Horror movies

[Chew Toy McCoy]

Holy cow! Thanks for the writeup, @DT. Are these available on the streaming services I listed above, or is this just a general list? Either way, I appreciate the effort.

I highly recommend using the free Just Watch app. Do a movie search and it will tell you which services they are currently available on to stream for free, rent along with prices, and buy along with prices. It live updates (or at least daily) so it keeps up with the service changes. I use it to save all the movies I'm interested in and then just check it when I'm ready to watch something. I also use it to determine if there's a service worth a month of subscribing based on how many movies on my list are currently available on that service.

So in reference to this thread just add all the movies mentioned to your watch list and check from there.

 

[DT]

Just Watch is great. Thanks for the reminder.

Geez, I can't believe I just found it.

Well, how about this, there's this new service I stumbled on this week, lets you watch and upload videos, I'll have to find my bookmark, it's something-tube ...

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

Did you watch any of Castle Rock? It was good, and super fun for anyone who loves King - from Wikipedia:

Castle Rock is an American psychological horror streaming television series, featuring and inspired by characters, settings, and themes from the stories created by Stephen King and his fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine.

Never watched it, but I heard it wasn't that great in the beginning but started to get good in later episodes....and then they canceled it.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

Rewatched Burnt Offerings recently and really liked it. It’s a mid level horror cult classic and probably only mid level because it came out in a time period when so many horror cult classics came out. It would be interesting to see a remake but I also don’t know how they could improve on the original or even modernize it because so much of the horror element benefits from the time period it was made from the film quality to the atmosphere. I have yet to see a new movie that successfully recaptures that time period. I'd even say it’s easier to recapture the black & white movie era, even the acting style. When it comes to the 70’s and 80’s it seems it’s really hard to not slide into campy dreck.

 

[User.45]

The newest movie was actually essentially a prequel...

Yup, I realized later on. At the end of the day and in retrospect, it was a pretty decent movie experience. I could even call it great among the current offerings.

 

[DT]

Rewatched Burnt Offerings recently and really liked it.

It's really terrific, and what a cast - and totally agree, I'm surprised at horror fans who haven't seen it, kind of got overshadowed at the time.

 

[DT]

Never watched it, but I heard it wasn't that great in the beginning but started to get good in later episodes....and then they canceled it.

[edit: oops, meant inconsistent ...]

Overall it's good, maybe a little inconsistent, the main hook is for King fans and the dozens of easter eggs. It kind of plays out a bit like King Fan Fiction

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

It's really terrific, and what a cast - and totally agree, I'm surprised at horror fans who haven't seen it, kind of got overshadowed at the time.

I only have a couple issues with the movie.

I don't get the title Burnt Offerings. There doesn't seem to be anything in the movie even vaguely related to burnt anything.

The hearst driver, what a creepy character. The only thing I thought was a gaping unexplained plothole was when he drove up while the aunt was sick, the father has a mental breakdown over it, he bursts into the aunt's room with a coffin, and then they just cut to the funeral. My main issue was at the funeral and from then on they acted like hearst guy rolling up never happened, no mention of it. They acted like the aunt just died under completely normal circumstances.

 

[Thomas Veil]

Rewatched Burnt Offerings recently and really liked it. It’s a mid level horror cult classic…

Another very good, underrated Dan Curtis movie. I doubt modern audiences could get into it, though, because the horror is mostly a very slow burn. But I’ve never forgotten the climax where the kid sees his father crash into the windshield. It’s a horrible (in a good way) scene.

They could fix one thing—they could make the wires that pull down the chimney a whole lot less obvious.

Edit: the title refers to sacrifices (lives) made to the house. The fact that it’s never really explained how that came to be makes it all the more creepy.

 

[User.191]

I don't get the title Burnt Offerings. There doesn't seem to be anything in the movie even vaguely related to burnt anything.

A burnt offering is a sacrifice to a god,

Spoiler: Spoiler alert!

and the family were sacrificed to the house.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

They could fix one thing—they could make the wires that pull down the chimney a whole lot less obvious.

Now that I think about it, that chimney collapse scene was pretty comical, reminded me of the scene in some comedy movie where the hero is going to run over the bad guy in a snail-paced moving zamboni and he just lays there going "Nooooo!" when he would have plenty of time to just get out of the way.

Maybe that scene was shocking and well-edited back then, but it really hasn't aged well.

Edit: the title refers to sacrifices (lives) made to the house. The fact that it’s never really explained how that came to be makes it all the more creepy.

A burnt offering is a sacrifice to a god,

Spoiler: Spoiler alert!

and the family were sacrificed to the house.

Well, now I just feel dumb. Sometimes I expect titles to be right on the nose. First time I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark was the night it premiered. Most people never even heard of it, almost zero hype or promotion. People just went to movies because that's what you did back then. I thought it was going to be about the Oakland Raiders football team. Living in the Bay Area you just automatically associate "raiders" with the football team. Really pleasantly surprised it wasn't because I'm not a sports fan.

 

[DT]

The hearst driver, what a creepy character. The only thing I thought was a gaping unexplained plothole was when he drove up while the aunt was sick, the father has a mental breakdown over it, he bursts into the aunt's room with a coffin, and then they just cut to the funeral. My main issue was at the funeral and from then on they acted like hearst guy rolling up never happened, no mention of it. They acted like the aunt just died under completely normal circumstances.

Hahaha, JFC, I laughed out loud, I barely remembered that. Geez, it's been 10+ years since I've seen it, maybe we'll toss it on in the day or two, it's on AMC+, our freebie lasts through Sun I think.

 

[DT]

We went on a horror movie tear over the last few days, specifically, movies about haunts/haunted houses - and by that I mean attractions, like setting up a haunted house for Halloween - but in these movies, it goes very very wrong

Most of these are done in a "fake-umentary" style which can be fun.

So we watched:

Haunt (2019)
Hell House LLC 1 (2015), 2 (2018) and 3 (2019)
The Houses October Built 1 (2014), 2 (2017)
Hell Fest (2018)

... and the actual really real documentary HAUNTERS: The Art Of The Scare (2017). There's several docs like that, Nothing but Haunts we're tracking down today.

We're going crazy insane this Halloween, so getting an early start

 

[Herdfan]

I have never thought the slasher films were overly scary. Sure they might make you jump, but you don't leave the theater thinking any of it could really happen.

But films like American Werewolf in London did. My friend and I didn't drive when it was released, so his older sister took us. He got so scared he couldn't stay, so his sister and I finished it. As we were walking out, somebody howled like a wolf and people screamed. When we got back to his house, he lived in a split level, so his sister went up to her room while we were supposed to go downstairs. I couldn't resist recreating the scene in the subway and dropped to my hands on the steps when she was at the top. She screamed so loud it woke his parents.

One night in college, someone rented The Omen. When we finished, Blockbuster was still open, so we went and got Damien: Omen II and Omen III: The Final Conflict. We were all a little freaked out the whole night.

 

[Huntn]

I have never thought the slasher films were overly scary. Sure they might make you jump, but you don't leave the theater thinking any of it could really happen.

But films like American Werewolf in London did. My friend and I didn't drive when it was released, so his older sister took us. He got so scared he couldn't stay, so his sister and I finished it. As we were walking out, somebody howled like a wolf and people screamed. When we got back to his house, he lived in a split level, so his sister went up to her room while we were supposed to go downstairs. I couldn't resist recreating the scene in the subway and dropped to my hands on the steps when she was at the top. She screamed so loud it woke his parents.

One night in college, someone rented The Omen. When we finished, Blockbuster was still open, so we went and got Damien: Omen II and Omen III: The Final Conflict. We were all a little freaked out the whole night.

American Werewolf in London.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

We went on a horror movie tear over the last few days, specifically, movies about haunts/haunted houses - and by that I mean attractions, like setting up a haunted house for Halloween - but in these movies, it goes very very wrong

Most of these are done in a "fake-umentary" style which can be fun.

So we watched:

Haunt (2019)
Hell House LLC 1 (2015), 2 (2018) and 3 (2019)
The Houses October Built 1 (2014), 2 (2017)
Hell Fest (2018)

... and the actual really real documentary HAUNTERS: The Art Of The Scare (2017). There's several docs like that, Nothing but Haunts we're tracking down today.

We're going crazy insane this Halloween, so getting an early start

Can't wait to see the walkthrough videos.

 

[DT]

Can't wait to see the walkthrough videos.

We are supposed to go, just a little apprehensive, following how the park is implementing Covid protocols, etc., we have a killer suite already, and did HHN with Express Pass for everyone ...

Also, we need this:

Dufftoberfest Available for Beer Lovers at Universal Orlando | TouringPlans.com Blog

It's that time of year when we begin to indulge in all kinds of seasonal treats and tastes. Thus far Universal Orlando h

touringplans.com

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

We are supposed to go, just a little apprehensive, following how the park is implementing Covid protocols, etc., we have a killer suite already, and did HHN with Express Pass for everyone ...

Also, we need this:

Dufftoberfest Available for Beer Lovers at Universal Orlando | TouringPlans.com Blog

It's that time of year when we begin to indulge in all kinds of seasonal treats and tastes. Thus far Universal Orlando h

touringplans.com

If you go make sure to post your experience! And hopefully some photos and videos.

Probably next time I'll be in that area is next year with my parents as kind of a send off to still being physically mobile. They're not currently suffering from anything major physically but little things are adding up and they figure sooner than later vacations are going to have to feature a lot of sitting around.

 

[DT]

We went in 2019, then planned on 2020, we know how that turned out. When we went in '19, we discovered that without an Express Pass (which we always have for the park, since we stay onsite), you can at the most hit up 4 of the 10-12 houses. 2020 was supposed to be the big 30th anniversary event, we're figuring they're really going to blow it out this year to make up for it, so we splurged on the passes, we probably won't do another in the near future, so we're going to make this one count

That's awesome with your parents, definitely do it if you get a chance, get them to the park, ride, walk/run, have a blast, make those moments where you can still "do" count!

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

Checked out the Burnt Offerings book on audible, about an 8 hour listen. It's well written and the movie mostly stays faithful to the book. Things somewhat go in different directions after Aunt Elizabeth dies but I understand for the most part why the movie did what it did except the ending. In the book the Allardyces come back and explore and praise the results of the resurrection of the house made possible by the renter's sacrifices and Marian is forced to grapple with this reality she is all too aware of. She isn't completely possessed by the house forgetting her past. I don't know why the movie didn't use that ending.

The biggest difference is in the book the house is described more like the house in The Haunting of Hill House and not the comparatively modest house used in the movie. The house in the movie, at least on the inside, wasn't even that bad. In the book it sounded more like a house that had been neglected for 100 years. I'm sure this was due to budgetary constraints. This also made me realize Mike Flanagan (writer/director of Haunting of Hill House/Bly Manor and Dr. Sleep) would probably make an amazing remake. This is the exact type story he does so well.