1980 is 1980 how can it be the 1970s.

I watched the remake of The Hills Have Eyes. The centerpiece murders are bloody gruesome and depraved, and they push us to root for the remaining victims all the way through. Rarely have I felt so 100% behind the good guys in a movie. It's hard and maybe wrong for one to say this movie is enjoyable, but it's certainly effective.

This post has been edited by QuickFire: Sep 22 2010, 09:16 AM

Haha seriously though I think a decade can refer to any period of time with a 10-year span, so 1975 to 1984 is a decade, 2000 to 2009 another decade, etc. There's nothing to say a 'movie decade' cannot be 2000 to 2009 right?

And 1980 is in 1980! How is that still in the 70s! Hey I'm 80 years old but no I'm in my seventies! DOES NOT MAKE SENSE!

It also does not make sense that we are discussing this.

I finally watched The Exorcist (theatrical cut) for the first time last night. It was kinda creepy, and still shocking and repulsive, but ultimately I find it gimmicky. Outside of the obvious shock scenes, there is very little that could be said to constitute a great movie. Sure, I like how the movie tried to portray the lives of priests, and how a mother can be so grief-stricken because of what's going on with her daughter, but all of that comes very secondary to Regan performing obscene acts, which is, to me, entirely what this movie wants to be about. And a great classic movie that does not make. I will call it effective, but I also call quite a few modern gore movies effective, and they sure as hell ain't classic.

I also watched Alien Resurrection last week, and followed up with Alien and Aliens over the weekend.

Resurrection was worse than I remembered. Maybe they had some balls trying to make a revisionist Alien movie or whatever, but it was poor movie with poor ideas with a few good scenes. And the cast of characters we are stuck with is by far the worst of any Alien movie. I hated all of them, including the new Ripley.

Alien. Well not much can be said anymore. It's just a classic. If only they had shown even less of the alien itself, I would have called it perfect. Most of the scenes with the Alien stand up very well today (better than all the sequels in fact), but the last scene with the alien dangling off the escape shuttle always bugged me because of how fake it looked. I also wished the little chestburster alien didn't just scamper off on a skateboard. But heck, everything else is perfect. A marvel of slowburning, slowbulding terror. The alien might not appear often, but it is omnipresent. Visuals look superb, interior shots of the ship are mesmerizing. First 5 minutes of total silence (except for Goldsmith's great score) is almost unseen of today, culminating with the scene of the crew waking up from hypersleep. You have some of the most naturalistic performances ever seen in a movie. You have the best development and presentation of a facehugger in any of the movies. You have some great sci-fi elements in there. And really, only in the first film is the Alien actually a truly mysterious being. All the sequels degraded this aspect of the alien. Here we know absolutely very little about it, and the movie plays right along to that. We don't know how it grows to be so large in a few hours. We don't know its lifespan. We don't know why it is resting in the end. Is it sleeping? Is it dying? We don't know. Hence, truly an ALIEN. It is also only here that the alien has a kind of sexual trait to it. The facehugger rape has never been more disturbing, and the way the alien approached Lambert is well... up to interpretation. Suffice to say there are sexual overtones to it. All of these are some of the reasons why I consider the alien in the first movie to be the best ever portrayed, and the sequels in one aspect or more diminish it.

Aliens. I loved this as a kid, but the more I watch it the less impressive it is. The first movie has natural performances for normal, very realistic characters. Those have been replaced by action figures spouting (admittedly entertaining) action hero lines. A lot of the build up consists of banter between characters. For sure it's entertaining, but it's a far cry from the delicate and subtle presentation of the first film. It's all gungho now, and all of a sudden we see the aliens aren't that scary anymore we can kill them with guns! Not to mention Giger's original alien design is superior. I prefer the phallic smooth head rather than Cameron's ridged head. The Bluray picture quality looks absolutely stunning, but it doesn't do any favours to how dated the aliens look, especially when they are moving during action scenes. Of course, despite the datedness, the action, always Cameron's forte, delivers. From the 90th-ish minute mark onwards it's all awesome action. And then there's also the majestic Queen, which is just plain monstrosity. All in all I still think this is a great movie, and I don't really regret such a departure in tone from the first, but it is unquestionably inferior to the first.

This post has been edited by QuickFire: Oct 13 2010, 12:41 PM

Perhaps nothing like that was made before, but it's still gimmicky.

Whether or not it's based on a true story is irrelevant.

Didn't a new movie about exorcism come out recently in the US?

Well what happened to Rosemary's Baby?

I started watching The Human Centipede a while back and it struck me as a very amateur production, from the framing of the shots to the camerawork and the acting especially. The two girls were really bad. The doctor was REALLY bad, but probably in a so-bad-it's-good way. I ended up skipping most parts of it and just generally disinterested, although I must say the concept of such a torture is sick.

I watched Black Swan last night and would classify it under the same genre as the Repulsions, Rosemary's Babys, The Machinists and Requiem for A Dreams- psychological horror. Parts of it are terrifying not because we're scared for ourselves, but because we're scared for the character on screen.

It's an amazing movie.

Oh stop watching shitty movies and watch a good one for once.

It's not a scary movie la, it's just the kind that gets under your skin and makes you feel uneasy.

Like I said, stop watching shitty movies.

Just watched Drag Me To Hell. One of those movies which I berated upon its release but oh man how I've come to love it now. Fantastic rewatchability value too. Choke full of gross-out gags with great special effects.

Lol what's so surprising about it?

I'd maintain you have to tune your wavelengths to DMTH's tendencies to really get it. It's not as silly as Evil Dead II and not as serious as the usual horror fare (it lies somewhere between Evil Dead and Evil Dead II), which probably makes it harder for people to appreciate/enjoy.

Btw SPOILERS I never got how people can say she deserved to die. To me she doesn't do anything wrong and part of why the whole thing works is that she DOESN'T DESERVE IT. Which is why the ending is so fun and yet tinged with guilt that you actually enjoyed this. Oh well that's just me I guess.

Believe it or not I actually watched Pee Mak last night. It was decent, it'll get some laughs out of you. A lot of the jokes are of the lame Asian kind where characters make stupid faces an shit, so you just gotta take it in your stride and enjoy.

Ending is f***ing lame though.

The Evil Dead remake is garbage. Not one iota of ingenuity to be found in its entire running time. Not one character you like. Even the gore is pretty tame. All in it's just another one of those shock gorefest you find everywhere these days. I see people saying much effort has been put in this with Raimi and Campbell producing, but all I can see is a lazy, lazy remake. Avoid. 1.5/5