The Horror Thread 2U • Page 942

you would think Kiernan Shipkan in a time travel slasher comedy by Nahnatchka Khan would be a slam dunk for me but i didn't enjoy Totally Killer as much as I'd hoped. maybe I was just tired when i started it. i think my only gripe is a lot of the jokes didn't land, they kept using the "oh the 80s were wild and we've progressed so much since then" bit. aside from the lackluster humor tho it was all pretty darn good

hm, rereading this it sounds like i was disappointed. i mean, i am. but only a teensy bit. it's not on the same level as HDD1-2 for me but it was still a fun time. sooo... almost a slam dunk.

 

Finding out I can typically squeeze a movie in while the baby sleeps at night, but I'm not up to watching anything really new yet, so it's a comfort watch tonight: Friday the 13th Part 2.

 

Congrats on the new arrival, buddy! I hope everyone is well

 

Thank you, friend

 

Azrael holds up upon rewatch. for a movie without dialogue, Samara Weaving gives a great performance, and while the movie does have other strengths, that performance alone makes it worth watching. i like how the movie invites you to put the puzzle pieces together yourself without overexplaining any of the lore or worldbuilding. there's a lot of big questions that go unanswered, which adds to the mystery, but also liek, those omitted details don't really even matter to the plot. as we follow every horrific thing Samara's character has to go through, the how we got here doesn't feel so important. there's some cool gruesome makeup and gore, but also some really beautiful shots of wilderness. and since there's no dialogue, you can tell that a lot of care went into the sound design. there's quite a bit of religious iconography; the film is similar to First Omen and Immaculate in perhaps more ways than one...

 

rewatched Cuckoo. lemme just preface this by saying i still love this movie and i still love Hunter Schafer (my queen) in this movie. i didn't have as much "fun" with it this time around. that doesn't change the fact that the premise is completely bonkers. it's just that, since i knew what was gonna happen, once that mystery was gone, i was left to really tune in to the emotional depth of the film. the second viewing helped me grow a greater appreciation for it, beyond the initial "whoa what a crazy film." the development of the sisterly relationship between Gretchen and Alma at the heart of this film is so touching, that came through the first time. I wanna focus more on the two men at the end (i can't believe i just said that. men are ew.) the preservationist and the ex-cop. from their own personal perspectives, each of them is right in a way. the preservationist wants to, uh, preserve the endangered species. by any means necessary. which is of course a little misguided. (Dan Stevens btw ate this up, between this and Abigail he had such a great year.) the ex-cop lost his wife in the mating ritual, so of course he wants to protect others from sharing the same fate. he sees every member of that species as a threat. this puts them at odds with each other, but neither of them are completely wrong. Gretchen of course just wants to protect her family, regardless of what her sister is or might become. and that love is what prevails in the end. i think that's really sweet.

also lol at this being yet another film about birth or reproduction. 2024 was wild

 

Companion hits digital tomorrow

 

I thought Companion really stunk. But it did make me for some reason go back and rewatch Sanctuary. And wow, that movie just rocks. A true underrated genre gem. The final shot still hits so fucking hard. Love that movie.

 

Man. I really, really did not like Sanctuary lol but more power to ya. Excited to hopefully watch Companion tomorrow

 

WHAT

 

(aaron and i got beef. but not really.)

 

Sanctuary is really good but not even horror really. I have no idea what it is, just a great weird movie I guess.

Companion feels like a classic bit of modern horror. Just a fun time.

 

I'm down for a new anthology

 

Marshawn Lynch just fully throwing himself into acting now huh

 

Trailers before presence

drop
Death of a unicorn
Locked
Novocaine
Hell of a summer
The monkey but it shows way too much

Oh whoops forgot to post this, so anyway here's the review also. Presence is part ghost story, part family drama, part mystery and suspense. So... not quite horror. Not very scary. But still very good! Yeah, the "from the perspective of the ghost" gimmick can get a little dizzying if it moves around too much, but the longer shots really give the actors room to breathe and feel real. There's a couple plot lines that are kinda unresolved so they feel like they don't go anywhere, but what the film does focus on is very engaging and packs quite a punch. I was almost surprised at how emotional I got at the end

 

WNUF spin-off coming this year.

 

Companion ruled. Different than what I expected, but a ton of fun.

 

I watched Next of Kin tonight for the first time. Probably the most realistic and effective shower scare scene I’ve seen. Felt like a nightmare I would have had back when I was a kid. Also, the scene where she runs down the stairs screaming in slow motion kinda fucked me up. Really cool. Kinda slow though til the third act.

 

Man. 30 minutes into Companion and really enjoying it. I'm sure it was a marketing move, but putting that first reveal in the second trailer is totally criminal. I wish so badly I hadn't known that going in.

 

Yeah, Companion was great. A lot smarter than I anticipated. I don't know if it's horror, exactly, but it's definitely adjacent considering the tone and talent involved.

 

Trailers revealing too much and trailers hiding the fact that a movie is a musical are two trends I cannot understand

 

I try to pay as little attention to trailers as possible these days. Especially horror ones.

 

Every trailer that I thought was too spoilery recently was forced on me in front of movies at the theater.