and the cg is nearly flawless, which, from me, the guy who loves puppets, is very rare praise. The story is absolutely great in the first act, shows its cracks in the second when it abandons the documentary conceit, and completely falls apart in the third. Its a shame, but the movie manages to survive it. However, format changes, narrative cliches, and wacky hijinks aside, the characters of Wikus and Christopher are seriously amazing. The empathy that Wikus inspires and later betrays is built so satisfyingly and watching him let Chris down really felt like he was letting me down. Seriously would recommend watching this and am heavily looking forward to Elysium.

Blog Maintenance

So, I've watched a lot of horror movies since Nightmare on Elm Street. The problem being, none of them were incredibly awful and by being able to suspend my disbelief fully, re: not taking notes or liveblogging the entire time, i enjoyed them a lot. That throws me into a bit of a conundrum with the blog. I love horror movies, I watch a ton of them, several a day occasionally. I don't love blogging and I don't blog a lot. However, I do love the experience of watching horrible horror films with the intention of finding stupid, stupid, stupid things about them and typing about those stupid things on the internet. I love identifying what makes Jason Takes Manhattan different from The Final Chapter. I love being able to say, "I have an encyclopedic knowledge of Friday the 13th movies." I love looking back at what I've written and going, "Oh man, that blowjob scene was hilarious," or "Does he think I'm a farthead?" I love the idea that this blog exists.
Part of the reason Nightmare on Elm Street took so long to watch/write-up was a lot of burnout re: blog. I felt obligated to only watch crappy horror films that I could make fun of/feel despair over. Taking these last few months and watching a lot of Good Films has revitalized my hater spirit. Not completely though.
I think I'm going to hybridize the concepts of the blog. The stupid slasher liveblogs and summaries will continue, hopefully at a more frequent pace. I'm going to tackle the higher concept, more interesting horror films in a shorter format. That seems almost backwards but I feel like the liveblogs and jokes are necessary for my own enjoyment of the "worse" films while I still don't feel secure enough to srsly essay on the bigger pieces. Maybe in the future. Regardless,  I've got a backlog.