[Redcarmoose]

Thing is, when you take a raw desperado directors vision and try to package it into a "big Mac" wrapper it all goes south of creative.

Heres hopin that true horror will rear it's head and we will soon see a film with Weinstein Rapes, And Spacey on Cruise.

Simply stated, true horror is not some leatherface or Jacon Vooheese, it is the insiduous manipulation of those in power. That said, it is an insight into the whole hollywhore fiasco. Cannot wait till |Clooney replaces Trump as president:

I am oh so sorry for getting political. In Justification. may I offer up Swedens " Blue Eyes" as an apology?? A somewhat prescient precition two yeas ago about the mess we are in now.




AAS More opinions of the new Blade Runner film are required.

As a 19 year old I do remember a friend having TCM 1 on early VHS. Seeing it for the first time had that What were they thinking thoughts. The people who made this movie are criminals! I'm scared and can't watch it farther!

And I actually like the repackaged up to date remakes of the same old concepts when they hit the mark. I think many movies, Star Wars for example, simply reintroduce the tried and true concepts in a slightly different way and it comes out a movie.




Le Trou 1960

This comes off as detailed and smooth as a Swiss time-piece. Also you can see small gears working (sub-stories) which are there for a purpose, though not openly understood.

9.5-10

 

[WraithApe]

The Exorcist - 8/10

It's hard to imagine what a shock to the system this film would have been in 1973, though I've read about the protests and demonstrations at the time from the conservative right to try and get it banned. In a way, it should really have been embraced by the church as it is an endorsement of Catholic doctrine, albeit quite an extreme one! It's about the eternal struggle of light and darkness, god versus the devil, and ultimately the evil is vanquished. I saw the director's cut last night and couldn't really tell what was different from the theatrical, it's so long since I'd watched it. If anyone is interested, there's a comparison here and I think the author is pretty much on the money with his observations about what worked and what didn't. On balance, I think I prefer the theatrical cut. The central premise is a bit of a stretch: why would an ancient demon choose a 12-year old girl to possess, when he could wreak far more havoc in the world by possessing a great military leader or politician? It's obviously done for the shock value of having a small girl spouting obscenities, which is probably the most extreme possession scenario imaginable. I think the effects hold up pretty well except for the OTT 'spider walk' and the subliminal faces, neither of which were in the theatrical release anyway. Overall, it's a landmark horror that has largely survived the test of time.

Hellraiser - 9/10

A personal favourite and IMO, one of the best horror movies of the 80s. Clive Barker was apparently so upset by an earlier attempt to turn one of his short stories into a film that he decided he had to take on the director's mantle himself for this one. He pretty much knocked it out the park on the first attempt! It was a true passion project and probably a once in a lifetime achievement though, a bit like Bruce Robinson with Withnail & I, because his next foray into directing, Nightbreed, was an order of magnitude worse. Hellraiser is adapted from Barker's novella The Hellbound Heart and centres around a mysterious box which, when opened, transports the possessor to another, frightening realm of existence, ruled over by beings known as Cenobites. I've read the book and I have to say, Barker did a great job in bringing it to the screen - he has a real eye for lighting and set design, gets strong performances out of all of his actors and the pacing is spot on. The effects maybe show their age a little, especially with The Engineer, which looks like it could have come from another, less scary movie. The Cenobites, Pinhead and Chatterer in particular, remain brilliant, iconic and thoroughly creepy characters though. There is a reboot in the offing, which doesn't make me too excited - remaking a classic is rarely a good idea; at best, you can hope for something competent, but it's nigh on impossible to recapture the spirit of the original.

 

[WraithApe]

Thing is, when you take a raw desperado directors vision and try to package it into a "big Mac" wrapper it all goes south of creative.

Heres hopin that true horror will rear it's head and we will soon see a film with Weinstein Rapes, And Spacey on Cruise.

Ha! Flesh For Weinstein - coming to a cinema near you in 2018 I predict.

 

[Redcarmoose]

@


WraithApe

I'm pretty sure the original cut didn't have her walking down the stairs upside down? That was the biggest difference.

 

[WraithApe]

I'm pretty sure the original cut didn't have her walking down the stairs upside down? That was the biggest difference.

It didn't, no. It wasn't one of the better additions - took it too much into the realm of creature feature.

 

[Redcarmoose]

House At The End Of The Street 2012 (Original Cut, Not The 2013 Edition)
2012 sees Jennifer Lawrence star and gain a high profile in Hunger Games. Amazingly House At The End Of The Street also debuts though shot on a tiny budget in 2010. This movie did spectacular at the box office and though disliked by critics at the time seems to hold up even now as a solid thriller. A fantastic story and well acted, maybe you couldn't ask for more from a film of this style. 8-10.

 

[Redcarmoose]

Hellraiser - 9/10

A personal favourite and IMO, one of the best horror movies of the 80s. Clive Barker was apparently so upset by an earlier attempt to turn one of his short stories into a film that he decided he had to take on the director's mantle himself for this one. He pretty much knocked it out the park on the first attempt! It was a true passion project and probably a once in a lifetime achievement though, a bit like Bruce Robinson with Withnail & I, because his next foray into directing, Nightbreed, was an order of magnitude worse. Hellraiser is adapted from Barker's novella The Hellbound Heart and centres around a mysterious box which, when opened, transports the possessor to another, frightening realm of existence, ruled over by beings known as Cenobites. I've read the book and I have to say, Barker did a great job in bringing it to the screen - he has a real eye for lighting and set design, gets strong performances out of all of his actors and the pacing is spot on. The effects maybe show their age a little, especially with The Engineer, which looks like it could have come from another, less scary movie. The Cenobites, Pinhead and Chatterer in particular, remain brilliant, iconic and thoroughly creepy characters though. There is a reboot in the offing, which doesn't make me too excited - remaking a classic is rarely a good idea; at best, you can hope for something competent, but it's nigh on impossible to recapture the spirit of the original.

Hellraiser was a pop phenomenon in it's day, specifically due to the unusual story line and cutting edge effects. Seeing it today does show the dated quality of the special effects. The cutting edge gruesomeness of Hellraiser has been dulled down with time, though I feel the story line is just as potent as ever.

These great stories are maybe the same exact reason Barker's Comic books are classics?


Strangely Pinhead makes a very small appearance in the films, maybe because monsters are better left unseen or unknown to be truly scary? Though somewhat lucky here, we see Pinhead make even smaller appearances in later Hellraisers often making us wonder if the movie makers even knew our fascination contained with The star of the show?

It could be true that Pinhead is a man of few words. Even though his iconic character became the central figure of the films, the filmmakers knew to have him be kept a powerful character by choosing his words and interactions carefully. At times there is power in in keeping the sparseness of a character in a film. His realm with the Cenobites is a place better unknown to be scary.

The box simply represents the age old occult books of spells/incantations which if opened, could potentially cause a chain reaction causing madness for the inquisitor and horrible shifts in reality for others in the vicinity. Funny too, how "the book" in the Evil Dead series and "The Box" in the Hellraiser series do much of the same thing, though by different mechanisms from the start.

The fact that these discovered devices are portals to another dimension seems to be a classic old tale told way before the Edison invention of moving pictures.

 

[Hutnicks]

Ha! Flesh For Weinstein - coming to a cinema near you in 2018 I predict.

Back atcha amigo. Only in this thread would I come across Hellraiser and Withnail in a direct comparison. Then again the cab sauv may be getting to me as I initially mistook your ref to Nightbreed for Nightwatch BTW did you get in on the reissue of Withnails overcoat. I was tempted but at 1200 quid it lost out to a week in Paris

So John Travolta as Weinstein, for the lead leaving of course Tom Cruise to play the Ashley Judd part and perhaps Spacey as BradJolina. May not make it to film but I am guessing on broadway it would sell out. Damn shame Zero Mostel is no longer with us

 

[WraithApe]

Hellraiser was a pop phenomenon in it's day, specifically due to the unusual story line and cutting edge effects. Seeing it today does show the dated quality of the special effects. The cutting edge gruesomeness of Hellraiser has been dulled down with time, though I feel the story line is just as potent as ever.

These great stories are maybe the same exact reason Barker's Comic books are classics?

Strangely Pinhead makes a very small appearance in the films, maybe because monsters are better left unseen or unknown to be truly scary? Though somewhat lucky here, we see Pinhead make even smaller appearances in later Hellraisers often making us wonder if the movie makers even knew our fascination contained with The star of the show?

It could be true that Pinhead is a man of few words. Even though his iconic character became the central figure of the films, the filmmakers knew to have him be kept a powerful character by choosing his words and interactions carefully. At times there is power in in keeping the sparseness of a character in a film. His realm with the Cenobites is a place better unknown to be scary.

The box simply represents the age old occult books of spells/incantations which if opened, could potentially cause a chain reaction causing madness for the inquisitor and horrible shifts in reality for others in the vicinity. Funny too, how "the book" in the Evil Dead series and "The Box" in the Hellraiser series do much of the same thing, though by different mechanisms from the start.

The fact that these discovered devices are portals to another dimension seems to be a classic old tale told way before the Edison invention of moving pictures.

Pandora's Box innit? Yeah, I'll admit that my high rating for Hellraiser may be partly down to nostalgia but I actually think some of the effects still hold up - the way the chains shoot outwards from the camera was a neat trick. Producer Christopher Figg was explaining how they did that in the Q&A after the film was screened - sounded lo-tech but ingenious. The Engineer definitely looks pretty hokey now and there's a shot right at the start that stands out like a sore thumb too - Frank's dismembered face on the floor: there's no way the eyeballs would be there, and they do look particularly fake. The stop motion used in the first stage of Frank's transformation is also a bit jerky, but I can forgive all these things due to the basic power of the story and that fact it's still very effective when it's more characters in make up, like the Cenobites, rather than practical effects. You're spot on with the less is more thing - a good mantra for horror in general IMO, but as you say, it's important that the Cenobites' realm remains largely obscure, to let your imagination do the work. I get The Evil Dead comparison, but I'm not really a fan - I think maybe down to the fact that I only saw it for the first time quite recently, so the nostalgia factor wasn't there to push it over the line. Objectively speaking though, I do think Hellraiser is much the better film, technically, as well as in terms of story-line and pacing.

Back atcha amigo. Only in this thread would I come across Hellraiser and Withnail in a direct comparison. Then again the cab sauv may be getting to me as I initially mistook your ref to Nightbreed for Nightwatch BTW did you get in on the reissue of Withnails overcoat. I was tempted but at 1200 quid it lost out to a week in Paris

So John Travolta as Weinstein, for the lead leaving of course Tom Cruise to play the Ashley Judd part and perhaps Spacey as BradJolina. May not make it to film but I am guessing on broadway it would sell out. Damn shame Zero Mostel is no longer with us

Or Philip Seymour Hoffman - he could have brought the method to that role in a big way. Still, Peter Cushing is proof that being dead doesn't necessarily hold your career back these days...

 

[WraithApe]

The Conversation - 8/10

I'm really glad I decided to revisit this one. Enjoyed it a whole lot more second time around, maybe because I knew what to expect plot-wise and could focus on the film's subtleties, of which there are many.

It's as much a character study as it is a thriller and Hackman excels in the lead role of Harry Caul, a lonely surveillance expert who, despite his claim to be purely a technician, becomes personally involved in a case he's working on. The contrast between what Caul says about himself and what he actually does is in evidence throughout - he prides himself on being a detached, and relishes the aura of uncompromising genius that he's built around himself, but he's constantly caught out by simplistic incursions: the landlord who lets himself into Caul's supposedly triple-locked apartment, the colleague who deceives him with a simple bugging device, and the fact he allows himself to be taken in by a fairly obvious honey trap. He also lets his personal history colour his objectivity - it's made clear that his past actions may have resulted in the death of subjects he had under surveillance and though he claims he's not responsible, the dream and confessional scenes show that guilt weighs heavily on him. So much so that it makes him misinterpret a key piece of dialogue in the conversation between Ann and Mark he's being paid to record; a simple difference of inflection proving to be fatal in his misreading of the situation and leading to consequences which spiral out of control. It takes a lot of skill to play such a flawed character with dignity and intelligence (to the point where you're still on his side), but Hackman pulls it off brilliantly.

Another thing I really like with the film is the way 'the conversation' of the title is ever present, whether being played back in Caul's workshop or in his clients' boardroom, the words take on an almost mythical significance. The ending is great too, and quite shocking in how far it goes: the ransacking of the apartment symbolizes the tearing down of Caul's persona until that all that's left is the music - the last beacon of sanity. It's interesting that this film came out around the time the Watergate affair was coming to a head, though in Sight and Sound in '73, Coppola chalked it up as "just a curious, not a prescient, coincidence."

 

[Zojokkeli]

The Conversation - 8/10

I'm really glad I decided to revisit this one. Enjoyed it a whole lot more second time around, maybe because I knew what to expect plot-wise and could focus on the film's subtleties, of which there are many.

It's as much a character study as it is a thriller and Hackman excels in the lead role of Harry Caul, a lonely surveillance expert who, despite his claim to be purely a technician, becomes personally involved in a case he's working on. The contrast between what Caul says about himself and what he actually does is in evidence throughout - he prides himself on being a detached, and relishes the aura of uncompromising genius that he's built around himself, but he's constantly caught out by simplistic incursions: the landlord who lets himself into Caul's supposedly triple-locked apartment, the colleauge who deceives him with a simple bugging device, and the fact he allows himself to be taken in by a fairly obvious honey trap. He also lets his personal history colour his objectivity - it's made clear that his past actions may have resulted in the death of subjects he had under surveillance and though he claims he's not responsible, the dream and confessional scenes show that guilt weighs heavily on him. So much so that it makes him misinterpret a key piece of dialogue in the conversation between Ann and Mark he's being paid to record; a simple difference of inflection proving to be fatal in his misreading of the situation and leading to consequences which spiral out of control. It takes a lot of skill to play such a flawed character with dignity and intelligence (to the point where you're still on his side), but Hackman pulls it off brilliantly.

Another thing I really like with the film is the way 'the conversation' of the title is ever present, whether being played back in Caul's workshop or in his clients' boardroom, the words take on an almost mythical significance. The ending is great too, and quite shocking in how far it goes: the ransacking of the apartment symbolizes the tearing down of Caul's persona until that all that's left is the music - the last beacon of sanity. It's interesting that this film came out around the time the Watergate affair was coming to a head, though in Sight and Sound in '73, Coppola chalked it up as "just a curious, not a prescient, conincidence."

Interesting. Sounds similar to The Lives of Others, which is a movie very much worth viewing as well.

 

[Hutnicks]

Interesting. Sounds similar to The Lives of Others, which is a movie very much worth viewing as well.

Thumbs up for both films. I fear that "Conversation" has faded over time and that is really a shame as it represents the purest form of Coppola's hand when left to his own devices after the huge success of Godfather. It really demands more respect than it gets from current audiences. The young Harrison Fords contribution here was a bit of impromtu inspiration.

I had always thought that Enemy of the State would have played out a lot better had it been treated as a sequel

Lives of others brings the work to the forefront with what I would have to describe as Eastern European Noir.

 

[WraithApe]

I had always thought that Enemy of the State would have played out a lot better had it been treated as a sequel

Funny, I made the same point to a friend before we went to see The Conversation. EOTS is definitely Hackman reprising a role to an extent, though Brill has his crap together a bit more than Caul As Hollywood blockbusters go, I didn't mind Enemy, even though it goes typically OTT in the last act. I'll have to catch The Lives of Others at some point.

 

[Hutnicks]

Funny, I made the same point to a friend before we went to see The Conversation. EOTS is definitely Hackman reprising a role to an extent, though Brill has his **** together a bit more than Caul As Hollywood blockbusters go, I didn't mind Enemy, even though it goes typically OTT in the last act. I'll have to catch The Lives of Others at some point.

That is my thought Caul (a lot of meaning into that name) would turn into a Brill given the timeline, smarter, more cynical and just plain fed up with tolerating folk who don't do the work to take care of themselves in an ever intrusive techno world. I have never back to backed the two but that might make an interesting film fan night.

 

[Redcarmoose]

Pandora's Box innit? Yeah, I'll admit that my high rating for Hellraiser may be partly down to nostalgia but I actually think some of the effects still hold up - the way the chains shoot outwards from the camera was a neat trick. Producer Christopher Figg was explaining how they did that in the Q&A after the film was screened - sounded lo-tech but ingenious. The Engineer definitely looks pretty hokey now and there's a shot right at the start that stands out like a sore thumb too - Frank's dismembered face on the floor: there's no way the eyeballs would be there, and they do look particularly fake. The stop motion used in the first stage of Frank's transformation is also a bit jerky, but I can forgive all these things due to the basic power of the story and that fact it's still very effective when it's more characters in make up, like the Cenobites, rather than practical effects. You're spot on with the less is more thing - a good mantra for horror in general IMO, but as you say, it's important that the Cenobites' realm remains largely obscure, to let your imagination do the work. I get The Evil Dead comparison, but I'm not really a fan - I think maybe down to the fact that I only saw it for the first time quite recently, so the nostalgia factor wasn't there to push it over the line. Objectively speaking though, I do think Hellraiser is much the better film, technically, as well as in terms of story-line and pacing.



Or Philip Seymour Hoffman - he could have brought the method to that role in a big way. Still, Peter Cushing is proof that being dead doesn't necessarily hold your career back these days...

I normally don't get frightened by films much anymore. Stuff like Human Centipede simply come off as funny to me. But a film like 2010's " A Serbian Film" showed me I actually had limits of what I thought was acceptable, and that film really was in ridiculous bad taste. But I think for most of us, our twenties was the great time to still be affected by film in a frightened way. Hellraiser was groundbreaking when it came out and the effects made it emotionally moving. In a genre that seems to go to excess to become entertainment, Hellraiser had and still has a method to it's madness. I actually thought that a Hellraiser was coming out again this year? Maybe?

But it's interesting how monsters can become classic and then some maybe get dated. Obviously all the Universal Monsters, Frankenstein, The Mummy and Dracula are always going to be looked at with respect due to the originality in film they represented but also by how many times they have been copied in film. But movies can start to look different after time and we need to ask ourselves if we changed or has time changed the reference point the film represents. I just watched Vincent Price in " 1968 Witchfinder General" at the time it came out in the US as " The Conqueror Worm". There was a VHS I had that had a moog soundtrack and the ladies in the bar were topless. Now our MGM DVDs have the orchestral soundtrack and all the slight nudity edited out. But whats most interesting is the film has gone from being the typical American International Poe tale to the only single example of a British western. Literately the music in places emulates the westerns, the horse chases to the music, the filming of the English country-side has made Witchfinder General now stand out as two major things that it may never have been looked at for in it's day.

1) Maybe the best role Vincent Price ever did. He was actually going through something which made him especially tense or irritable, which melted perfectly with his character.

2) It now represents the best film ever done of the late 1960s showing the British Countryside.


So in this regard the movie has slightly changed it's importance as time has moved from 68 until now. And obviously there are a list of other social and historic cinematic characteristics that the movie holds. There could be a book about how Matthew Hopkins is portrayed in the film and if it was simply fact or good story story.