I’m a huge fan of Rosemary’s Baby, and I think you’ll have a hard time finding anything as good. The critics comparing Get Out to Rosemary’s Baby are being optimistic at best. But I guess that’s their function now.

Some movies you might like if you liked the tension and subtlety and “slow build” of RB (not all of them are recent and not all are horror):

The Wailing, Kurosawa’s Cure, Don’t Look Now, Shadow of a Doubt, Suspicion, Diabolique, Seconds, Le Boucher, Polanski’s The Tenant and his Macbeth.

Who knew this post would generate such an entertaining PM.

the descent deserves better. part 2 is also very entertaining. actually must-see for anyone who hasnt't.

I had high hopes for it, but I just didn't gel with it. I felt the acting was pretty poor and so I didn't really care much for the characters. Put that together with not really knowing who is who and where they are because of the darkness in the second half and the lack of good characterisation and I found I just didn't care much. Plus it says a lot about a film when the cave dwelling monsters are much more realistic than the actual real-life caving/climbing aspect (although that might not be the case if you have no knowledge about the subject).

Overall though it was watchable, and I'd probably be up for watching the sequel.

Then again, my opinion is likely pretty worthless as I thought The Witch was utterly dire

Has anybody watched Pulse (the Japanese version)? The premise of the film looks great and the trailer is promising, but I've seen reviews ranging from 'great' to 'I had no idea what was happening at any point in this movie'.

We are all intrigued.....

I am going on a podcast in a few weeks to talk about best and worst horror movies of 2017.

Trouble is, I haven't seen that many. Suggestions to watch, please

I figured out a list of about 30 anyway...

To me the babadook is a good litmus test to see if you have the type of mind that can appreciate great horror movies. Also a huge fan of let me in and let the right one in.

lol ok

It's been awhile since i've seen it so I cn't go into that much depth about why I think this is the case but I certainly do believe this. It is a dividing line out of recent movies where people I know who don't truly appreciate horror did not like it that much and people who do liked it a lot.
To the masses of regular folk horror movies are a thrill separate and on a lower scale of excellence from great dramas if they like horror movies at all. I think to truly get horror you have to carry a certain sense of separateness inside you, an isolation from the norm on a psychological level that seperates you in a painful manner from the average person. You have to carry a certain sense of impending dread within you that a good horror movie or story allows you to unlock and explore. The babadook was not a jump scare movie, its pacing was off for many because the pacing was set for people who want to explore themselves rather than be jump scared. Also a lot of the interactions seemed overly harsh to people



that interaction felt very organic and real to me because it describes the way normal interactions go for me.

I cant really explain it better since I havent watched the movie in a year and forget some of it sorry.

just like anything else, horror is subjective and what scares one person may not scare someone else. so whether a person likes a single certain movie or not shouldn't define if they are a "proper" horror fan or not.

but I can appreciate what u said that I quoted above...I would say the most effective horror movies should creep you out primarily by their atmosphere & ability to draw u in and make your mind fill in the blanks about the evils that lurk about, as opposed to trying to creep u out simply because freddy krueger jumps out from behind a tree with a knife.

Horror movies are subjective but I would like to constructively disagree and file a complaint against the general state of affairs of horror movies.

In cooking , let's say you make a plain omelette. After making a number of country style omelettes and proper french omelettes it begins to become clear that a proper french omelette is just..better. The texture, the taste is superior and of a higher quality despite the fact that they both were cooked using the same egg. It still holds true if you add cheese. The only time a country omelette is better than a french omelette is when you stuff it with so many things that it is no longer a proper omelette ie beef, pulled pork , sauce, peppers, ham because it can contain more stuff but then you almost defeat the purpose of making an omelette in the first place. Note that this opinion is subjective but amongst chefs there is wide consensus that the french omelette is superior. And so it is with horror films in my view.

There are horror fans that enjoy horror movies primarily for the physical manisfestation of suffering and the grotesque. like my friend who really loves the human centipede and the hostel movies. Then there are casual horror movies fans who are looking for something like halloween, something that will thrill them. In 9 out of 10 cases what these fans can agree on is that the absolute best movies are not horror movies. Shawshank redemption is a great movie, halloween is not even though both are entertaining.

I would argue that on one level a horror movie can be about a psychopath running around killing people and you may enjoy that but they are not as complete and deeply disturbing as movies where you really examine the psychopath and get to know him/her and what drives him; where he or she is truly examined for the viewer to understand. This is why silence of the lambs leaves a more lasting impact than one of the worse Nightmare movies, it disturbs your soul. But even then this is why there are not many great horror movies because there is another level after fully developing the evil as it manisfest itself in a movie and giving it depth; the psychopaths in the movie are not just understood but they drive the psychological understanding of the movie and they begin to understand you. I do not think truly great horror movies should be just about scaring or creeping people out but about unlocking and freeing the darker parts of ones conscious to make it known to the viewer so the viewer can talk to himself, what kafka called the icepick to the soul.

I don't think most horror movie watchers need that because to truly be "horrified" you need something horribly repressed within you to be freed. And for that to happen something needed to go very wrong in your childhood or early teen years.

The Ritual A Blair Witch-esque story of 4 friends who go into a Norwegian woods and encounter something that goes bump in the night. Not totally derivative but not that interesting either.

speaking of Blair witch-esque...has anyone seen this? found footage movie from europe that came out last year. I just dug the poster...very retro!

I read the book of this when it first came out. I remember the first half being incredible then the second half being a bit meh. Is that similar to the film?

I haven't read the book but the first part feels like the Blair Witch Project in that there a bunch of friends in the woods and they see creepy pagan symbols and are stalked by an unseen monster and then



I saw the Troll Hunter movie a while ago and enjoyed it.

Mom And Dad 2017

A fun horror premise that was like a blend of Falling Dawn and the remake of The Crazies, with some definitely edgy moments, and it just gets goofier and goofier, and more enjoyable for it. Not a huge fan of the final ending, but enjoyed the rest quite a bit.

7/10


Mother! 2017

Oh this movie. I gave it every chance, I really did. I do like the director's other work, even when it's dense and difficult. I stuck with it, but about 30 minutes from the end, as it got more disorientating, my patience snapped and it started to actively annoy me, and I felt the director was producing something designed to irritate and upset.

Plodding, annoying allegorical tale.

2/10


Cult of Chucky 2017

Started off slow and moody without being particularly engaging (it was all drama with no engagement), and I thought it was going to be a looooong watch, but it really picks up magnificently in act 3.

Jennifer Tilly's involvement is pretty elite and both played for meta and kind of straight, and it works.

6/10


The Ritual 2017

Decent and solid horror that has a better first two thirds than climax, with shades of The Descent and Kill List (and earlier folk horror, including The Wicker Man and The Virgin Spring).

7/10


Little Evil 2017

Fun little comedy riffing on The Omen in particular, and satanic kid movies in general. I liked the while stepfather managing his hew kid motif, and the general theme about family. Nowhere near as good as some of the other work from this director (Tucker and Dale Vs Evil)

5/10


Leatherface 2017

More a natural born killers/southern gothic road trip/gorehound special sweatfest than a Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie, it's got some interesting (and quite gruesome) moments. A prequel to the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre in effect, with some goofy pop-psychology thrown in to show how old Leatherface got his groove.

6/10


Creep 2014

Rather good and hilarious creepy found footage movie, where the subject keeps playing the videographer, so you're not quite sure where he's going. A great, convincing performance ensues, and there's a creepy, funny awkwardness throughout.

Would be a good double bill with Man Bites Dog

8/10


Creep 2 2017

Not as good as the first one as it's undercut with the filmmaker he gets together with never actually believing he's edgy for much of the movie, but I did like the resolution and ending, and there was a bit near the end that had me laughing my head off.

If you're a fan of Modern Family, the main character of this really gives me a Phil Dunphy vibe

6/10


Tragedy Girls 2017

Solid horror with meta-elements, blending Heathers, Beautiful Creatures and American Psycho into a fun and somewhat charming tale of two murderous teens and a large psycho killer.

Reminded me a lot of a much-despised movie that I quite like, American Psycho 2

8/10

The Autopsy of Jane Doe - Watched on recommendation from this thread and was not disappointed. Realistic horror and an intriguing storyline that came together nicely at the end - two things that always make a horror film for me. 9/10

Green Room - Heard lots of good things about this film but it was a big letdown. Really interesting premise but it had a real lack of characterisation, mumbly dialogue and some terrible bjj moves. The bad guys were not developed at all really - yeah they were dressed as nazi punks and there were a couple of seig heil salutes and swastika tattoos but that was about as deep as it got and we got no real indication of exactly how evil and hateful these people can be. Patrick Stewart was also a huge disappointment. He was supposed to be the overarching nazi-punk boss but just came across like a slightly evil accountant. Given the lack of scare and tension I am hesitant to call this a horror. 6/10

The Purge - Another film with fantastic premise but ultimately a made-for-Hollywood cliche-fest. Too many why-the-f**k-are-you-doing-that moments, such as putting the house on lockdown only like 1 minute before the purge starts, or seemingly not giving a crap about the guy in the house. The film took too many easy ways out of difficult sitations too, which usually just ended up with someone popping round the corner with a gun at just the right second. Fairly entertaining Hollywood blockbuster type film, but that's about all. 7/10

Anybody seen the recent Blair Witch? Trailers look like it's basically an updated rip-off of the original, but I did love that film so wondered if it's worth a watch.

Mayhem - I saw a deal for a 60 day trial to Shudder, and this was a 'Shudder Exclusive'. Has Glenn from the Walking Dead + the girl from the Netflix movie The Babysitter (which is pretty good, much better than this movie IMO). This movie had a similar feel to the Babysitter (heavy comedic aspect). Plotwise the movie is a bit of a mix between Belko Experiment, The Purge, and the Crazies. I couldn't really get into it at all, 90 minutes of random killing and craziness and not really a well developed plot. Belko Experiment did the 'people in an office building killing each other' better, and The Babysitter did the 'mostly comedy movie with a bunch of killing' better recently. 4/10

I'd been considering getting a trial for Shudder, but from what I could see, it was mainly lowish budget stuff and exclusives that didn't look too great. What are you thinking about it overall? Or have you only watched the one film so far?

Also, what was the Belko Experiment like? Saw the trailer for that yesterday and I put it on my watchlist.

The Ritual (2017). Read mixed reviews but I found it a lot better than I was expecting and solid stuff overall that was surprisingly creepy in parts. 7/10

Mother! (2017) A pretentious self indulgent pile of semi coherent crap. The worst horror I've seen in quite some time & easily without a doubt the worst horror of 2017 for me. Just plain awful. What really annoyed me is the first half hour was quite intriguing and then it just disappeared up its own butt. 2/10

Leatherface (2017) As a TTCM edition it's not great & pretty redundant imo, considering they already did a prequel with TTCM The Beginning, but as a stand alone violent road horror it's not bad and quite brutal in parts. Overall a yay. 6/10 (I'd highly rec Inside (2007) by the same directors btw it's awesome and absolutely relentless)

Jigsaw (2017)
Eh. Neither terrible or remarkable, really but not quite as bad as I was expecting. 5.5/10

Also revisited Tonight She Comes (2016) a film I kinda enjoyed in spite of myself although many probably will thoroughly dislike it as it tries to shoehorn in everything from Slashers to Satanism but I had fun with it personally. 6/10

Belko's kinda silly but a lot of fun & worth checking out if you've nothing better to watch. Not very demanding but quite enjoyable overall.

Corpus, can I watch Jigsaw as a standalone and be reasonably OK? Want to watch it, but never seen a Saw movie.

I'm not sure- it doesn't really go into the Saw series itself much but there's a major revelation plot development re the Jigsaw killer in the earlier films, so I dunno if watching Jigsaw might ruin that. (Not the best one to be starting off with anyway though lol. )

Tbh I only think the first two are actually good, the rest I don't think are great but I still have fun with them nonetheless.

What's different re Jigsaw is that it focuses more on mystery than gore so as a stand alone mystery horror it's not bad, but again an earlier major plot development re the killer is fully discussed in this one, so overall I'm not sure how to tell you to proceed.

Hmm OK. I'll probably watch it anyway. A comparison I have in my head is Leatherface which stands alone fine other than the element of who is the family boy in the outlaw gang, which would be a ridiculous element if this were a distinct movie.