Horror Films of 2018

[T & P]

A Quiet Place is a monster movie, which makes it a horror film and it has been widely discussed as such. The fact that the monsters are invading aliens means it’s in the subgenre of sci-fi horror, like The Thing or Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

What exact genre you want to slot it into has no bearing on the reasons why I thought it was poor, which were major gaps in logic, idiot protagonists and cheating to make the premise work.

Fair enough about all your points, though I must say I find it curious you find it poor while at the same time rating Bird Box fairly highly, at least as far as I interpreted your views on it in the Netflix thread.

I enjoyed Bird Box a lot as well, but then I see the two films as very similar, and would rate A Quiet Place as a slightly better film overall, or at the very least not significantly worse than Bird Box. This is all a matter of personal opinion of course, and I don’t have any objective evidence to support that view.

 

[Reno]

Fair enough about all your points, though I must say I find it curious you find it poor while at the same time rating Bird Box fairly highly, at least as far as I interpreted your views on it in the Netflix thread.

I enjoyed Bird Box a lot as well, but then I see the two films as very similar, and would rate A Quiet Place as a slightly better film overall, or at the very least not significantly worse than Bird Box. This is all a matter of personal opinion of course, and I don’t have any objective evidence to support that view.

I don’t rate Bird Box that highly but my expectations of it were low and it slightly exceeded those. A Quiet Place arrived on a wave of rave reviews and it left me underwhelmed. If anything, I’d measure A Quiet Place against Hereditary because both were the best received horror films of the year.

In some ways A Quiet Place may have been a better made film than Bird Box, I just couldn’t get over all the dumb decisions that family were making. That starts with, why would you keep living in a farm house with creaky floorboards and no sound proofing for so long and reached its pinnacle with, why would you happily have a baby considering the nature of the peril?

If you make a horror film with a high concept premise, you need to take that premise seriously. Bird Box honoured the rules it set up for itself more successfully than A Quiet Place.

 

[Thora]

I didn't have a problem with the ending of Bird Box, it made logical sense even if it was a bit too soppy. I read complaints about the ending on here before I saw it, so it wasn't as bad as I thought, it's relatively swift. I wasn't crazy about the film but it was watchable enough in a Stephen King sort of way. It didn't irritate me that way A Quiet Place did, even if that film had better individual suspense sequences.

Spoiler

At least the heroine got pregnant before the crisis, instead of a year into an alien apocalypse where making the slightest noise gets you killed.

Yes I did enjoy Quiet Place but that was a bit ridiculous.

And also why aren't they watching their fucking kid!!! He was about 5 - I'm a pretty slack parent and I keep a better eye on my child walking to school than they do during the alien apocalypse it makes no sense that they would randomly be so negligent.

 

[Orang Utan]

Maybe I'm just stupid but these sorts of things rarely occur to me when I'm involved with watching a film. I just go along with it.
The only thing that jarred with me, and only when thinking about it afterwards was

Spoiler

them realising they could kill the aliens by blasting them with noise. Surely it would have been easy to kill them this way before they'd managed to take over earth?

 

[Reno]

Maybe I'm just stupid but these sorts of things rarely occur to me when I'm involved with watching a film. I just go along with it.
The only thing that jarred with me, and only when thinking about it afterwards was

Spoiler

them realising they could kill the aliens by blasting them with noise. Surely it would have been easy to kill them this way before they'd managed to take over earth?

I can forgive of the odd illogical behavior in horror films and I hate unnecessary nitpicking which takes up so much film discussion online. I just didn’t think they did a single smart thing in the film. I was facepalming till one half of my face felt sore.

 

[Reno]

I just rewatched Upgrade and of anything I’d rate it even higher, though it’s not exactly a horror film.

 

[D'wards]

In A Quiet Place the fact that they chose to live in, well, a quiet place was a bit of a flaw.

Wouldn't you be better living on a boat or underground or something?

 

[Rosemary Jest]

I looked that up on Wikipedia based on the fact that if Reno says it's extreme gore* it must be something. Yeah I might give that one a pass.

* based on reading his horror film knowledge here rather than, uh, implying anything

It really is a great horror film though, it wasn't even the gore that got me, just the creepiness...

 

[Rosemary Jest]

In A Quiet Place the fact that they chose to live in, well, a quiet place was a bit of a flaw.

Wouldn't you be better living on a boat or underground or something?

A Noisy Place?

 

[Mrs Miggins]

I want to see this Argentinian gore fest but it's not on anything I currently have access to and I stil haven't figured out how to get film via nefarious means.

 

[D'wards]

A Noisy Place?

Quite

 

[Reno]

I want to see this Argentinian gore fest but it's not on anything I currently have access to and I stil haven't figured out how to get film via nefarious means.

There are two similarly titled films which you are mixing up.

Terrifier (which I gave a honorable mention to) is a gory American splatter movie about a killer clown.

Terrified (my no 3) is an Argentinian haunted house movie which is very spooky but not that gory.

Spoiler

I watched both by nefarious means. They have been available legally on horror streaming services like Shudder and The Horror Channel and maybe you’ll find them in Amazon Prime

Unless you are a gore hound and the most important thing about horror films is how gruesome they are (there are many horror fans like that out there) go for the Argentinian film. The clown film is very low budget and a little amateurish, though I enjoyed its gore effects and take-no-prisoners attitude. The Argentinian film is very well made and I found it truly nightmarish. If the last 15 minutes of Hereditary were an entire film, it would look a little like Terrified.

 

[Reno]

In A Quiet Place the fact that they chose to live in, well, a quiet place was a bit of a flaw.

Wouldn't you be better living on a boat or underground or something?

I live in a concrete building with double glazing which is practically sound proof, which would have been preferable to a creaky old farm house. If they had had a brain in their head, they would have moved into a place like a sound studio or a bunker and not take small children on excursions.

 

[krtek a houby]

I live in a concrete building with double glazing which is practically sound proof, which would have been preferable to a creaky old farm house. If they had had a brain in their head, they would have moved into a place like a sound studio or a bunker and not take small children on excursions.

Maybe all the sound studios were booked?

 

[rekil]

3. Terrified (aka Aterrados)
This Argentinian horror film about cops investigating a truly malevolent haunting doesn’t explain much but it’s a true nightmare movie. This has one great horror set price after another and that dead kid !!! Catch it before the inevitable US remake which will over-explain stuff, wisely left ambiguous here.

This was great. Some proper scares. One bit reminded me of my hypnagogia episode.

Others from the year I've seen.

The Cured. Irish post zombie apocalypse fillum featuring Nidge from Love/Hate doing his own accent and Ellen Page who fortunately does not attempt an accent. Hacky and lugubrious othering allegory.

Gonjam - Haunted Asylum. Youngsters livestream their exploration of an abandoned mental hospital. Entirely predictable Korean hit which should have been better than it was.

Insidious - The Last Key. Highly lucrative bag o'shite.

Office Uprising. I didn't like Sorry To Bother You much and this isn't as good as that. Jane Levy is in it.

Unsane. Interesting premise wasted. Shot on an iphone blah blah.

Tau. If the horror police let this pass, it's about a woman who gets kidnapped by a techbro with deadline issues and tries to convince his camp computer to let her out.

Midnighters. It's on my list but I can't remember anything about this.

The First Purge. More hamfisted tedium.

Malevolent. By the numbers paranormal shenanigans set unconvincingly in the 80s.

 

[Mrs Miggins]

There are two similarly titled films which you are mixing up.

Terrifier (which I gave a honorable mention to) is a gory American splatter movie about a killer clown.

Terrified (my no 3) is an Argentinian haunted house movie which is very spooky but not that gory.

Spoiler

I watched both by nefarious means. They have been available legally on horror streaming services like Shudder and The Horror Channel and maybe you’ll find them in Amazon Prime

Unless you are a gore hound and the most important thing about horror films is how gruesome they are (there are many horror fans like that out there) go for the Argentinian film. The clown film is very low budget and a little amateurish, though I enjoyed its gore effects and take-no-prisoners attitude. The Argentinian film is very well made and I found it truly nightmarish. If the last 15 minutes of Hereditary were an entire film, it would look a little like Terrified.

Ah OK right. I think I want the Argentinian one.

 

[Reno]

This was great. Some proper scares. One bit reminded me of my hypnagogia episode.

Others from the year I've seen.

The Cured. Irish post zombie apocalypse fillum featuring Nidge from Love/Hate doing his own accent and Ellen Page who fortunately does not attempt an accent. Hacky and lugubrious othering allegory.

Gonjam - Haunted Asylum. Youngsters livestream their exploration of an abandoned mental hospital. Entirely predictable Korean hit which should have been better than it was.

Insidious - The Last Key. Highly lucrative bag o'shite.

Office Uprising. I didn't like Sorry To Bother You much and this isn't as good as that. Jane Levy is in it.

Unsane. Interesting premise wasted. Shot on an iphone blah blah.

Tau. If the horror police let this pass, it's about a woman who gets kidnapped by a techbro with deadline issues and tries to convince his camp computer to let her out.

Midnighters. It's on my list but I can't remember anything about this.

The First Purge. More hamfisted tedium.

Malevolent. By the numbers paranormal shenanigans set unconvincingly in the 80s.

I quite liked Unsane, but had forgotten about it by now.

 

[Nanker Phelge]

Watched The Ritual last night. Enjoyed that. A monster movie with a decent monster for a change.

 

[Mrs Miggins]

I'm working my way through these.

Hereditary - much better than expected - enjoyed it.

Mandy - a but much for me in the end but something I'm glad I've seen. Quite bonkers.

 

[greenfield]

Watched Possum the other day. Have remained fucked up ever since.

 

[Mrs Miggins]

Watched Possum the other day. Have remained fucked up ever since.

I've ordered this on Amazon Prime - it's not available until 21 Jan. Looks ace!

 

[greenfield]

It was a bit different to what I expected and I can see why it wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea. Personally, I found it beyond harrowing. Enjoy!

Do post back and say what you thought of it. I'd be interested in your opinion

 

[Mrs Miggins]

It looks disturbing - I like that in a film

 

[Mrs Miggins]

As I've said I'm working through your list, I should mention that I've already seen Ravenous and The Ritual - both of which I thought were excellent.

Oh and Calibre!

 

[Reno]

Just in time for the Oscar nominations, the Chainsaw Award nominations:




Since I started this thread, I’ve seen Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria remake, which I liked with reservations and What Keeps You Alive, which I thought was great. Would post the trailer, but it has some major spoilers.

 

[greenfield]

I've ordered this on Amazon Prime - it's not available until 21 Jan. Looks ace!

Did you get round to watching this? What did you think?

 

[Mrs Miggins]

Did you get round to watching this? What did you think?

Shit no I forgot about it. Will try to remember when I get back from ny holiday.

 

[Mrs Miggins]

Did you get round to watching this? What did you think?

greenfield I finally got round to watching this. Deeply disturbing. Not sure I'd recommend it to anyone who I wasn't sure would actually like it. I'm not even sure I "liked" it but it will live forever in my mind. The absolutely amazing performance from Sean Harris is what makes it. His portrayal of deep, deep mental anguish is, as you said, harrowing.

 

[greenfield]

It's absolutely horrible isn't it?

I think it's an amazing film - and one I never want to see ever again

 

[Mrs Miggins]

It's absolutely horrible isn't it?

I think it's an amazing film - and one I never want to see ever again

Yeah I'm not going to be watching it again!