Movies you've seen recently (Part 2)

Pi was a critical and financial success. It was filmed for so little that it made more than twenty times as much at the box office at its first release as it cost to make. It has good reviews on all the lists I can find. It’s generally considered a cult classic.

Royal Oak Main Art Theater??

Harkins Camel-something, Scottsdale. Their art house theater.

I just searched for this and it’s still there.

Millenium TV series 6 episodes

What a satisfying rework of the 3 Dragon Tattoo movies with 110 additional minutes. I cannot see any reason why they tried to do a fourth book/movie. Stupid commercialism trying capitalize on a brilliant work by a dead author. Very enjoyable …better even than watching the original trilogy. :sparkler: :kangaroo:

V/H/S Halloween

Surprisingly recommended!

The VHS series is entirely anthology, so there is no connection or real comparison between them. It simply comes down to how good the segments are.

VHS Halloween is the best of the bunch overall, with all but one segment being excellent. Uh, I found the segment Kidprint to be actually scary. Not just fun and exciting, but actually pretty intense and scary.

Every segment in this one is well done except for “Fun Size”, which was standard goofy stuff.

No need to watch any of the series before this one. It’s like Creepshow. You can even skip and watch random segments. Short films, all of them.

Warning: All well done, but Kidprint is genuinely disturbing. I won’t spoil, but I was kind of shocked.

Is this in English and where does it stream?

Psycho 1960 Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles

Janet’s bloody shower scene is a classic. But, she’s really not in the film for very long.

Vera Miles is excellent as the sister that goes directly into the house and finds Mother. It’s unfortunate that Vera is overlooked by some film fans.

On Peacock
There is a Halloween section on the homepage with a nice selection of classic and comedy horror.

Millenium is a six part series Swedish with English subtitles. Streaming on Amazon Prime in Australia. It contains exactly the three Dragon Tattoo films plus 110 minutes of extra footage which is not obvious.

Maybe that should have been spoilered, but I guess it is a 65-year-old movie. Nevertheless, I’m blurring my further commentary.

This was one of the most shocking things about the film when it came out: that the lead character, whom we are expecting the story to be about, is killed halfway in. It completely unsettles the viewer by violating one of the most basic principles of storytelling. And then the cop who’s investigating her murder is killed, too! Only then do we realize that the story is really about the bad guy.

My parents remember that when Psycho was released, Hitchcock didn’t want moviegoers to enter the theater once the film had started. My understanding is that it was common at the time for people to enter the theater late, after the movie started, and then to sit through to the next showing to see the parts they missed. Perhaps because the supposed lead character, and probably the most recognizable actor, was killed off so early, and so by entering the theater partway through, they might have missed that bit.

I’ve noticed Hitchcock had a thing about controlling mothers. Mitch’s mom in The Birds is pretty unsympathetic in the beginning.

There’s probably similar examples in Hitchcock’s other films.

Yes, here is the sign he had posted.

I just watched Psycho for the first time not to long ago as well … maybe two or three weeks ago. It was one of those films that I probably could have won a trivia contest about it just on a few scenes, context clues and general zeitgeist of the flick. It was interesting. It was much more raw than I expected for a film of that time. That is, every character was a little weird or flawed in someway and it isn’t glossed over. There aren’t any cookie cutter characters in the movie.

But, truth be told, I can’t really remember that much about the story as whole after just seeing it. I guess the famous scenes was pretty much all I needed.

Motel Hell 1980 Rory Calhoun, Wolfman Jack

A obvious send up of Psycho and Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Rory Calhoun was a former star from the 40’s and 50’s. He did a lot of Westerns. It’s surprising to see him in this role.

A Camp Horror classic. Highly recommend. It’s on Prime.

I still laugh when…

The people are planted like carrots :carrot: All you see is the heads moving around. It is so bizarre and over the top. Totally ineffective in restricting the victims movements. They soon break free and go after the farmer.

I giggled just a bit, but mostly found it dull.

Good Boy. Ostensibly, a horror film. My first thought after it finished was, what the fuck was that?

All the plot descriptions describe the scenes from a horror movie perspective. They say “this supernatural thing happens”, or “the creature drug him off”. I am not convinced.

I am not entirely convinced, but close, that the entire movie is about a guy dying of cancer, and the dog just doesn’t understand such things. So everything that we see is really the dog’s limited understanding. The creatures and attacks are all just doggie dreams. He is so attuned to his master that his perceptions are biased by his master’s discomfort at dying. I mean he’s a dog. What do they really know of complex things like death?

To cloud matters, the showing ended with a short chat from the director and the dog. He explained how they got the dog to emote so well, and he explained that, no, the dog is not emoting. The dog doesn’t even know he is in a film. The dog is just…looking. It’s YOU the audience that gives him emotions. The director explained how he can lead you to understand what the dog is thinking by juxtaposition of images. But it is all the audience.

Which could also mean that the film is only a horror film because you are told it is a horror film. Take away the category, and the screechy horror movie soundtrack, and it is a different film. Wheels with wheels!

But the dog is AWESOME, whether he is acting or not.

The Wailing. Korean horror movie about a policeman’s battle against evil forces. Very intense in parts, it has diabolical possesions, zombies and a fairly high body count. The ending may have some wondering just who the bad guy was.

I have not seen Good Boy and generally don’t watch horror movies but am curious abou this one. I read that the dog is the pet of the director, Ben Leonberg.

I’m not sure you have anything to worry about. Some jump scares, flash images of …scary things, but in generally, it’s all mood, all style and no substance. I was mire bored thans cared. I was just hoping it would all come together at the end. It did, but if it is a horror moive it was unsatisfying for me, and if it wasn’t, it was fine. How’s that for contradicting the premise? :slight_smile: My complaint as a horror movie is there’s really no identifiable horror baddie. Maybe there’s something there, but…what is it? What are its motives? Why, how, does it do what it does? The film does not answer that. In that aspect, it’s worse than The Blair Witch Project.

It’s also only 73 minutes. So if you hate it, you don’t have to suffer very long. :slight_smile:

And yes, the director’s dog. Good boy!