Kill List
October 25, 2017 8:12 AM   Subscribe

The Unseen – A Guide to Recent Lesser-Known Horror Films
posted by fearfulsymmetry (98 comments total) 76 users marked this as a favorite
 
Yessssss...

Of the ones I've seen these are all very much my thing and mostly excellent* so the ones I've not seen are definitely getting a boost up the To Watch list.

* there's a couple I consider interesting experimental duds. Like Black Mountainside - theoretically going to be amazing but actually crippled by acting and pacing.
posted by Artw at 8:17 AM on October 25, 2017 [3 favorites]


yeah, there's a couple that i know that I wouldn't have included but overall a very solid list that I will be digging into in due course - especially the ones I've never heard of before.

Glad to see A Dark Song in there which I saw the other week and it turned out to be one of the best horror films I've seen in a while
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 8:36 AM on October 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


The Void ultimately disappointed for me, but if you're into this shit you're probably going to want to go and see it regardless.

Wasn't The VVitch in Oscar contention at some point? I feel it might have the opposite problem of maybe top-ending off this list (see also: A Girl Walks Home at Night, It Follows, Babadook - all excellent of course, but maybe not obscurities?)

The Wheatley films are of course must-watches.
posted by Artw at 8:41 AM on October 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


Nice mix of if-you-haven't-seen-this-I-can't-even (Pontypool, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, The Babadook, It Follows) and hey-what-is-this-it-looks-good! And a few oh-I-thought-I-was-the-only-one-who-saw-this (Byzantium, A Field in England).
posted by PandaMomentum at 8:45 AM on October 25, 2017 [5 favorites]


The VVitch was released at the wrong time of the year, really for Oscars (main release in Feb/Mar after doing the festival circuit) - it has won a lot of indie awards though.

Babadook is def not obscure now but it had a small distribution originally. This list was orig written in 2015 then has been updated
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 8:57 AM on October 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


Just watched Resolution. Along with Pontypool, I'd put it as a surprise favorite on this list. Just really funny, well-structured, and with a genuinely original horror concept.

Bone Tomahawk is on there, and I really like that film, but for my taste the best Weird Western of the past 10 years (that I've seen, and I've seen a lot) was The Burrowers, although I think Bone Tomahak is legitimately more horrifying. My review.

The Witch and Wheatley's films are, of course, the best folk horror since the original Wicker Man.
posted by maxsparber at 9:19 AM on October 25, 2017 [4 favorites]


Going by the 50% or so that I've seen, that's a fantastic list. Pontypool, Triangle, The Invitation, Europa Report and John Dies at the End are obscure and awesome enough to be worth watching the whole list for, even if the rest were junk, which they're not.

The only ones on that list I didn't personally like were The Void and Under the Shadow, and those were arguably pretty good movies.

So, yes, I think I'll be making my way through the rest.
posted by gurple at 9:20 AM on October 25, 2017 [2 favorites]


Oh, hey, a useful list, with insights yet. Nice!

Horror movies as a thing, aren't generally my bag, but I do enjoy the good ones and the ones I've seen off this list fit that measure pretty well, where even the lesser ones are still interesting. Whether they'd all fit individual definitions of "horror" might be something else, but if you accept disturbing as a marker, then they seem to fit together well.
posted by gusottertrout at 9:28 AM on October 25, 2017


Judging from the entries I've seen, this list is legit. Bookmarked for future reference.

I would add the 2017 film It Comes At Night, which was a very well-done slow-burn suspense film.
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:30 AM on October 25, 2017


That's on their meh list, which, I will say, has a few films I don't think are meh at all, including Tucker and Dale vs. Evil.
posted by maxsparber at 9:36 AM on October 25, 2017 [4 favorites]


Huh. They also have Creep and Goodnight Mommy on the meh list, both of which belong on the list of good films IMO.
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:42 AM on October 25, 2017 [5 favorites]


Trivia: Much of the dialogue in "Coherence" was apparently done as improv, and many of the external cues (door knocks, etc) were actually a surprise to the cast. I saw it at the Boston Sci Fi Film Festival a couple of years ago and Nick Brendan talked about it a bit afterwards. I described it at the time as "'who's afraid of virginia woolf' by way of 'the twilight zone'"

This is a good list and the ones I've seen are things I've enjoyed. I adored "Grabbers" and found it wonderfully charming, "I Am Not A Serial Killer" lived up to the book (although I still think the book was even better), and I've also seen and enjoyed "John Dies at the End" (trivia! the uniform costume at the end is actually the alien uniforms from "Galaxyquest"!), "Europa Report" should be way better known than it is, "The Taking of Deborah Logan" is a fine creepy horror film, and the delight that is "Pontypool" is fabulous. And of course, the gay icon itself, "The Babbadook".
posted by rmd1023 at 9:42 AM on October 25, 2017


Nice list! The VVitch, Enemy, Spring & Bone Tomahawk are some of my favorites of this century regardless of genre. There's a lot more I'm excited to dig in to. Was actually already planning to watch The Wailing tonight.

I'd side with him calling It Comes At Night meh. Walking Dead has ruined my patience for survivalist porn and people side eyeing one another.
posted by mannequito at 9:43 AM on October 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


Oh, this is nice--very interesting, good food for thought, and with the ones I have already seen, the reviewer and I seem to agree, so it's well-calibrated for me.

For instance, House of the Devil. Loved it! A friend recommended it to me back in the day, and the title made me go, uh, O___o , but she said trust me, I know you like the slow-burn-creeping-dread, you will like this, plus the way it goes beyond 'homage to the 80s' to actually somehow become a film made in the 80s. And she was right.

And also, It Follows--I disliked it, as Horvath did. I totally grooved on the John Carpenter style of visuals, pacing, and score, and I adore 'creeping dread' types of stories, but I nevertheless found much of the script, character motivations/decisions, and set pieces ridiculous, which kept throwing me out of the movie's spell. I wish the same visuals/pacing/etc. had been used on a better script, or that that script had been given some very firm rewrites first.
posted by theatro at 9:44 AM on October 25, 2017


This is great, thanks for posting it! I'm very happy to see They Look Like People on the list; I think it's a really underrated and interesting (in a good way) picture, and not incidentally, very moving at the end.
posted by holborne at 9:44 AM on October 25, 2017 [2 favorites]


Oh, and I definitely agree that Creep belongs on the good list, not the meh list.
posted by holborne at 9:45 AM on October 25, 2017 [2 favorites]


And also, It Follows--I disliked it, as Horvath did. I totally grooved on the John Carpenter style of visuals, pacing, and score, and I adore 'creeping dread' types of stories, but I nevertheless found much of the script, character motivations/decisions, and set pieces ridiculous, which kept throwing me out of the movie's spell.

Upon recent re-watch, I have to agree with all of this. (And that climactic scene, by breaking so many of the rules previously set up by the film, pretty much ruins everything that came before it.)
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:54 AM on October 25, 2017


For what it's worth, Paste Magazine has this (recent) list of (what they bill as) "the 70 best horror movies on Netflix." Generally these kinds of lists aren't great, but this one actually has good short reviews of all the films that are well-written and thoughtful. Some of the stuff on it isn't the kind of thing I'm interested in (and plenty would have been rejected by the Unseen list) but much of it is very good, and I discovered several movies on the "Unseen" list in the post through it – for example I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives In The House, The Invitation, Honeymoon, and They Look Like People, which range from superb to at least well worth watching. There are also others that (maybe?) would be of interest to those looking for indie and worthwhile horror, such as The Transfiguration – which I can recommend as a great vampire flick and explicit homage to Let The Right One In, although it doesn't play like a horror movie so much as social commentary, and although it left me less thrilled than sick and sad at the end.
posted by koeselitz at 9:59 AM on October 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


Goodnight Mommy Is okay? I think it's maybe an example of a film that would be cliched elevated by style and a tiny bit by being foreign launguage. I wouldn't meh it but I wouldn't rush to recommend it.
posted by Artw at 10:05 AM on October 25, 2017


Kill List is INCREDIBLE and I can't believe there aren't more hot-takes about how True Detective is pretty clearly "inspired" by it.
posted by GilloD at 10:14 AM on October 25, 2017 [3 favorites]


John Dies at the End is more comedy than horror but is still a great watch. There's quite a few I'll have to check out on this list.
posted by P.o.B. at 10:14 AM on October 25, 2017


Creep was great. anyone who enjoyed it should check out Creep 2 which launched on VOD last night. it’s a very different movie but it’s a phenomenal expansion to the world of the original, thoroughly worth the $5 to rent it on iTunes.
posted by JimBennett at 10:15 AM on October 25, 2017 [3 favorites]


Pontypool was the thing that made me realize that I am actually capable of liking horror movies, so any list that includes it is probably going to convince me to try a few more.
posted by Sequence at 10:32 AM on October 25, 2017 [2 favorites]


For some reason, on the first read-through I missed Hell House LLC. I came back to highly recommend that one because I watched it not expecting much, and it wound up scaring the living shit out of me. Really effective picture. (I also want someone to watch it so they can explain this one plot point that I still don't get even though I watched the damn movie twice.)
posted by holborne at 10:41 AM on October 25, 2017


I thought the writing in Coherence was absolutely terrible, and the plot destroyed any reason to care about the characters.

For some reason Neon Demon never really came across as a "horror movie", although there were plenty of horrifying elements.
posted by dilaudid at 10:55 AM on October 25, 2017


For all the author's complaints about found footage, there are an awful goddamned lot of them on this list.
posted by tobascodagama at 10:56 AM on October 25, 2017 [9 favorites]


Regarding the 'awful' list at the end - the two I was very surprised to see there were The Visit and Split.

The Visit is fantastic straightforward genre horror. It's not perfect or perfectly original, but I don't see how anyone could watch it and not be creeped out. The reveal, when the story clicks into place, gave me a fantastic stomach drop feeling of dread even despite the fact that I'd roughly guessed it earlier.

Split is something completely different altogether and I flat out don't see how it can be labelled awful. I know there was some criticism of the treatment of mental illness, but it has the single best acting performance I've seen in years. That alone has to elevate it above awful. And it's only really a horror in the final act; much more of a psychological thriller.

I say all that as someone who was never a fan of M. Night even during his first successful run. But having just watched Split this past weekend and read a bunch of reviews of it the past few days, it was really eye opening how a lot of writers just flat out hate him. Like, a lot of the reviewers spend most of their time attacking him as a film maker vs. dissecting the movie itself. I'd like to hope it's not a racial thing but I just don't know any more.
posted by mannequito at 11:02 AM on October 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


For all the author's complaints about found footage, there are an awful goddamned lot of them on this list.

I don't even get that complaint. Any device, when done poorly, is bad, but found footage can be an especially effective device in horror, and strikes me as a direct parallel to epistolary novel, with its direct POV approach, which was only used in, you know, Dracula, The Moonstone, Carrie, Word War Z, Whisperer in Darkness, some of Frankenstein ...
posted by maxsparber at 11:11 AM on October 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


I've not seen Split, but given that it's M. Night Shyamalan and it sounds like another clumsy take on MPD and it has a dumb sounding shared universe "twist" at the end I'd be surprised to see it elevate itself.
posted by Artw at 11:12 AM on October 25, 2017 [2 favorites]


For some reason Neon Demon never really came across as a "horror movie", although there were plenty of horrifying elements.

Homage to Italian splatterfest, isn't it?
posted by Artw at 11:13 AM on October 25, 2017


I don't even get that complaint.

Yeah, I don't either. Yes, lots of found footage movies are really ill-conceived, but Sturgeon's Law and all that. That the author fails to see the irony of highlighting so many found footage movies as hidden gems worth seeing while complaining about the found footage device every time just gets on my nerves.
posted by tobascodagama at 11:19 AM on October 25, 2017 [3 favorites]


A couple of things about this pretty cool list. I loved Green Room but I understood it as a thriller movie, which Hollywood pretty much doesn't make anymore. Ramped up all beyond reason on speed, mind you, but a thriller movie all the same.

And, I loved Hush. While watching it on Netflix I actually got up and checked my balcony door.
posted by Phlegmco(tm) at 11:21 AM on October 25, 2017 [2 favorites]


On the Awful lust I rather liked Mama. It's a bit hackneyed and illogical but a *really* cool ghost.
posted by Artw at 11:27 AM on October 25, 2017


A couple of things about this pretty cool list. I loved Green Room but I understood it as a thriller movie, which Hollywood pretty much doesn't make anymore.

I always felt "thriller" was just a way of rebranding "horror" for a more timid audience.
posted by maxsparber at 11:29 AM on October 25, 2017 [3 favorites]


From the Meh I would give Absentia a chance, if only for the spookiest underpass of all time, and of course Tucker and Dale vs. Evil is fucking great so I don't know what they are on about there.

Maybe "Meh" just meant "didn't quite make the list".
posted by Artw at 11:32 AM on October 25, 2017 [2 favorites]


On the Awful lust I rather liked Mama.

Paging Sigmund Freud...
posted by Segundus at 11:35 AM on October 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


I always felt "thriller" was just a way of rebranding "horror" for a more timid audience.

Nah, I understand them as different genres. To me, a thriller is a picture that has elements of suspense and maybe violence, but doesn't include anything supernatural or grotesque. Like, Hitchcock's Rope would be a thriller, as would Strangers on a Train, but Psycho is a horror picture. (I agree that Green Room is a thriller rather than a horror picture.)
posted by holborne at 11:39 AM on October 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


Good to see that The Love Witch is on there. (Fanfare Previously)

Adding films from this article to my to-watch-list, I see a few that were already on there that I'm moving to the beginning of the list.
posted by larrybob at 11:46 AM on October 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


For some reason Neon Demon never really came across as a "horror movie", although there were plenty of horrifying elements.

I realised it was a horror film right at the end. A very subtle, clever and stylized horror film, but a horror film nevertheless.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 11:48 AM on October 25, 2017


I've seen a ton on this list, and also have a bunch of movies now to find and watch.

There's a ton on the list that either start strong, have good ideas, or are fantastic, but that all completely unravel at the end or fail to live up to their premise. Sometimes in the end they turn into entirely different movies and are worse for it. These include: Pontypool, Grave Encounters, The Innkeepers, John Dies at the End, Afflicted, The Canal, Don't Blink, Housebound, The Sacrament, Bone Tomahawk, The Nightmare, We Are Still Here, Hell House LLC, I Am Not A Serial Killer (This is the best of the bunch), and The Devil's Candy. I wouldn't recommend any of them unless you're really interested. There's something about horror movies and just awful last acts that I don't quite understand.

I'm glad to see Creep on a meh list, I think it might be one of the most overrated horror films in recent memory as well as Don't Breath and Hush. Don't Breath is particularly awful and has a really misogynistic twist. Also the main character in Escape From Tomorrow is almost definitely a paedophile and he spends the majority of the movie obsessing over twin girls in really creepy ways. It's utter, utter trash and the whole Disneyworld thing is really overrated.

It Comes at Night is SUPER good, but it's definitely not for everyone. It's a movie all about the crushing weight of anxiety and not monsters as the advertising implied. Definitely give it a watch. Tucker and Dale is also really fun, though not great, and is definitely more deserving of a spot on the list that a bunch of others.

There's a TON on the list to recommend, there's so much good horror out there that it's hard to keep on top of. Personally, I loved The Void. It was Carpenter and Lovecraft and it scratched a The Thing itch in a way that nothing else ever has. The Witch and The Love Witch are superb, and other than being about witches are totally different. My girlfriend happens to really love both of them, so that's a plus. I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives In The House and The Blackcoat's Daughter are both directed by Oz Perkins who is turning out to be one of the best horror directors around. I personally preferred The Blackcoat's Daughter, it had a very Silent Hill vibe to it, but they're both great.

My girlfriend and I wrote up a list of forty horror movies that we wanted to watch in October and I've kept adding to it as I hear more recommendations and now I have a bunch more to put on.

Also the only found footage film that you NEED to see is Rec. Just the first one. There are some others that are good, but Rec is the best.
posted by Neronomius at 11:51 AM on October 25, 2017 [5 favorites]


The Love Witch is another double plusplus recommend.
posted by Artw at 12:04 PM on October 25, 2017 [4 favorites]


I agree with a lot of what Neromonius said but feel the need to point out that if you take away the ending of Bone Tomahawk it absolutely is no longer a horror movie. It's still very very good, but more of an ensemble wild west roadtrip with wonderfully irreverent dialogue. In some ways it's kind of a shame that the movie is principally remember because of 'the scene' near the end, because the first hour-and-a-half is so strong, but I've had to avoid recommending it most people after one of my old friends from high school got mad at me after I told him to check it out.
posted by mannequito at 12:11 PM on October 25, 2017


I'm all for a certain flexibility of genre to get to the weird good shit.
posted by Artw at 12:21 PM on October 25, 2017 [4 favorites]


You don't need to take away the ending of Bone Tomahawk. Just make it a little less reminiscent of an episode of Star Trek TOS with a particularly low budget.
posted by dilaudid at 12:22 PM on October 25, 2017


Welp now y'all got me looking for a description of "the scene," and I can safely say that Bone Tomahawk is now off my list.
posted by Existential Dread at 12:56 PM on October 25, 2017


This is a good list; I “don’t like horror” but have loved enough of these movies that I’ve made a list of things to watch from this.

Surprised Raw isn’t mentioned anywhere, though.
posted by jeweled accumulation at 12:59 PM on October 25, 2017 [2 favorites]


It Follows is must see. The Innkeepers is a solid choice for people who enjoy horror with less gore and violence. Train To Busan is not on the good list, but should be. The monster movie from Ireland is awful, not even as good as the sequels to Tremor.

PS, Oculus on the meh list? Not so! It's terrific, and just like The Innkeepers, heavy on chills, but light on gore and violence. They'd make a terrific double feature.
posted by Beholder at 1:04 PM on October 25, 2017 [2 favorites]


Any suggestions for documentaries in the style of Cropsey? The streaming options tend to be awash in basic cable level early 2000s True Crime or UFO series, so it's hard to find anything that's either more recent.

I'm looking for stuff like the Small Town Monsters series or Missing 411 that are on Amazon.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 1:09 PM on October 25, 2017


I feel like the point of overlap between thrillers and horror is non-supernatural slasher/"evil villager" flicks, into which category Green Room might arguably fit?
posted by tobascodagama at 1:19 PM on October 25, 2017


Surprised Raw isn’t mentioned anywhere, though.

Same. Raw is on Netflix right now. You definitely want to see it!
posted by naju at 1:23 PM on October 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


Weirdly, the thing I like best about The VVitch is that it may be the only film that takes Puritan theology seriously. If you get the pressures of the belief in predestination and God rewarding the faithful, the anxieties of the characters are awful and heartbreaking as they all succumb to different sorts of 16th C pressures and tribulations. It’s quite remarkable. I almost wish we never saw the titular character.
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:27 PM on October 25, 2017 [9 favorites]


I also like Absentia (extremely variable acting, but good Arthur Machen-sequence dread and no fear at all about not telling you stuff the characters can’t know), Rigor Mortis (attractive and stylish even if it’s completely incoherent), and Mama was a bit of a mess, but hardly awful.
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:40 PM on October 25, 2017 [3 favorites]


Given that autocorrect tried to turn Rigor Mortis into Rigor Morris, I now want a film about zombie morris dancers before we begin the long-awaited 30 year moritorium on zombie films...
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:44 PM on October 25, 2017 [4 favorites]


Well, any kind of folk dancing is really about The Old Ways, I'm sure they can summon up a zombie or two. Maybe an Obby Oss and some cheese rollers too.
posted by Artw at 1:45 PM on October 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


The VVitch offers the taste of butter as the ultimate decadence, which is simultaneously funny, sad and spot on for period/setting.
posted by Artw at 1:47 PM on October 25, 2017 [9 favorites]


I would watch Rick Moranis in Rigor Morris.
posted by guiseroom at 1:50 PM on October 25, 2017 [2 favorites]


Weirdly, the thing I like best about The VVitch is that it may be the only film that takes Puritan theology seriously.
...
I almost wish we never saw the titular character.


I feel like seeing the witch is what makes the movie interesting: To play in to the family's superstition by showing at the outset that the witch is 100% real, and then playing with the ambiguity of "Are they acting the way they are because they have fallen into the witch's thrall, or because this is what their own Puritanical morality -- which was apparently too hardcore for even other Puritans -- has led them to?" And once you make that leap, the film's denouement (avoiding spoilers) makes you question the reality of what you've been seeing the whole time.
posted by Strange Interlude at 1:52 PM on October 25, 2017 [7 favorites]


OK, that’s a way to look at it, although I assume that that the dispute was less about morality and more about theology. Interestingly, Thomasin’s anxiety that she has been put in a position where she may never be able to marry is a factor that is central to a lot of American Colonial witchcraft allegations, so I was glad to see it.
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:57 PM on October 25, 2017


I just went through the whole list looking for The Guest, only to discover at the end that the author hasn't seen it, but will have it in a future update. Which is only right, because it was G R E A T.
posted by Strange Interlude at 2:10 PM on October 25, 2017 [2 favorites]


I almost wish we never saw the titular character.

If you look closely at the corn they are growing, it's infected with ergot. So the witch may or may not actually be there.
posted by maxsparber at 2:16 PM on October 25, 2017 [7 favorites]


That's canon, by the way.
posted by maxsparber at 2:17 PM on October 25, 2017 [3 favorites]


Sadly, the ergot theory has been pretty thoroughly debunked.

On the other hand, if you name your goat Black Philip, you may have lost your right to complain about being harassed by the Forces of Darkness.
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:29 PM on October 25, 2017 [6 favorites]


The Blackcoat's Daughter (aka February) is a rare horror movie that messed me up like Kill List did. Both are just horrifying to their very core as well as just profoundly sad stories about broken people. The Invitation gets close but is more sad and less horrifying.

Real solid list - I'm 26 films into Shocktober and Triangle was a real treat (especially on rewatch) yesterday.

I love this genre so much.
posted by slimepuppy at 2:30 PM on October 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


Re: The Witch ergot theory—it's plausible, but if I recall correctly, the first scene in which we see the witch is not shot from any of the characters' point-of-view. (I suppose it could be a dream sequence?)
posted by Atom Eyes at 2:33 PM on October 25, 2017


Maybe the whole movie is the baby's ergot fueled fantasy.
posted by maxsparber at 2:39 PM on October 25, 2017 [3 favorites]


"I hate found footage films, but here you go..." , seems to be on this list more often than not. Maybe the author actually likes found footage films but doesn't want to seem uncool with his blog buddies.
posted by hairless ape at 3:03 PM on October 25, 2017 [2 favorites]


More likely if you're into Horror you will have seen a fuckton of poorly conceived badly executed found footage films not on the list.
posted by Artw at 3:16 PM on October 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


More likely if you're into Horror you will have seen a fuckton of poorly conceived badly executed found footage films not on the list.

If you're really into horror you've seen so many badly conceived, badly executed films period. A lot of found footage is bad, but like, it's not worse than any of the Wrong Turn films, Hostel films, Saw films, or the Oujia films or any of the Platinum Dunes franchise reboots. It's always read like elitism to me and I've always seen any recommendations as "it's found footage, but" as if because of it's format it's going to be bad or that real horror fans should be above it.

For the record there are 7 found footage movies recommended on his list. And there are a ton of other great ones. Noroi ( The Curse), Rec, Paranormal Activity, Trollhunter, VHS 1 and 2, The Bay, Willow Creek, Taking of Deborah Logan, and Ghosthunters are all worth watching. Like, every now and again you get a The Den which starts out pretty good and devolves into complete and utter trash (so tired of that), but then you get something like Unfriended (which while not great is tons of fun).
posted by Neronomius at 3:40 PM on October 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


I feel about found footage a bit like how I feel about fiction written in the second person. I groan a little inside that we're going there again. I think it's a technique that sometimes works but often seems like a lazy fallback and a stylistic cliche that wasn't chosen for any good reason. I'm more likely to give up on a so-so piece of work if it uses it...
I did however watch Hell House LLC the other day though... Holborn, what had you wondering?
posted by KateViolet at 3:42 PM on October 25, 2017


Weirdly, the thing I like best about The VVitch is that it may be the only film that takes Puritan theology seriously. If you get the pressures of the belief in predestination and God rewarding the faithful, the anxieties of the characters are awful and heartbreaking as they all succumb to different sorts of 16th C pressures and tribulations. It’s quite remarkable. I almost wish we never saw the titular character.

But then we would be denied our happy ending, where Thomasin is free of her terrible, terrible, family and her wretched situation. Thomasin gets to be happy, powerful, and free. Which is more than most girls of her age could hope for in that era.
posted by Gyre,Gimble,Wabe, Esq. at 3:48 PM on October 25, 2017 [10 favorites]


I have just seen Black Mountain Side and now you don't have to. The pacing is slow, the story is largely just a bunch of horrible things happening without much cohesion to them, and the ending is only good if like movies that just
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 4:06 PM on October 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


Thomasin is free of her terrible, terrible, family and her wretched situation.

Thomasin's father literally offers himself up for damnation in an attempt to save her (and the twins). I'm not sure that that counts as "terrible, terrible." In a lot of ways, The VVitch is less a horror movie than a slow tragedy, where each member of the family is brought down by their specific failure to live up to the terrible tensions inherent in Calvinism. The parents are flawed and destructive, but they are also loving, and they are shredded by the tragedies that hammer them, reading them as punishments for failure rather than malign forces and I think the film relies a little to heavily on the witch to play the "maybe it was all in their heads" game; I think the witch is real, but the family has put themselves in harms way by not being perfect (or, maybe, Elect, in the Calvinist way).

As I said, it's a movie that takes Puritain theology seriously enough to make it a center of the film rather than just snicker at their "rigid morality" or "hypocrisy."
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:06 PM on October 25, 2017 [3 favorites]


See, I can totally see reading through a bunch of, say, Lovecraftian stories and saying "oh fuck, it's another one written in an epistolary style, the found footage of its day, bleuuurgh" and then ending up with most of the best ones in that style.

Doesn't mean it isn't still a bunch of hacks garbage when it ends mid sentence describing the final monster attack with a note about how the last pe stroke trailed off the page.
posted by Artw at 4:06 PM on October 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


Mr. Bad Example - it has a wendigo tho.
posted by Artw at 4:07 PM on October 25, 2017


Big chunks of The VVitch, especially the dialogue, was based on reports of witch trails and other writings from the time... probably why so much of it rings true.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 4:10 PM on October 25, 2017 [4 favorites]


This list has made Blood Glacier sound interesting to me - that's probably going to be a piece of shit, isn't it?
posted by Artw at 4:10 PM on October 25, 2017


GenjiandProust: “I almost wish we never saw the titular character.”

I just wish the last line wasn't poorly constructed. "Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?" is not archaic English; nobody would say that. "Wouldst thou" already implies desire or wishing, and I'm pretty sure "like to" was not yet current with the meaning "desire to." It just sounds like somebody was trying to translate "would you like to live deliciously" into old-timey speech by replacing the words. What they were going for is "wouldst thou live deliciously?" – which has the benefit of being cleaner and crisper anyhow.

But it's pretty dumb that that annoys me as much as it does, of course, given that it's a great film overall.
posted by koeselitz at 4:15 PM on October 25, 2017 [3 favorites]


Because my brain has been slowly poisoned by the Just Two Things thread from ago:

Desperately Seeking Busan
posted by Existential Dread at 4:15 PM on October 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


In a lot of ways, The VVitch is less a horror movie than a slow tragedy, where each member of the family is brought down by their specific failure to live up to the terrible tensions inherent in Calvinism. . . . As I said, it's a movie that takes Puritain theology seriously enough to make it a center of the film rather than just snicker at their "rigid morality" or "hypocrisy."

I think I remember this case being made pretty compellingly and in more detail in the original thread about the film. I think it's a valid and interesting reading but to me the final sequence inevitably reads as undeniably subversive and liberating, not tragic at all. This makes me inclined to read the titular character and Black Philip as being shaped in their details by the impossible binds and repressions under which broke the family. What force underlies those shapes remains a mystery and nothing in the movie requires us, as viewers, to interpret that underlying force as essentially belonging to a Calvinist or even Christian theological framework.
posted by treepour at 4:23 PM on October 25, 2017 [4 favorites]


This may seem ungrateful, but could this blogger have included streaming sources for these films? Did he watch them on Amazon and Netflix, does he subscribe to specialty streaming services, or is he so old school as to have seen them in theaters and at film festivals?

Anyroad, The ABCs of Death, The Babadook, Blood Glacier, Byzantium, The Canal, A Dark Song, The Devil's Candy, Europa Report, The Hallow, He Never Died, High-Rise, Honeymoon, I Am Not a Serial Killer, I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House, The Invitation, It Follows, John Dies at the End, The Nightmare, Late Phases, The Pact, The Shrine, Starry Eyes, They Look Like People, Under the Shadow, The Void, The Wailing, and We Are Still Here are still available on Netflix.

Black Mountain Side, Green Room, The Innkeepers and Neon Demon, and The Witch are still streaming on Amazon Prime (at this point, I'm going to have to hit post and take a break).
posted by Doktor Zed at 4:38 PM on October 25, 2017 [16 favorites]


I haven't yet seen "The Girl with All the Gifts" seconded, so I'll second it, for the performance of the young lead, and the best ending in zombie history. /puffery.
posted by allthinky at 5:09 PM on October 25, 2017 [3 favorites]


That’s a long list to not include a single mention of Eyes of My Mother.
posted by oneironaut at 5:36 PM on October 25, 2017


I realise I'm in a tiny minority here, but does anyone else just not get the love for The Babadook?

I mean, we all have our own tastes, but I don't think I've ever found a horror movie lauded by so many people to be so boring, unengaging, and just not scary…
posted by Pinback at 12:16 AM on October 26, 2017 [2 favorites]


Outer Space: Hexus Journal Pick An Experimental Horror Bakers Dozen. There's some weird shit in here (including Twin Peaks: The Return)
posted by sapagan at 12:31 AM on October 26, 2017 [1 favorite]


Babadook was really only notable to me for Essie Davis's performance. I thought it punched the movie up way above its weight. But otherwise I agree Pinbck, it had a mildly intriguing open ended question about grief and trauma, a few creepy scenes, and not much else. I would probably already barely remember it if not for two things:

1.For a few years, when I walk my dog at night down quiet residential streets, whenever I feel a big burp coming on I lean back and let it out: "Ba Ba Dooook." And once, just once, but it was glorious, a phantom voice called back "Dook Dook Dook."

2.The Queer Eye For The Babadook meme
posted by mannequito at 12:44 AM on October 26, 2017 [1 favorite]


I haven't seen anyone else mention it, so I'll put in a vote for Splinter. It's a low-budget film that manages to make the most of its small cast and (mostly) one location. It starts off with a couple getting carjacked on the road by a couple of criminals, and things go very wrong when they have to stop for gas...
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 1:40 AM on October 26, 2017 [2 favorites]


Another vote for Raw to be included in this list.
posted by SageLeVoid at 3:53 AM on October 26, 2017


I dunno. Raw had a good concept, some interesting scenes, and solid performances, but the script was really meandering. Characters do stuff for very little reason, and their motives are pretty opaque, even to them. And I was really annoyed when the film just kind of gave up on Adrien half way through. It’s definitely worth watching, but the script needed more than it got.
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:08 AM on October 26, 2017


I'm mostly okay with "why are they still filming" - if nothing else because sometimes people do stupid things under stress - but I have white-hot hatred for 'found footage' or nominal 'surveillance footage' films that includes impossible cuts or that has footage from an impossible source.
posted by rmd1023 at 6:31 AM on October 26, 2017 [2 favorites]


I suppose we all have our little irritations about how films take shortcuts. In a lot of horror films there is the question of "why don't they just pick up a phone and call for help," which old movies used to address by having the killer cut the wires but now they have to make weird excuses about lack of cell phone reception.

It just seems lazy to me. Make the cell phone part of the movie. Hell, make it part of the problem.

I remember in Scream 2 one of the characters ran away from the killer and grabbed her cordless phone as she ran out of the house, but she ran too far and couldn't get reception, so she had to keep getting closer to the house in order to make the call.

At least, I think it was Scream 2. Haven't seen it for a while. But I remember being really impressed that the logical thing to do, which is call for help, was now forcing the character back into danger.
posted by maxsparber at 7:04 AM on October 26, 2017 [2 favorites]


Receptition/battery problems seem like the easiest and most plausible thing in the world TBH.
posted by Artw at 7:08 AM on October 26, 2017


STILL IRRITATES ME.
posted by maxsparber at 7:55 AM on October 26, 2017




I've not seen Split, but given that it's M. Night Shyamalan and it sounds like another clumsy take on MPD and it has a dumb sounding shared universe "twist" at the end I'd be surprised to see it elevate itself.


Split is an interesting idea with a clumsy script and directing that beats you over the head with its lack of subtlety, but James McAvoy carries the whole film with his acting. Really all of the actors are quite good. I saw it last weekend and it far exceeded expectations.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 8:08 AM on October 26, 2017 [1 favorite]


Also I thought Unbreakable was kind of a con long before anyone else was on to old M. Night. Like, the resolution to the film is actually in the title cards at the end? Who the fuck does that?
posted by Artw at 8:39 AM on October 26, 2017 [1 favorite]


You can't reject the entire premise as a criticism.

you don't know what i'm capable of
posted by Sticherbeast at 10:37 AM on October 26, 2017 [5 favorites]


Watched He Never Died last night and surprisingly enjoyed it. Decent acting and directing, but was more action than horror film. Plot was a little thin though.
posted by P.o.B. at 12:19 PM on October 26, 2017


I haven't yet seen "The Girl with All the Gifts" seconded, so I'll second it, for the performance of the young lead, and the best ending in zombie history. /puffery.

Move forward with the zombie movie moratorium, but also pause to give Sennia Nanua an Academy Award for best performance as an intelligent young zombie.
posted by ovvl at 7:10 PM on October 26, 2017 [3 favorites]


A very subtle, clever and stylized horror film, but a horror film nevertheless.

.... Clever? Subtle?

Is .... is there more than one movie called "The Neon Demon?"
posted by webmutant at 10:12 PM on October 29, 2017 [1 favorite]


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