WarShipper
I'm here to stay, alright?
I've been watching a lot of horror movies on netflix the past week, and I'm starting to itch for a way to fin some really good ones. Then I realized that there doesn't seem to be any kind of general thread for talking about horror stuff - for talking about how horror movies work, which ones are coming out, what to watch if you're bored for the night, so on and so forth.
I suppose I'll start with some of the better movies I've seen recently.
The Mimic Trilogy.
Mimic, 1, 2, 3 are a series of horror movies in a shared universe. A bunch of children begin to die off from a pandemic whose main carrier consists of cockroaches. An entomologist is brought in and given the job of creating a species of insect tailor made to kill off all of the cockroaches, thus preventing the pandemic from spreading any further. She succeeds, creating the "Judas" breed of insect, which is engineered to die off within a single generation. That's the opening to the first film.
Mimic 1 was an effective movie that genuinely managed to be scary, but I feel that some of the characters were superfluous, they revealed the appearance and nature of the antagonist too quickly, and the end was... well, it tied things up quite nicely, but it felt a little too certain. The "surprise monster reveal" at the end of horror movies may be a tired cliche, but cliches exist for a reason and having everything get wrapped up, neat as a bow, harmed the movie. I think. I still liked it.
Mimic 2, I consider the best movie of the trilogy. A little gimmicky in that the main character, an entomologist who teaches high school, uses her knowledge to almost too much effect against the enemy, but they still managed to keep tension up, the characters were interesting, and they worked with the fact that most audiences would already know what the bugs were extremely well. I especially liked how competent the characters were and the various nods to the previous movie. The very best part, however, was the end - it brought together a collection of seemingly meaningless details distributed over the course of the film into a trio of extremely well done ending scenes.
Mimic 3... to be perfectly honest, I barely watched it. It was just so boring. It was about some kind of voyeur hikkikomori crammed into an apartment and watching all the people around his house through a camera. And also he had a sister and there was some kind of burgler (?) or something? And it ends with the MC hiding inside a fridge to protect himself from an explosion that destroys the house and all of the Judas. I'll admit to only watching this movie over the screen of my laptop, but it was so boring, quiet, and generally un-interesting that there was nothing that ever actually drew my interest from the laptop and to the TV.
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Oculus.
Over a decade ago, a brother and sister pairs' parents were killed - the mother by the father, the father by the brother. The brother was installed inside an asylum and the sister went on with her life. The movie starts as the brother is finally released from the asylum, whereupon he meets with his sister. His sister, however, reveals that she's spent all the time since preparing. What happened when they were kids, she says, is that the family bought a mirror known as the Lasser Glass which proceeded to drive everybody insane, murderous, and suicidal. She then reveals that she's acquired the mirror once more and set up a machiavellian "trap" for it - cameras, redundant lighting, alarms for everything including to remind them to eat, even having her fiance prepared to call the police if they don't check in with him regularly. The brother, however, is convinced that everything from their childhood was a delusion and that the "accepted" view is the correct one.
I enjoyed this movie greatly. The best parts are the dynamic between the brother and the sister, skeptical versus an almost fanatic belief, and the fact that throughout the movie flashbacks to when the pair were children - and the massacre then - is seamlessly integrated into the narrative. Later on you begin to question everything the protagonists see, hear, know - and oftentimes you question whether or not you're getting the correct view of things as well. In addition, a greatly contributing factor to enjoyment of the film is the mystery - are the supernatural elements of the movie genuine, or are you simply getting a look into the minds of an entire family plagued by insanity and self-destructing because of it?
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Infini
In the distant future, pretty much everybody is in poverty and the only decent jobs are those that involve space mining, military, or exploration. Extremely dangerous jobs due both to the whole "space" part and because the only prevalent method of FTL has a fair potential for inducing "corruption," AKA madness in the people involved. Whit Carmichael, rookie on the job, ends up trapped on the Infini, a shitstorm from the past that's got a potentially world-ending infection of some sort floating around. A team of Search of Rescue operatives are given the mission to teleport to Infini, save Carmichael, and make certain the payload on Infini has no chance of getting to Earth.
What follows is like a mixture of 28 Days Later and Event Horizon.
I can't really describe too much of what goes on without dipping heavily into spoilers, but I really fucking enjoyed this movie. It's disorienting, confusing, and maddening - and it does all three of those things extremely well because we know that it's even worse for the characters, as they're driven into insanity and try to work out a way to get the fuck home. The characters are extremely sympathetic even as they turn into monsters, Whit Carmichael is an utter badass, and the ending manages to deliver a message that hits you right in the gut for how heartfelt it is. I would highly suggest you guys go watch it for yourselves.
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So, got any movies you want to discuss, suggestions to make, shit you want to complain about?
I suppose I'll start with some of the better movies I've seen recently.
The Mimic Trilogy.
Mimic 1 was an effective movie that genuinely managed to be scary, but I feel that some of the characters were superfluous, they revealed the appearance and nature of the antagonist too quickly, and the end was... well, it tied things up quite nicely, but it felt a little too certain. The "surprise monster reveal" at the end of horror movies may be a tired cliche, but cliches exist for a reason and having everything get wrapped up, neat as a bow, harmed the movie. I think. I still liked it.
Mimic 2, I consider the best movie of the trilogy. A little gimmicky in that the main character, an entomologist who teaches high school, uses her knowledge to almost too much effect against the enemy, but they still managed to keep tension up, the characters were interesting, and they worked with the fact that most audiences would already know what the bugs were extremely well. I especially liked how competent the characters were and the various nods to the previous movie. The very best part, however, was the end - it brought together a collection of seemingly meaningless details distributed over the course of the film into a trio of extremely well done ending scenes.
Mimic 3... to be perfectly honest, I barely watched it. It was just so boring. It was about some kind of voyeur hikkikomori crammed into an apartment and watching all the people around his house through a camera. And also he had a sister and there was some kind of burgler (?) or something? And it ends with the MC hiding inside a fridge to protect himself from an explosion that destroys the house and all of the Judas. I'll admit to only watching this movie over the screen of my laptop, but it was so boring, quiet, and generally un-interesting that there was nothing that ever actually drew my interest from the laptop and to the TV.
=-=-=
Oculus.
I enjoyed this movie greatly. The best parts are the dynamic between the brother and the sister, skeptical versus an almost fanatic belief, and the fact that throughout the movie flashbacks to when the pair were children - and the massacre then - is seamlessly integrated into the narrative. Later on you begin to question everything the protagonists see, hear, know - and oftentimes you question whether or not you're getting the correct view of things as well. In addition, a greatly contributing factor to enjoyment of the film is the mystery - are the supernatural elements of the movie genuine, or are you simply getting a look into the minds of an entire family plagued by insanity and self-destructing because of it?
=-=-=
Infini
What follows is like a mixture of 28 Days Later and Event Horizon.
I can't really describe too much of what goes on without dipping heavily into spoilers, but I really fucking enjoyed this movie. It's disorienting, confusing, and maddening - and it does all three of those things extremely well because we know that it's even worse for the characters, as they're driven into insanity and try to work out a way to get the fuck home. The characters are extremely sympathetic even as they turn into monsters, Whit Carmichael is an utter badass, and the ending manages to deliver a message that hits you right in the gut for how heartfelt it is. I would highly suggest you guys go watch it for yourselves.
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So, got any movies you want to discuss, suggestions to make, shit you want to complain about?
