Good or New Movies Review
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@zombiegenesis said in Good or New Movies Review:
The Ritual (IMO one of the best horror movies in recent memory)
This is on my list. I hadn't yet heard from anyone who has seen it. I just saw it in one of my YT channels that does 'on Netflix this month' lists and it looked good, but I haven't had the free time to devote to a movie yet.
I'm glad to hear it's as good as it looks!
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The Ritual was surprisingly good. Much better than I was expecting.
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I meant to watch The Ritual but the imdb.com grade was pretty average, yet word of mouth (not just here) is pretty good.
I wonder why.
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@Arkandel It rates a 6.3 on IMDB. For a horror movie, especially a lesser known one, that's pretty good IMO. As a general rule I'll watch anything that rates over a 5, especially if it has good written reviews. Conversely Truth or Dare rates a 4.4 with no decent written IMDB reviews...so I'll be avoiding that one. At least till I can stream it for free.
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My threshold is 7.0, but you have a point about little known horror movies.
- He who takes offense when not intended is a fool. He who takes offense when intended is a greater fool.
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@arkandel said in Good or New Movies Review:
My threshold is 7.0,
That's kind of high, I had to check my favorite 'horror' movie of all time to see where it lined up; 7.3 whew. Its really suspense genre, and the ending is a little wobbly, but I love it; The Changeling.
I'm just a surge protector doing my job, sir.
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@lotherio said in Good or New Movies Review:
@arkandel said in Good or New Movies Review:
My threshold is 7.0,
That's kind of high, I had to check my favorite 'horror' movie of all time to see where it lined up; 7.3 whew. Its really suspense genre, and the ending is a little wobbly, but I love it; The Changeling.
Sunshine is a 7.3 on IMDB
The Others is a 7.67.0 is a bit high. A large portion of the populace is not a fan of horror. And most people are highly conservative when rating to begin with. People hate giving things a 9 or 10 when the scale is 1-10.
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I loved , Sunshine, Coherence, and Maggie. The latter two were well done indie films that never got a lot of prime time notice. They should have.
I'm going to toss The Autopsy of Jane Doe and 1922 into the wonderful indie film horror movies people should watch, too.
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@jaded I loved the Autopsy of Jane Doe. 1922 was decent too, but not one of my faves.
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@lotherio said in Good or New Movies Review:
@arkandel said in Good or New Movies Review:
My threshold is 7.0,
That's kind of high, I had to check my favorite 'horror' movie of all time to see where it lined up; 7.3 whew. Its really suspense genre, and the ending is a little wobbly, but I love it; The Changeling.
Oh, but 7.0 is my minimum for everything, not horror specifically. To be honest though I only watch specific horror movies after I've heard enough word of mouth to figure they're going to be great.
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Has anyone, particular folks living in New Zealand, had a chance to see The Changeover? The novel played a prominent role in my young adult reading as a teenage girl, and Margaret Mahy is considered one of New Zealand's most notable authors.
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Super Troopers 2.
I laughed. I cried laughing. Not all the jokes hit. But it was very well done and well worth the wait from backing to product release.
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I cannot second @Auspice's recommendation of "The Witch" enough. It's so, so, so good....
Like, to the point that I contacted my favorite professor from several years back, who I had for multiple courses.... including "American Gothic" as a subgenre of literature. Given the rotating cycle he teaches that class on, I was pretty sure he was running the course the year it came out. So I sent him what amounted to a five paragraph analysis/sales pitch as to why he should go see that movie and why he should seriously consider offering it up to his students as a potential extra credit assignment that semester. Last I heard, he's teaching it in this year's cycle of that class, because it really holds up as an amazing example of the thematic differences between the British and American versions of gothic horror.
https://whatiswrongwith.me/Mia
There were never any good old days. They are today. They are tomorrow. It's a stupid thing we say, cursing tomorrow with sorrow. -- Gogol Bordello -
What are the differences?
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos -
@thenomain -- If we're talking about the height of the genre and not modern American Gothic literature....
It's important to remember that one of the defining characteristics is the intense use of the setting to define the narrative, to the point that it almost becomes a character unto itself.If you want a modern visual example, think of those long establishing shots in True Detective, through the swampy, dilapidated, isolated areas of Louisiana and how that comes into play. (Seriously, Cary Fukunaga is fucking brilliant at using setting to create atmosphere and his version of Jane Eyre is one of my favorites as a result, even though others more accurately follow the storyline from the novels.)
In British Gothic novels of the 18th and 19th century, this usually results in the story of a young woman facing the mysterious and quite possibly supernatural in a castle, an abbey, or a mansion (think The Mysteries of Udolpho or, if you'd like to use a modern film equivalent, Crimson Peak, which I also recommend). This generally evokes an overall atmosphere of corruption and of decay, of something sinister and inherently wrong hidden behind a facade of beauty and, often though not always, class and wealth.
American Gothic literature, by contrast, was often set against a backdrop of the wild and the unknown, which makes sense given how -- from the colonial mindset -- unsettled and deadly anything outside the very narrow centers of 'civilization' were. A lot of early American Gothic deals with themes of survival, the animalistic nature of man, and being driven to madness by extreme situations. You're also more likely to see direct -- and for the time, very shocking --- violence as well, as opposed to the looming threat of it. Edgar Huntly pretty much centralizes all of those themes into a single novel and even though it's not especially well known, had pretty profound effects on the writing of, say, Joyce Carol Oates and even Poe, though of all American authors in the genre, Poe relies most heavily on the British Gothic tropes.
This obviously changed and developed over time, as Southern Gothic literature -- which now makes up the bulk of the American canon -- also has profound themes irony, social issues, and warped communities, too. But.... that's the start, and The Witch does that really, really, REALLY well. I cannot recommend it enough, even if the 17th century dialog takes about ten minutes to get used to.
https://whatiswrongwith.me/Mia
There were never any good old days. They are today. They are tomorrow. It's a stupid thing we say, cursing tomorrow with sorrow. -- Gogol Bordello -
@aria said in Good or New Movies Review:
@thenomain -- If we're talking about the height of the genre and not modern American Gothic literature....
It's important to remember that one of the defining characteristics is the intense use of the setting to define the narrative, to the point that it almost becomes a character unto itself.If you want a modern visual example, think of those long establishing shots in True Detective, through the swampy, dilapidated, isolated areas of Louisiana and how that comes into play. (Seriously, Cary Fukunaga is fucking brilliant at using setting to create atmosphere and his version of Jane Eyre is one of my favorites as a result, even though others more accurately follow the storyline from the novels.)
In British Gothic novels of the 18th and 19th century, this usually results in the story of a young woman facing the mysterious and quite possibly supernatural in a castle, an abbey, or a mansion (think The Mysteries of Udolpho or, if you'd like to use a modern film equivalent, Crimson Peak, which I also recommend). This generally evokes an overall atmosphere of corruption and of decay, of something sinister and inherently wrong hidden behind a facade of beauty and, often though not always, class and wealth.
American Gothic literature, by contrast, was often set against a backdrop of the wild and the unknown, which makes sense given how -- from the colonial mindset -- unsettled and deadly anything outside the very narrow centers of 'civilization' were. A lot of early American Gothic deals with themes of survival, the animalistic nature of man, and being driven to madness by extreme situations. You're also more likely to see direct -- and for the time, very shocking --- violence as well, as opposed to the looming threat of it. Edgar Huntly pretty much centralizes all of those themes into a single novel and even though it's not especially well known, had pretty profound effects on the writing of, say, Joyce Carol Oates and even Poe, though of all American authors in the genre, Poe relies most heavily on the British Gothic tropes.
This obviously changed and developed over time, as Southern Gothic literature -- which now makes up the bulk of the American canon -- also has profound themes irony, social issues, and warped communities, too. But.... that's the start, and The Witch does that really, really, REALLY well. I cannot recommend it enough, even if the 17th century dialog takes about ten minutes to get used to.
IMO, one of the best ways to see the stark differences between British Gothic and American Gothic is basically to read Ann Radcliffe (aforementioned The Mysteries of Udolpho) and Shirley Jackson ("The Lottery" in specific, as The Haunting of Hill House is a bit more modern horror-esque) back-to-back.
Sure, Jackson is post-American Gothic chronologically--she's 20th century, after all, but I think that (especially in "The Lottery") she condenses the things British Gothic is about (as explained above by @Aria) and then twists them until they fit the American Gothic mold. If you read it directly after Radcliffe, it's fucking brilliant.
Aria can feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, though.
"Excuse the hell out of you. He's a bag of dicks. I'm a carefully curated box of cocks." -- to @GirlCalledBlu upon being misrepresented.
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@coin I've not read that one, so I can't comment! But I probably should, since it's one of my favorite genres.
https://whatiswrongwith.me/Mia
There were never any good old days. They are today. They are tomorrow. It's a stupid thing we say, cursing tomorrow with sorrow. -- Gogol Bordello -
@aria said in Good or New Movies Review:
@coin I've not read that one, so I can't comment! But I probably should, since it's one of my favorite genres.
Pretty surprised you haven't read "The Lottery".
"Excuse the hell out of you. He's a bag of dicks. I'm a carefully curated box of cocks." -- to @GirlCalledBlu upon being misrepresented.
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@coin said in Good or New Movies Review:
@aria said in Good or New Movies Review:
@coin I've not read that one, so I can't comment! But I probably should, since it's one of my favorite genres.
Pretty surprised you haven't read "The Lottery".
I dropped out of college for various reasons in 2005, and when I went back, it was as a part-time adult student with a full-time job. There were many years of my reading list being dictated to me in the form of a syllabus and a good bit of pop culture I simply didn't have time for, like, at all. I still haven't seen Breaking Bad, or Sons of Anarchy, or anything past the first season of The Walking Dead. You kind of miss a lot with a schedule like that, and I'm only now just starting to fill in some of those gaps. <shrug>
https://whatiswrongwith.me/Mia
There were never any good old days. They are today. They are tomorrow. It's a stupid thing we say, cursing tomorrow with sorrow. -- Gogol Bordello -
@aria said in Good or New Movies Review:
@coin said in Good or New Movies Review:
@aria said in Good or New Movies Review:
@coin I've not read that one, so I can't comment! But I probably should, since it's one of my favorite genres.
Pretty surprised you haven't read "The Lottery".
I dropped out of college for various reasons in 2005, and when I went back, it was as a part-time adult student with a full-time job. There were many years of my reading list being dictated to me in the form of a syllabus and a good bit of pop culture I simply didn't have time for, like, at all. I still haven't seen Breaking Bad, or Sons of Anarchy, or anything past the first season of The Walking Dead. You kind of miss a lot with a schedule like that, and I'm only now just starting to fill in some of those gaps. <shrug>
I think the surprise is more that a lot of Americans read that one in high school (in their dictated reading lists!).
