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 Lathe Biosas wrote:

I am about to watch the Ridley Scott commentary on Alien, and was wondering if anyone else likes listening to the director or actors ramble on while the movie plays?

One of the movies that I will watch probably once a year is "Kingdom of Heaven", but not with the director's commentary. Rather, I enjoy the "historical advisor" commentary. It's basically 2+ hours of him going "yeah, I know this gak is wrong historically, but I gave them the real history and the director brought about his story" or occasionally "yeah, here's a scene where I helped them keep the overall feel of this character correct, while also toning down his particular atrocities to keep the movie at it's current rating"

trexmeyer wrote:
TDKR is hard carried by Hathaway and Hardy being as interesting as possible with their dialogue. They both crushed it, but that movie is generally unbelievably stupid. I don't know how we went from shoot-outs in TDK to that absurd melee at the end of TDKR.

TDKR is ruined in it's entirety by the scene where Catwoman knocks out a mook with a high-heeled boot on the top of the head, because there was no way I could not see it as a stage hand tapping the extra on the head with a mannikin leg.

(do we have a thread about movies that are ruined completely on viewing due to one tiny element?)

 Easy E wrote:
@Gelfer- You are looking to the Vampires for the Horror in Sinners, they are not where the Horror stems from.

That's cryptic. Do you mind elaborating?

 Geifer wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
@Gelfer- You are looking to the Vampires for the Horror in Sinners, they are not where the Horror stems from.

That's cryptic. Do you mind elaborating?

The whole film is tinged with the horror of existence under Jim Crow. The Klan may not be visible until they end, but their presence is always felt, especially heavily in Delroy Li do’s scenes. There’s a sort of existential dread living in a land that can turn on you at any time, with most of the characters being helpless to do anything about it.

Oh, are we considering that horror nowadays? Conventionally the category for dealing with common human idiocy is drama.

I'm not sure what part of that is human idiocy?

 Geifer wrote:
Oh, are we considering that horror nowadays? Conventionally the category for dealing with common human idiocy is drama.

The horror of living powerlessly under a system that is designed to kill you and grind down your soul no matter what you do is pretty horrific. It takes the natural act of living and twists it into the unnatural, which is pretty much the definition of horror.

It could be argued that existential horror is the oldest form of horror.... so yeah, we are calling that horror and not just now-a-days.

Heck, human idiocy is often the main source of horror, or do you have a specific definition of "human idiocy" that you want to say is or is not horror? Say, being the victim of ethnic and cultural cleansing is not horror?

As a personal experience that's no doubt horrific.

I've never seen anybody suggest before that horror as a movie genre should automatically include existential dread. Is Trading Places a horror movie for its theme of rich and powerful people being able to toy with other people's lives on a whim?

 LunarSol wrote:
I'm not sure what part of that is human idiocy?

Racism, prejudice, the like. Common human idiocy.

 Geifer wrote:
Oh, are we considering that horror nowadays? Conventionally the category for dealing with common human idiocy is drama.

Yeah, I reiterate you’re lacking the context for understanding what the characters are living through, and also the interest to explore people’s experiences that differ from yours. If I come across as short it’s because your response comes across as callous and arrogant. Kind of mind blowing to suggest living black under the shadow of the Klan and Jim Crow wasn’t horrifying.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Geifer wrote:
As a personal experience that's no doubt horrific.

I've never seen anybody suggest before that horror as a movie genre should automatically include existential dread. Is Trading Places a horror movie for its theme of rich and powerful people being able to toy with other people's lives on a whim?

 LunarSol wrote:
I'm not sure what part of that is human idiocy?

Racism, prejudice, the like. Common human idiocy.

The execution of the story, cinematography, music and acting make the difference. Trading Places is not horror, nor is it trying to be.

The Accused and Fire Walk With Me are both about sexual violence, but only one of them is horror. The subject itself doesn’t make the genre, but how it is approached.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Geifer wrote:
Oh, are we considering that horror nowadays? Conventionally the category for dealing with common human idiocy is drama.

Yeah, I reiterate you’re lacking the context for understanding what the characters are living through, and also the interest to explore people’s experiences that differ from yours. If I come across as short it’s because your response comes across as callous and arrogant. Kind of mind blowing to suggest living black under the shadow of the Klan and Jim Crow wasn’t horrifying.

That's the opposite of what I said, see my post above yours. I'll say it again, since I it seems we benefit from a bit of extra clarity here. People in the given period, both real and in the case of Sinners fictional, certainly live under horrific conditions. No doubt.

What I find curious is that this part of the movie is supposed to put it in the horror genre. Of course it's already there because of the vampires, but the other part only reinforces the categorization? Seems odd to me. I don't doubt that existential dread is a bad experience as such, but I can't say this usually contributes to a movie featuring it even as a main theme being classed as a horror movie.

It’s a Horror Movie. With Vampires eating people.

Vampire = Horror.

Even “What We Do In The Shadows” is a horror comedy. Granted more on the comedy, but only by playing on the classic horror tropes of Vampires.

There can be horror without anything supernatural going on.

If we took the Vamps out, and made them just gardener variety violent hill folk, would it no longer be a horror movie?

Nope. Would still be a horror.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
It’s a Horror Movie. With Vampires eating people.

Vampire = Horror.

Even “What We Do In The Shadows” is a horror comedy. Granted more on the comedy, but only by playing on the classic horror tropes of Vampires.

Vampire = Scifi, Super Hero, Comedy, Musical, Romance... all done without any Horror elements.

Unless Twilight is a horror film.

Just because you use a tired horror trope that routinely doesn't make a sick of sense (why don't vampires have reflections?) It doesn't automatically get wedged into the horror genre.

Twilight.

In which a young girl is seduced by an older man, and subjected to an abusive, one sided relationship. Just because the guy looks young.

And has to make the choice all young girls apparently face. I was gonna continue to elaborate but do not wish to clog up the Moderati’s time with something even I think is pushing it.

Yes. It’s a horror film.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, Vampires don’t have a reflection on account they’ve no soul.

The Gary Oldman Dracula is a story of twisted love and injustice.

Vlad is a man who’s spent the best part of his life Crusading for his faith. Defending his god’s lands. Despite this, when his wife is told he’s been killed in battle and takes her own life? The stifling priesthood says “soz mate, dunt matter wot you just doned, she off to heck for loadsa pains forever”. Driving him entirely insane, and into the arms of darkness. Losing his soul in the process.

 Geifer wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Geifer wrote:
Oh, are we considering that horror nowadays? Conventionally the category for dealing with common human idiocy is drama.

Yeah, I reiterate you’re lacking the context for understanding what the characters are living through, and also the interest to explore people’s experiences that differ from yours. If I come across as short it’s because your response comes across as callous and arrogant. Kind of mind blowing to suggest living black under the shadow of the Klan and Jim Crow wasn’t horrifying.

That's the opposite of what I said, see my post above yours. I'll say it again, since I it seems we benefit from a bit of extra clarity here. People in the given period, both real and in the case of Sinners fictional, certainly live under horrific conditions. No doubt.

What I find curious is that this part of the movie is supposed to put it in the horror genre. Of course it's already there because of the vampires, but the other part only reinforces the categorization? Seems odd to me. I don't doubt that existential dread is a bad experience as such, but I can't say this usually contributes to a movie featuring it even as a main theme being classed as a horror movie.

How do you define horror, as a genre? It feels like you have a more narrow view of the genre than I, and audiences in general, do.

The vampires certainly make the movie horror, but as an addition to the different type of horror the characters were already dealing with. To go back to Fire Walk With Me, it’s a film about sexual abuse—a subject you might feel is more drama than horror—and it also added some supernatural elements to crystallize the horror of the non-supernatural elements. The vampires are not the totality or even the main horror, but their presence gives added horror-genre context to the horror elements you might not consider horror in a move made differently.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Also, Vampires don’t have a reflection on account they’ve no soul.

But chairs and clothes have souls? They have reflections.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Also, Vampires don’t have a reflection on account they’ve no soul.

But chairs and clothes have souls? They have reflections.

I forget where I read it now but, I saw a piece that stated that vampires don't have a reflection, not on account of having no soul, but rather because their soul is so horribly tainted. Now, that tainted aspect only comes into play because way back in the day, the reflective surface of a mirror was actually pure silver. And apparently, in greater folklore around the world, silver is a "pure" metal. So thus, a soul that is so impure that even the christian god rejects it, that won't reflect on the mirror (something something undead creature)

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Geifer wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Geifer wrote:
Oh, are we considering that horror nowadays? Conventionally the category for dealing with common human idiocy is drama.

Yeah, I reiterate you’re lacking the context for understanding what the characters are living through, and also the interest to explore people’s experiences that differ from yours. If I come across as short it’s because your response comes across as callous and arrogant. Kind of mind blowing to suggest living black under the shadow of the Klan and Jim Crow wasn’t horrifying.

That's the opposite of what I said, see my post above yours. I'll say it again, since I it seems we benefit from a bit of extra clarity here. People in the given period, both real and in the case of Sinners fictional, certainly live under horrific conditions. No doubt.

What I find curious is that this part of the movie is supposed to put it in the horror genre. Of course it's already there because of the vampires, but the other part only reinforces the categorization? Seems odd to me. I don't doubt that existential dread is a bad experience as such, but I can't say this usually contributes to a movie featuring it even as a main theme being classed as a horror movie.

How do you define horror, as a genre? It feels like you have a more narrow view of the genre than I, and audiences in general, do.

The vampires certainly make the movie horror, but as an addition to the different type of horror the characters were already dealing with. To go back to Fire Walk With Me, it’s a film about sexual abuse—a subject you might feel is more drama than horror—and it also added some supernatural elements to crystallize the horror of the non-supernatural elements. The vampires are not the totality or even the main horror, but their presence gives added horror-genre context to the horror elements you might not consider horror in a move made differently.

I wasn't going to make it about my idea of what constitutes horror. I don't put movies in genres. I just got curious because of the suggestion that I misidentified what makes Sinners a horror movie.

But if we're talking about what my issue with the lingering existential dread as horror is, I don't think the two elements we pick out as horror mesh well at all. The movie builds up a monster, the Klan, for much of the movie. Then an entirely unrelated monster, the vampires, shows up for the brief physical and emotional conflict of the main characters. Finally when that is all sorted out, the original monster shows up and is swept away like nothing.

If Sinners did a variation of Night of the Living Dead and the main characters survive against the overt monster of the movie, and even beat it, only for the one that has been built up in the background (which Sinners does, but Night of the Living Dead doesn't) to undo the characters' achievement and kill them after all, I wouldn't hesitate to call the Klan a horror element.

But the way it happens, from the beginning you have the two brothers who are not going to take gak from anyone, including white supremacists, and when the lynch mob finally shows up, the surviving brother mows the lot down just like that. This particular posse (nor any affiliated substitute) never gets to interact with most main characters, doesn't get to commit atrocities that establish that they are threat to those characters, and has no emotional impact specific to their actions on the one main character they do interact with because he won't let himself get threatened and the losses he suffered just prior to the encounter are caused by something entirely unrelated. Finally the posse goes down to one determined guy with a gun as a matter of principle rather than a reaction to their previous actions in the movie.

All of which is to say I don't recognize any dramatic presence in the lynch mob. So the question is, why then would I consider it and everything that builds up to it earlier a horror element? Yes, sure it's all existential dread that lingers in the background and informs the mood and the way some characters act. But where is the interaction with any of the main characters, or their interaction with it? It's the absence of meaningful interaction that doesn't work for me.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Also, Vampires don’t have a reflection on account they’ve no soul.

But chairs and clothes have souls? They have reflections.

I forget where I read it now but, I saw a piece that stated that vampires don't have a reflection, not on account of having no soul, but rather because their soul is so horribly tainted. Now, that tainted aspect only comes into play because way back in the day, the reflective surface of a mirror was actually pure silver. And apparently, in greater folklore around the world, silver is a "pure" metal. So thus, a soul that is so impure that even the christian god rejects it, that won't reflect on the mirror (something something undead creature)

Silver also has antimicrobial properties. Which is quite possibly where the folklore originates.

Thanks for sharing some specifics on Sinners. I can see your point-of-view.

I encourage you to re-examine the dialogue. Despite killing the Klan, that does not free them. Becoming a Vampire does not free them. Even in Chicago, away from the South; they were not freed from the prison of being a Black Man in America. I.e. trying to assimilate, flee or fighting does not free them from what it means to be Black in America.

Most of this dialogue is between the Brothers or the Brother and his Wife.

Either way, it is one of the few films I had seen that made me actually engage my brain in a way the movie intended, as opposed to me just putting on my pretentious hat and making stuff up.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:


I forget where I read it now but, I saw a piece that stated that vampires don't have a reflection, not on account of having no soul, but rather because their soul is so horribly tainted. Now, that tainted aspect only comes into play because way back in the day, the reflective surface of a mirror was actually pure silver. And apparently, in greater folklore around the world, silver is a "pure" metal. So thus, a soul that is so impure that even the christian god rejects it, that won't reflect on the mirror (something something undead creature)

This was my understanding as well. It comes from the fact that mirrors used to be silver and SuperNatural beasties always seem to have an aversion to pure metals like silver.

 Geifer wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Geifer wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Geifer wrote:
Oh, are we considering that horror nowadays? Conventionally the category for dealing with common human idiocy is drama.

Yeah, I reiterate you’re lacking the context for understanding what the characters are living through, and also the interest to explore people’s experiences that differ from yours. If I come across as short it’s because your response comes across as callous and arrogant. Kind of mind blowing to suggest living black under the shadow of the Klan and Jim Crow wasn’t horrifying.

That's the opposite of what I said, see my post above yours. I'll say it again, since I it seems we benefit from a bit of extra clarity here. People in the given period, both real and in the case of Sinners fictional, certainly live under horrific conditions. No doubt.

What I find curious is that this part of the movie is supposed to put it in the horror genre. Of course it's already there because of the vampires, but the other part only reinforces the categorization? Seems odd to me. I don't doubt that existential dread is a bad experience as such, but I can't say this usually contributes to a movie featuring it even as a main theme being classed as a horror movie.

How do you define horror, as a genre? It feels like you have a more narrow view of the genre than I, and audiences in general, do.

The vampires certainly make the movie horror, but as an addition to the different type of horror the characters were already dealing with. To go back to Fire Walk With Me, it’s a film about sexual abuse—a subject you might feel is more drama than horror—and it also added some supernatural elements to crystallize the horror of the non-supernatural elements. The vampires are not the totality or even the main horror, but their presence gives added horror-genre context to the horror elements you might not consider horror in a move made differently.

I wasn't going to make it about my idea of what constitutes horror. I don't put movies in genres. I just got curious because of the suggestion that I misidentified what makes Sinners a horror movie.

But if we're talking about what my issue with the lingering existential dread as horror is, I don't think the two elements we pick out as horror mesh well at all. The movie builds up a monster, the Klan, for much of the movie. Then an entirely unrelated monster, the vampires, shows up for the brief physical and emotional conflict of the main characters. Finally when that is all sorted out, the original monster shows up and is swept away like nothing.

If Sinners did a variation of Night of the Living Dead and the main characters survive against the overt monster of the movie, and even beat it, only for the one that has been built up in the background (which Sinners does, but Night of the Living Dead doesn't) to undo the characters' achievement and kill them after all, I wouldn't hesitate to call the Klan a horror element.

But the way it happens, from the beginning you have the two brothers who are not going to take gak from anyone, including white supremacists, and when the lynch mob finally shows up, the surviving brother mows the lot down just like that. This particular posse (nor any affiliated substitute) never gets to interact with most main characters, doesn't get to commit atrocities that establish that they are threat to those characters, and has no emotional impact specific to their actions on the one main character they do interact with because he won't let himself get threatened and the losses he suffered just prior to the encounter are caused by something entirely unrelated. Finally the posse goes down to one determined guy with a gun as a matter of principle rather than a reaction to their previous actions in the movie.

All of which is to say I don't recognize any dramatic presence in the lynch mob. So the question is, why then would I consider it and everything that builds up to it earlier a horror element? Yes, sure it's all existential dread that lingers in the background and informs the mood and the way some characters act. But where is the interaction with any of the main characters, or their interaction with it? It's the absence of meaningful interaction that doesn't work for me.

Well, I see your point of view better, so thanks. I disagree on the interaction. I see the constant references to violence and injustice as the Klan exerting a tactile presence in the story, even if we don’t actually see more than the Grand Dragon and his nephew and niece in law directly until the end. I felt their presence in the film enough for them to feel organic to the story and the end to be satisfying.

I also don’t find horror movies to be less horror worthy if the villains get their comeuppance at the end. For example, Weapons has maybe the best scene of villain comeuppance this decade, but it didn’t make the rest of the film not horror for me.

Well, thanks for the pointers, guys. I'll have to remember what to pay closer attention to if I watch Sinners again.

I would disagree that the presence of vampires automatically makes a film horror. WWDITS is a horror comedy yes, but in the same way that anchovies on pizza make it seafood. Underworld, Blade, even League of Extraordinary Gentlemen are vampire films, but they are not remotely horror. For it to be a horror film, I'd say you need the focus on the victims, and they should be fighting a slow battle for survival against an inhuman force (slashers and serial killers are perfectly fine antagonist, as their mindset is so atypical that they may be safely considered inhuman for these purposes).

Sinners gets the horror premise because they're trapped in the club while the monsters are without, or within, and you have some trouble telling who's a monster and who's not. The focus on the isolation and desperation is what makes it a horror film, not the vampires.

Well, glad I don't need to go see that film any more

The Owners

Sylvester McCoy and Maisie Williams star in this low budget British horror thriller, in which some druggy scrotes decide to rob a Doctor’s country house and all get deded as a result.

Our scrotes are suitably scrotular, being equal parts cowardly and pathetic despite all desperately trying to be well gangster. But McCoy and his dottie Missus are also pretty loathe some and irredeemable. The sort that figure their wealth and standing in society means they can do whatever they want, to whomever they want.

Since folk are getting academic with the themes of Sinners, allow me to partake :

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

The Gary Oldman Dracula is a story of twisted love and injustice.

Vlad is a man who’s spent the best part of his life Crusading for his faith. Defending his god’s lands. Despite this, when his wife is told he’s been killed in battle and takes her own life? The stifling priesthood says “soz mate, dunt matter wot you just doned, she off to heck for loadsa pains forever”. Driving him entirely insane, and into the arms of darkness. Losing his soul in the process.

I think about this movie often, and I think its only a story of twisted love and injustice if you only watch the first few minutes of that movie. I get the fixation on that scene as its absolutely iconic, but I don’t think its a coincidence that the movie ends in that same room, 4ish centuries (roughly 2 hours of screen time) later.

In the same room where:
Dracula cursed God, who swore himself to darkness and to conquer death, asks for God and laments being forsaken.
Mina/Elisabeta, professes her love for Dracula and feels the presence of God, as candles ignite and light enters the room. The light hits Dracula’s face and he morphs from monster to healthy, hale human, with a look of joy. He asks for peace.
Mina/Elisabeta fatally pierces Dracula and he has a look of elation, he dies and his gaze is fixed above onto the restored cross that Dracula pierced. The curse on Mina/Elisabeta lifts, as shown by the communion wafer burn mark disappearing. Mina says their love banished the darkness, or something to that effect.
Mina/Elisabeta glances up and witnesses a fresco/painting of Elisabeta and Dracula aloft in the sky, restoring itself as if to simulate they are re-united in heaven, as Elisabeta wished in her suicide note that Dracula read in that chapel room.

I know there’s a lot of horror between the first few minutes and the last, but the ending makes it very much a story of the redemptive powers of love. The re-incarnation of Elisabeta in Mina is a Coppola addition to the story, but in this telling and how it ends up, it works pretty well.

Though it does make it awkward to think how life went on for Mina and Harker when the dust settled.

The only injustice in Bram Stokers Dracula is how a young Keanu Reeves pulled off a better English accent than Sir Anthony Hopkins in his prime.

There is nothing Keanu cannot do...

except give us a believable performance as the Buddha (with brown skin paint, no less) in the Chris Isaac and Jane Fonda masterpiece of cinema: The Little Buddha... which if you were able to change the films unnecessary blue filters to green, would make a decent prequel to the Matrix as every "actor" in that film is a little "robotic" in their "performances."

The wooden bowl floating in the water was the least wooden part of the movie.

I had completely forgotten about that movie.

Well, Coppola was not the first version of Drac to add that "Resurrected Love" angle, perhaps the redemption part? Early on the story of The Mummy and Dracula's resurrected love bit seemed to get tangled up and crossed over.

It was too bad for the The Mummy, as it stole his big gimmick; but probably boosted Drac as a romantic villain/anti-hero.