What Is The Last Film You Watched? (Older Films)

[Quintus 5,399]

I disagree with Quint's ridiculous generalization.

Please point me toward some decent recent pure horrors, I'm interested! Drag Me to Hell isn't what I'm talking about.

[publicist 4,643]

(REC) perhaps? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1038988/

[Quintus 5,399]

Actually, both versions of that were pretty good, again. The remake almost exactly the same as the original.

On this list I see just two which fit the bill: http://www.imdb.com/list/R35vVwB1xgY/

The Others totally took me by surprise and scared the fuck out of me. Love that film. What Lies Beneath was another which overcome its superstar gimmick and got the job done as I watched in the theatre with a big group. Both movies feel like they came out in another life.

Sorry Joey, but the noughties aren't exactly a golden era for horror.

[A24 4,330]

My favorite 'horror' movies of the last 15 years are The Others, 28 Days Later and The Mist. Surprisingly, I expected more from Pan's Labyrinth. I don't care much for the Saw type and the ones where a bunch of half naked teenagers get massacred.

Alex

[publicist 4,643]

I tried to introduce some friends to the joys to be had by THE INNOCENTS (1961) and similar things. I was surprised that 2 actually were quite taken with the Deborah Kerr film. The others were deadly bored, though.

[Quintus 5,399]

I hate the torture porn genre. Saw, Hostel, a load of rubbish. The Mist is really entertaining and at times pretty tense but I don't personally categorise it as a horror.

[crocodile 7,998]

I've not watched a horror film in a long, long time. Not counting something like Planet Terror, but that doesn't really belong there either.

Karol

[Quintus 5,399]

Switchblade Romance worked me over, but the silly ending took the shine off it, which has always bugged me.

[A24 4,330]

I want to see this one:

I've heard it's genuinely creepy without cheap startling effects or gore. James Wan of Insidious fame is the director but The Conjuring is valuated higher.

[Quintus 5,399]

Yeah I spoke with Joey about that one. He persuaded me to give it a try, which I will do. Because Insidious is literally one of the worst movies I've seen in recent years. I REALLY want a proper pure scary movie to take me by surprise.

[Hurmm 91]

I found The Conjuring almost totally devoid of effective scares. It was mildly unsettling at times, and looks and feels like a classy picture (that doesn't add much in a horror movie, I'm afraid). That's the best I can say about it. Insidious was about the same, I think.

Off the top of my head, the few good horror I can think of from the past decade or so:

The Ring. Creepy and effective, the cursed video clip alone is more disturbing than most other horror movies put together. Plus those deformed faces... don't think I can ever forget them.

[REC]. Mounting tension and dread for the first 70 minutes and just when your heart rate's jacked, the whopper of an ending comes along. Now those final 10 minutes, that's some scary shit.

The House of the Devil. Throwback to the 60s and 70s, slow-burning with a really creepy atmosphere throughout.

28 Days Later. Scariest zombies ever. The sequel is pretty damn good too, although it's also much more polished and slicker.

The Others was very interesting and quite really good, but it wasn't really scary for me.

[KK 3,307]

I usually don't watch horror films, but my friends forced me to watch The Conjuring. It's alright. Some scary scenes, but overall wasn't as scary as people made it out to be.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

The people who are usually into horror films tend to be half-wits, who are easily scared.

Honestly, 99% of horror films are not very frightening at all, to more developed people, who understand that nothing that happens on the screen can hurt them.

[KK 3,307]

Come on, admit it: you shat your pants!

I thought I would. I can rarely take modern horror, it's why I don't ever watch them. Not a fan of pop-up scares... But turns out it wasn't that bad.

[Quintus 5,399]

Honestly, 99% of horror films are not very frightening at all to people who understand that nothing that happens on the screen can hurt them.

Yeah, in 1975 you'd have gone swimming in the sea just fine, tough guy

Come on, admit it: you shat your pants!

I thought I would. I can rarely take modern horror, it's why I don't ever watch them. Not a fan of pop-up scares... But turns out it wasn't that bad.

After seeing the children's tv piece of shit that was Insidious I'm inclined to side with you and Hurmm about The Conjuring. Why would I think otherwise?

[Matt C 452]

I found The Conjuring almost totally devoid of effective scares. It was mildly unsettling at times, and looks and feels like a classy picture (that doesn't add much in a horror movie, I'm afraid). That's the best I can say about it. Insidious was about the same, I think.

Off the top of my head, the few good horror I can think of from the past decade or so:

The Ring. Creepy and effective, the cursed video clip alone is more disturbing than most other horror movies put together. Plus those deformed faces... don't think I can ever forget them.

[REC]. Mounting tension and dread for the first 70 minutes and just when your heart rate's jacked, the whopper of an ending comes along. Now those final 10 minutes, that's some scary shit.

The House of the Devil. Throwback to the 60s and 70s, slow-burning with a really creepy atmosphere throughout.

28 Days Later. Scariest zombies ever. The sequel is pretty damn good too, although it's also much more polished and slicker.

The Others was very interesting and quite really good, but it wasn't really scary for me.

I get why people love 28 Days Later... but I think it falls apart near the end. The military outpost part feels like Alex Garland and Danny Boyle were just finding a way to end the movie. It's a shame though since the first half is so good.

28 Weeks Later feels more like a more cohesive film. There's only two plot points that don't make any sense (one involving Andy and Tammy looking for their mom and that infamous infirmary scene), but there's a terrific story flow and urgency to the whole film. I just wish we had closure on the Hannah/Jim/Selena relationship from the first one.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

The Shining is the only film to have ever scared me. The Exorsist did a pretty good job of freaking me out though.

[Quintus 5,399]

I too preferred Weeks over Days. The rambo finale was what let the first movie down, I remember sniggering in the theatre. Still quite brilliant up until then, though. The second one may have went all this time it's war, but it still featured one of single greatest movie openers in memory. Brutal.

[A24 4,330]

I get why people love 28 Days Later... but I think it falls apart near the end. The military outpost part feels like Alex Garland and Danny Boyle were just finding a way to end the movie. It's a shame though since the first half is so good.

28 Weeks Later feels more like a more cohesive film. There's only two plot points that don't make any sense (one involving Andy and Tammy looking for their mom and that infamous infirmary scene), but there's a terrific story flow and urgency to the whole film. I just wish we had closure on the Hannah/Jim/Selena relationship from the first one.

The second half of 28 Days Later is even better. It doesn't fall apart at all, not if you understand what is going on. OTOH, 28 weeks Later is one of the worst films I've ever seen.

The Shining is the only film to have ever scared me. The Exorsist did a pretty good job of freaking me out though.

The Shining never scared me but it does entertain me, mainly because of Kubrick. The film works on multiple levels. It's not a just a horror movie.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Yes....YES!

[crocodile 7,998]

The Shining is the only film to have ever scared me. The Exorsist did a pretty good job of freaking me out though.

I tend to get this sort of reaction from real life horrors. The movie stuff may (or may not) entertain and sometimes offer a scare or two, but the closer something horrific is to real life, the more it gives me nightmares.

Karol

[Romão 2,274]

The Exorcist really disturbed me when I first watched it

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

It is a very tense film.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

The Shining is the only film to have ever scared me. The Exorsist did a pretty good job of freaking me out though.

I tend to get this sort of reaction from real life horrors. The movie stuff may (or may not) entertain and sometimes offer a scare or two, but the closer something horrific is to real life, the more it gives me nightmares.

Karol

Indeed. I thought Funny Games was more horrifying than any horror film I've seen.

[Quintus 5,399]

The Exorcist was banned here up until the nineties and had a very infamous reputation as a result. When I finally got my young bottle up to watch it I was probably the most apprehensive and nervous I've ever been at the prospect of watching a movie. The film pretty much delivered. It wasn't terrifying, but it did affect me.

Then a few years later a similar scenario occurred with Wes Craven's Last House on the Left. That didn't deliver on its infamy. It was just trash.

[Brónach 1,302]

The Shining is the only film to have ever scared me. The Exorsist did a pretty good job of freaking me out though.

With the Shining, rather than fear, I felt a sort of sheer exhilaration as the narrative accelerated and a sort of unsettling but subtle panic.

The film that has actually scared me was 2001. It was the same " little panic", just blown up to eleven.

[Marian Schedenig 8,191]

Please point me toward some decent recent pure horrors, I'm interested! Drag Me to Hell isn't what I'm talking about.

The Descent. And I remember rather liking El orfanato.

The Shining is the only film to have ever scared me. The Exorsist did a pretty good job of freaking me out though.

I once had to turn off The Shining after about half an hour. It's Kubrick's way of first training me to expect a sudden cut to two creepy twin girls and then delaying that cut until the very last moment that really freaked me out.

I've never understood the fuzz about The Exorcist. It's not a bad film, but I don't see what's so special about it either.

The film that has actually scared me was 2001. It was the same " little panic", just blown up to eleven.

The last sequence certainly tests my nerves. I really need the Blue Danube Waltz during the credits to calm me down.

[Delorean90 42]

When I was about 11, I saw a commercial for The Exorcist that featured the "Today would be an excellent day for an exorcism" line, and it scared me positively shitless. Over the years I pretty much gathered what happens in the story, and I've had gradual exposure to some of the imagery and such to the point that its classic film status has overrided the childhood trauma status so that it's on my watch list now.

[Marian Schedenig 8,191]

The Shining is the only film to have ever scared me. The Exorsist did a pretty good job of freaking me out though.

Among my biggest movie scares are Polanski's The Tenant and the 1978 Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I nearly screamed at the end of that.

[A24 4,330]

Iron Man 3:

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

It's the most succesful movie of 2013, by far....

[A24 4,330]

Sad.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

It had Robert Downey Jr.

[crocodile 7,998]

Can't be that bad, can it?

Karol

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

It's not. Alex is overdoing it as usual.

I really enjoyed the film, but pretty much forgot about it shortly after, apart from Ben Kingsley.

[Brónach 1,302]

It's better than Man of Steel for sure.

It has that kind of writing going in tangent arcs which is a bit difficult to pull off. Some characters need motivation and some details would need more elaboration. Some nice action concepts in there.

[Delorean90 42]

Yeah. Comic fans got pissed because of the twist, but I thought it worked very nicely into the political themes of the film. Also, the Stark/kid dynamic worked way better than it probably had any right to.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

It's better than Man of Steel for sure.

It has that kind of writing going in tangent arcs which is a bit difficult to pull off. Some characters need motivation and some details would need more elaboration. Some nice action concepts in there.

The only action scene I thought was impressive was the air rescue Iron Man performs.

So far the best Iron Man action stuff is in The Avengers.

The political angle in this film is a bit odd.

In the bulk of the film Kingley's Manderin is seen in video's which resemble Bin Laden's terrorist messages. But to avoid any controversy his voice in those vids has a weird American accent. Of course then he turns out to be just an actor and Kinglsey uses a Cockney accent. Obviously they were avoiding any Asian or Arab stereotypes.

[Brónach 1,302]

I liked the part

where he was jumping from suit to suit. And the gag with the flying armor crashing besides him.

I would have made the president die comically in the battle, because the whole "save the president" stuff feels cliched to me.

Yeah. Comic fans got pissed because of the twist, but I thought it worked very nicely into the political themes of the film.

To me it almost felt like a parody of the Christopher Nolan type of supervillain.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Well I saw it in 3D, and the conversion was not a very good one, so perhaps I can't have a fully informed opinion about the action scenes.

Shane Black did re-use scenes from his Lethal Weapon 2 script for Iron Man 3. Both feature a helicopter assault on the hero's beach house, both feature a "shoot out" between the hero, his African American buddy and the enemy at a ship yard.

[Jay 37,336]

I thought Iron Man 3 was terrible.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

But you thought the second one was great, and you didnt like The Avengers or The Dark Knight Rises.

I mean, you haven't done much for your street cred when it comes to comic book movies recently.

Have you seen The Wolverine like I told you?

[EDIT]

Oh fuck!

You liked MoS, like me....

[Hurmm 91]

I found The Conjuring almost totally devoid of effective scares. It was mildly unsettling at times, and looks and feels like a classy picture (that doesn't add much in a horror movie, I'm afraid). That's the best I can say about it. Insidious was about the same, I think.

Off the top of my head, the few good horror I can think of from the past decade or so:

The Ring. Creepy and effective, the cursed video clip alone is more disturbing than most other horror movies put together. Plus those deformed faces... don't think I can ever forget them.

[REC]. Mounting tension and dread for the first 70 minutes and just when your heart rate's jacked, the whopper of an ending comes along. Now those final 10 minutes, that's some scary shit.

The House of the Devil. Throwback to the 60s and 70s, slow-burning with a really creepy atmosphere throughout.

28 Days Later. Scariest zombies ever. The sequel is pretty damn good too, although it's also much more polished and slicker.

The Others was very interesting and quite really good, but it wasn't really scary for me.

I get why people love 28 Days Later... but I think it falls apart near the end. The military outpost part feels like Alex Garland and Danny Boyle were just finding a way to end the movie. It's a shame though since the first half is so good.

28 Weeks Later feels more like a more cohesive film. There's only two plot points that don't make any sense (one involving Andy and Tammy looking for their mom and that infamous infirmary scene), but there's a terrific story flow and urgency to the whole film. I just wish we had closure on the Hannah/Jim/Selena relationship from the first one.

Actually I'm inclined to agree with this. 28 Days Later introduced a new breed of terrifying zombies but it does fall apart in the end. I know what they were trying to do -- the whole mankind can be worse than zombies stuff. But it's not something new, we have seen the same themes countless times before, and this time it just robs the movie from what should have been its main focus throughout. Zombies.

Weeks is consistent in that it's all zombies. And as Quint pointed out, the opening sequence is utterly terrifying and one of the all time bravura scenes of horror. The second glorious sequence is the fire bombing of London. Brilliant use of CGI and a complete marvel. The only misguided moments I feel in Weeks are the chopper zombie mowdown and the apache scenes (which are fun but just takes you out of the picture a bit). It's hard to see how anyone can feel this is one of the worst movies ever. Really?!

[Koray Savas 2,251]

On The Road

An interesting film, based on one of my favorite novels. I remember news of the adaptation showing up on IMDb years before this finally came to fruition. I recall it was going to be shot in black and white initially. Then when it finally comes out, it doesn't even hit my local Landmark that usually gets all the indies that run through the film festivals. Then once it's gone it took another 8 months to hit blu-ray, but regardless I finally got to see it. Much like the novel itself, there is really no plot here. Walter Salles does an excellent job of portraying Kerouac's text with visuals, but whereas the ramblings of Kerouac's drug and sex-fueled adventures work so well on paper, some of the magic is lost on film. Same Riley is excellent as Sal Paradise, and the slew of cameos from some big names all play their roles really well, but it all feels too short and abridged. The focus is mainly between Paradise and Dean Moriarty, and I don't think Garrett Hedlund pulled off the part as well as someone else could have. Santolalla's score is really good and works well within the film. Cinematography and editing are pretty top-notch too. The story, or rather lack thereof, being told just feels too sparse compared to the novel. Worth a watch if you want to see Kristen Stewart's tits though, or Steve Buscemi getting fucked in the ass, or Viggo's penis again.

[Matt C 452]

I found The Conjuring almost totally devoid of effective scares. It was mildly unsettling at times, and looks and feels like a classy picture (that doesn't add much in a horror movie, I'm afraid). That's the best I can say about it. Insidious was about the same, I think.

Off the top of my head, the few good horror I can think of from the past decade or so:

The Ring. Creepy and effective, the cursed video clip alone is more disturbing than most other horror movies put together. Plus those deformed faces... don't think I can ever forget them.

[REC]. Mounting tension and dread for the first 70 minutes and just when your heart rate's jacked, the whopper of an ending comes along. Now those final 10 minutes, that's some scary shit.

The House of the Devil. Throwback to the 60s and 70s, slow-burning with a really creepy atmosphere throughout.

28 Days Later. Scariest zombies ever. The sequel is pretty damn good too, although it's also much more polished and slicker.

The Others was very interesting and quite really good, but it wasn't really scary for me.

I get why people love 28 Days Later... but I think it falls apart near the end. The military outpost part feels like Alex Garland and Danny Boyle were just finding a way to end the movie. It's a shame though since the first half is so good.

28 Weeks Later feels more like a more cohesive film. There's only two plot points that don't make any sense (one involving Andy and Tammy looking for their mom and that infamous infirmary scene), but there's a terrific story flow and urgency to the whole film. I just wish we had closure on the Hannah/Jim/Selena relationship from the first one.

Actually I'm inclined to agree with this. 28 Days Later introduced a new breed of terrifying zombies but it does fall apart in the end. I know what they were trying to do -- the whole mankind can be worse than zombies stuff. But it's not something new, we have seen the same themes countless times before, and this time it just robs the movie from what should have been its main focus throughout. Zombies.

Weeks is consistent in that it's all zombies. And as Quint pointed out, the opening sequence is utterly terrifying and one of the all time bravura scenes of horror. The second glorious sequence is the fire bombing of London. Brilliant use of CGI and a complete marvel. The only misguided moments I feel in Weeks are the chopper zombie mowdown and the apache scenes (which are fun but just takes you out of the picture a bit). It's hard to see how anyone can feel this is one of the worst movies ever. Really?!

I think the director and the producers were throwing some good Dawn of the Dead-style gore for the horror fans. There wasn't much in the way of severed limbs or brain matter in 28 Days Later, so I guess they had to up the ante gore-wise too.

What really irritated me was the photography on Days -- it lends an almost documentary style to the proceedings, but man is it ugly. Anthony Dod Mantle is a great DP, but man the digital video cameras were just subpar. I know Danny Boyle was working with a small budget, but still...

[Jay 37,336]

Yes didn't I mention in this thread when I saw Elysium and The Wolverine? Actually, I probably didn't cause it was in the Middle of my two week vacation where I was coming and going all over the place.

Anyway, I liked both of them, but they both had flaws.

[JoeinAR 1,949]

I thought Elysium was a major let down considering the hype. that director has one fucked up idea of the future. Jody Foster was terrible. Something I never believe possible to say.

[Jay 37,336]

Yes she was miscast and then phoned in her performance to boot

[JoeinAR 1,949]

the atomic blast sequence in Wolverine is one of the most impressive sequences this summer. For me that is. So well done and so real looking.