31 Days of Halloween (2022)

[Caldwin]

I honestly had no idea what I was going to do for this thread this year. As a matter of fact, I was thinking of just letting it lie. But then I was reminded of two "how the hell have you not seen these yet" movies: Drag Me To Hell and Saw. Slim picking this year, I know, but that's probably a good thing. Slim funds as well.

Today will be

Drag me To Hell

Before I watch, let me just say that I do believe in hell and demon possession and such. Like, Exorcism of Emily Rose kept me awake for days!

But I do not believe that an otherwise innocent person can be sent to hell at the sole discretion of a single gypsy. So I'm going into this with a viewpoint of "oh great! Another Hollywood failure to understand religion." I doubt I'm going to come away from this unable to sleep. More likely it'll be an eyeroll and a chuckle. But we'll see.

After the movie:

Well, that was a stupid.

Up next, not sure when but hopefully soon, I'll be doing Saw!

 

[Caldwin]

Saw

Holy hell, that was hugged up! Like, totally in a "I'd probably watch that again" type way. Because, yeah, I'd totally watch it again. That was hugging intense!

Now I have heard that the sequels kinda loose the point of the first one. Like, they lean more towards simple gore and sadistic traps than the whole "appreciate life now" thing. Not sure how true this is. Anyone here watch the other movies in the series that could tell me if the rest of the series is worth watching or not?

 

[Fero McPigletron]

I never saw a complete Saw movie but I saw clips of all the kills on YouTube.

Evil Dead remake is still one of the scariest movies I've seen, even with only a few characters.

 

[Ultra Magnus13]

Saw

Holy hell, that was hugged up! Like, totally in a "I'd probably watch that again" type way. Because, yeah, I'd totally watch it again. That was hugging intense!

Now I have heard that the sequels kinda loose the point of the first one. Like, they lean more towards simple gore and sadistic traps than the whole "appreciate life now" thing. Not sure how true this is. Anyone here watch the other movies in the series that could tell me if the rest of the series is worth watching or not?

I didn't really care for any of them. If I recall correctly the second one was a script for a different movie that got a quick rework when the first Saw was such a hit and they wanted to pump out a sequel quick. I think I remember finding 1 and 2 on about equal footing. I know Ive seen 3 and maybe 4, but they were forgettable enough I don't think I remember anything about them, other than one having a shotgun collar that wouldn't have really worked as depicted.

 

[Videomaster21XX]

Over at my place, we're doing a few things.

Sat down with roommate to watch ParaNorman. They'd never seen it before, so glad we could do that. (And yeah the upcoming Thrifting thing for ParaNorman was the main reason)

This Saturday (so aka Tomorrow) We're doing the Saturday Morning Stream I always do, but this time it'll be just about every kids anthology 'horror' show we can find.

'Horror' because a couple are loosely horror. Like Round the Twist, and Eerie Indiana. Otherwise, I have an episode of such shows like: Deadtime Stories, Creeped out, Goosebumps, Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Bone Chillers, Spooksville, Freaky Stories, Nightmare Room, Haunting Hour, and possibly adding an episode of Grizzy tales, and Moville.

Then the next Saturday (The 25th) We are doing the normal Halloween stream, which will be all about Vampires this year!
Scooby Doo Music of the Vampire (because others must suffer through this like me)
Dear Dracula (Haven't seen it, but it's about a kid who doesn't want to wait till Christmas to write Santa, so he decides to write Dracula for Halloween instead. Dracula responds, but is a shadow of his former self and can't scare anymore, so the kid decides to help him get his mojo back.)
Transylvania 6-5000. (I don't think it's exclusivly vampires. Never seen it, but it says it's about two journalests heading to a town to find Frankenstien's monster, only meeting a vampire and possibly other creatures. Got it because of the cast. Jeff Goldblum, Ed Begley Jr, and Michael Richards!)
Dracula 2000 (I remember it being decent. I have a feeling it's going to be 2000's as all heck though.)
Fright Night (never seen, but heard good things. Seen the vampiries in it. Holy hell that'd scare the bleep out of me in real life)
And finally going to end it on a classic I don't think many of my viewers have seen.
Dusk till Dawn.

 

[Fero McPigletron]

ParaNorman was awesome!

Watch choice eps of Real Ghostbusters! Beware of Lupusville, Sliders Go Home, Ragnarok and Roll,

 

[Badgertron]

Over at my place, we're doing a few things.

Sat down with roommate to watch ParaNorman. They'd never seen it before, so glad we could do that. (And yeah the upcoming Thrifting thing for ParaNorman was the main reason)

This Saturday (so aka Tomorrow) We're doing the Saturday Morning Stream I always do, but this time it'll be just about every kids anthology 'horror' show we can find.

'Horror' because a couple are loosely horror. Like Round the Twist, and Eerie Indiana. Otherwise, I have an episode of such shows like: Deadtime Stories, Creeped out, Goosebumps, Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Bone Chillers, Spooksville, Freaky Stories, Nightmare Room, Haunting Hour, and possibly adding an episode of Grizzy tales, and Moville.

Then the next Saturday (The 25th) We are doing the normal Halloween stream, which will be all about Vampires this year!
Scooby Doo Music of the Vampire (because others must suffer through this like me)
Dear Dracula (Haven't seen it, but it's about a kid who doesn't want to wait till Christmas to write Santa, so he decides to write Dracula for Halloween instead. Dracula responds, but is a shadow of his former self and can't scare anymore, so the kid decides to help him get his mojo back.)
Transylvania 6-5000. (I don't think it's exclusivly vampires. Never seen it, but it says it's about two journalests heading to a town to find Frankenstien's monster, only meeting a vampire and possibly other creatures. Got it because of the cast. Jeff Goldblum, Ed Begley Jr, and Michael Richards!)
Dracula 2000 (I remember it being decent. I have a feeling it's going to be 2000's as all heck though.)
Fright Night (never seen, but heard good things. Seen the vampiries in it. Holy hell that'd scare the bleep out of me in real life)
And finally going to end it on a classic I don't think many of my viewers have seen.
Dusk till Dawn.

Transylvania 6-5000 was one of my childhood faves. It also has Geena Davis! Looking forward to hearing your impressions

 

[Caldwin]

I went to the dentist today. Before heading back to my side of town I figured I'd get some Chinese at the mall food court On my way in, I stopped by Barns & Noble.

The had the Criterion Godzilla. It includes the Japanese Gojira as well as the American Godzilla.

Never having seen a Godzilla movie in my life (aside from the Matthew Brodrick one that I'm sure most people would say doesn't count), I'm excited to see this.

The lady at the checkout suggested watching the original Japanese. That's what I'm intending on doing.

But I'm curious. Is there really any difference in content? Is the translation in any way competent?

So I watched Gojira. I may watch Godzilla, King of Monsters at some point, but not today.

A note about the Criterion edition, only Gojira is on the 4K disk. Meanwhile bothe Gojira and Godzilla, King of Monsters is on the BluRay.

I don't know what I expected going into this. Godzilla actually wasn't in the movie a whole lot. I mean, when he was on screen, he made a heckuva impact, but he was used rather sparingly. That's probably how it should be with these monster movies.

I'm trying to be kind when it comes to the effects. After all, it was made in 1954. It's not like I can expect miracles. Still, let's just say it was very obvious they were using toy models and wires were very visible. The Godzilla suit was also fairly unconvincing in a lot of shots...but still surprisingly pulled off rather well in other shots. Still, given some slack since it is 1954, it was surprisingly watchable in the whole "respect the arthouse movies" kind of way.

At the very least, even with all of its outdatedness, it absolutely has not put me off of watching the 1956 American version. Quite the opposite. I'll definetly have to watch the American version just to compare/contrast...hopefully sooner rather than later.

From what I've heard, there's a color version somewhere out there. I don't think I'll pursue it though. RESPECT THE BLACK AND WHITE!!!!

 

[Haywire]

If you want to watch a Godzilla with effects that hold up quite well, you cannot go wrong with Godzilla Minus One. It really does live up to the hype.

 

[Caldwin]

I've heard the "Minus One" title several times today. I may have to check it out.

 

[Platypus Prime]

What's truly bizarre is watching Minus One, then watching Minus One Minus Color. I'm not joking, different things show up better in one version more than the other, both ways, making it almost like watching two different movies, not a recoloring of one. I'm not sure how to explain how weird the effect is other than someone just seeing it themselves.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

If you're going to watch Minus One (do it), make sure you have good speakers. You're gonna want to feel the music.

 

[Haywire]

If you like cinematic universes, the original Godzilla series (1954-75) is pretty expansive; they do have fairly dated effects (though I almost prefer the practical stuff over effects in most modern films), but there's a lot of variety in the kaiju and settings of each movie, which makes them a pretty fun watch There's a fairly rough continuity from 1954 through 1965, after that the movies are more episodic.

The Heisei era films (1984-1995) have some epic monster designs, look a lot more polished, and have a slightly more cohesive continuity from start to finish. The 1984 sequel basically makes a fresh start after the 1954 original, and then stories bring in classic and new kaiju in fresh(ish) ways. They do tend to run long compared to the older films, and most battles are a lot less physical than the older films, relying more on ray attacks and the like (but there are still some "Wow" moments).

The Millenium series (1999-2004) was...
experimental. Japanese Godzilla had taken a hiatus to let the 1998 American film have the spotlight (for better or worse), and now Toho was trying to see what direction to take the Big G in next. Effects lean heavily into CGI (for better or worse), and stories are kind of all over the place, with little kids taking roles in many of the movies (this happened a couple times in the late 60s/early 70s, but little kids was kind of Gamera's shtick). Some fans will say the highlight film of this era is "Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-out Attack". I am not one of those fans, I think the film is overrated, but it does make some nice occasional call-outs to the original series. Godzilla would go on hiatus again after 2004's Final Wars, unable to cope with Don Frye's epic mustache in that film...

After that, the Legendary films started coming out in 2014 and are ongoing, after a series of planning meetings Hideaki Anno inflicted Shin Godzilla on the world as a substitute for the live action Evangelion movie that isn't getting made, and then Godzilla Minus One went back to the Monster King's roots, all the way back to 1945 (but in 2023)!

I would definitely recommend Minus One for one of your next Godzilla films, beyond that there are a lot of gems from Godzilla's 70 year history, they are definitely worth checking out!