Underrated Horror Movies

[rogue06]

Another one worth a look is a BBC "documentary" broadcast on Halloween of 1992 called "Ghostwatch" which due to the controversy it caused has never been aired on TV in Britain again. That fact alone should pique some interest. It is presented as if it were an actual live broadcast with two AFAICT actual BBC reporters doing an on-air investigation of a London house haunted by a poltergeist who is the spirit of a murderer who himself had been haunted by another spirit. At first played for laughs by the film crew that starts changing as the manifestations begin and increase in intensity.

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[Teallaura]

Another one worth a look is a BBC "documentary" broadcast on Halloween of 1992 called "Ghostwatch" which due to the controversy it caused has never been aired on TV in Britain again. That fact alone should pique some interest. It is presented as if it were an actual live broadcast with two AFAICT actual BBC reporters doing an on-air investigation of a London house haunted by a poltergeist who is the spirit of a murderer who himself had been haunted by another spirit. At first played for laughs by the film crew that starts changing as the manifestations begin and increase in intensity.

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Per Wiki, Parkinson is an actual journalist, Greene and Smith were presenters on a number of British programs.

And Craig Charles portrays one of the reporters!

[rogue06]

From France comes "La Horde" (The Horde) which was subtitled and is a kind of like the Indonesian film "The Raid" but with a zombie invasion. After a Parisian police officer is murdered by a savage drug gang four of his colleagues decide to raid the condemned high-rise that the gang uses as their base of operations and kill the leader. They're soon captured and just before they're murdered the building starts being over-run by the titular horde of flesh-eating zombies. The cops and gangsters must join forces if they want to survive.

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[Adrift]

From France comes "La Horde" (The Horde) which was subtitled and is a kind of like the Indonesian film "The Raid" but with a zombie invasion. After a Parisian police officer is murdered by a savage drug gang four of his colleagues decide to raid the condemned high-rise that the gang uses as their base of operations and kill the leader. They're soon captured and just before they're murdered the building starts being over-run by the titular horde of flesh-eating zombies. The cops and gangsters must join forces if they want to survive.

I've seen this, but oddly I don't really remember anything about it other than it involved a high-rise. I gave it 3 out of 5 stars on Netflix though.

[whag]

The Green Inferno. What an opportunity missed. The torture porn genre implies I went to see it to get off on the deaths, but that's not what the genre is for. It's to create a sense of dread and empathy for the victim, much like seeing an ISIS beheading does to the viewer. This film only minimally does this with a few scenes. It then becomes a complete botch with lame dialogue, Adam Sandler humor that fails to provide genuine comic relief, and progressively less hideous scenes. Eli Roth sucks at writing and casting. The less that can be said about his view of indigenous anthropology, the better. This film makes me miss Mel Gibson and gave me a new appreciation for his film Apocalypto.


It doesn't take a lot of imagination to dream up a torture scene and have someone like Greg Nicotero to execute it effectively. It takes a whole lot of talent to sustain the horror.

[hamster]

I can't stand movies that bill themselves as "scary" because you're going to spend a couple hours watching people be brutally tortured and murdered. That doesn't "scare" me that just makes me disgusted and depressed. Not trying to sound like a puritan, nor am I judging people that find some value in these things for some reason -- I enjoy good scary movies that actually scare you with plot elements (The Ring, The Exorcist, the FIRST Saw movie etc.), but I also have mirror neurons that function occasionally. I read the synopsis of Green Inferno and that was terrible enough

[Adrift]

I can't stand movies that bill themselves as "scary" because you're going to spend a couple hours watching people be brutally tortured and murdered. That doesn't "scare" me that just makes me disgusted and depressed. Not trying to sound like a puritan, nor am I judging people that find some value in these things for some reason -- I enjoy good scary movies that actually scare you with plot elements (The Ring, The Exorcist, the FIRST Saw movie etc.), but I also have mirror neurons that function occasionally. I read the synopsis of Green Inferno and that was terrible enough

I haven't seen it, but Green Inferno is simply Eli Roth's homage to 70s exploitation films like Cannibal Holocaust. Also, I don't think he ever intended the characters to be sympathized with. He mentioned in the intro of a trailer to the film that he modeled the characters on your typical PC slacktivists, and thought it would be hilarious to put those people in a grotesque scenario where they're actually challenged with horrific reality rather than stuck behind the cushy comforts of a keyboard.

My main problem with this film is that, what makes those 70s and 80s Italian exploitation films so fun to watch today is that there's sort of an endearing naivety to them. They're simple films that weren't attempting to do much more than get a few teenager's butts seated at a midnight showing. They weren't attempting anything revolutionary, or innovative really. They didn't expect the films to have very broad appeal, and I think a lot of the creators would be blown away to see that they had any impact past their initial audience. Creating an homage to this period of film in the way that Roth has done is too on the nose, there's nothing subtle about it. The whole premise lacks that endearing naive quality that makes watching those old films so fun today in the first place. Roth is no Tarantino. Tarantino can take one of those exploitation genres, and reinterpret it in a way so that it's still an homage, but it's reworked for his own ends. He makes films that people who know the genres he's riffing off of will get the inside joke (as it were), but they're still innovative enough so that you don't have to be in on the joke to appreciate the film.

Also, I agree with you, hamster, about "torture porn". It's not really real horror, in my book. In my opinion, the whole genre is intended simply to out gross the audience of the last film. You're not really intended to sympathize with any of the characters in the genre. To do so is pretty much pointless. It's just a cruel genre where we get to sit and watch other people slowly dying in terrible ways. That's not fun to me. Certain films in the genre have somewhat redeeming qualities as far as inventiveness and narrative go, but, on the whole, it doesn't do anything for me.

[rogue06]

I see "torture porn" as being in many ways an unfortunate outgrowth or evolution of slasher films which I was never a big fan of either.

[Zymologist]

I rewatched Bad Taste and Dead Alive with a couple friends who'd never seen them. It was a good time. Dead Alive has one of my favorite movie lines ever: it's when the priest jumps into the cemetery to fight the zombies after saying, "Time for some divine intervention!" (I can't actually quote the line due to a certain word.)

[Adrift]

I rewatched Bad Taste and Dead Alive with a couple friends who'd never seen them. It was a good time. Dead Alive has one of my favorite movie lines ever: it's when the priest jumps into the cemetery to fight the zombies after saying, "Time for some divine intervention!" (I can't actually quote the line due to a certain word.)

I thought you were allowed to say that word on this forum. Maybe it depends on context. Anyways, yeah, great scene. I remember the first time I saw the film, and that whole scene just comes out of nowhere. Cracked me up.

[hamster]

Dead Alive is amazing but only if you watch the unrated version

[Teallaura]

Any of you remember "It's Alive"?

[rogue06]

Any of you remember "It's Alive"?

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But I'll bet you actually meant the movie by that child about the monstrous baby.

[Teallaura]

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But I'll bet you actually meant the movie by that child about the monstrous baby.

That last one, yes.

[whag]

I can't stand movies that bill themselves as "scary" because you're going to spend a couple hours watching people be brutally tortured and murdered. That doesn't "scare" me that just makes me disgusted and depressed. Not trying to sound like a puritan, nor am I judging people that find some value in these things for some reason -- I enjoy good scary movies that actually scare you with plot elements (The Ring, The Exorcist, the FIRST Saw movie etc.), but I also have mirror neurons that function occasionally. I read the synopsis of Green Inferno and that was terrible enough

In general, a movie that extends a violent scene is meant to horrify you and put you in the place of the victim. That's what makes us feel the dread and sick to our stomachs--much like watching a real ISIS beheading. You'd have to be sick to get off on the violence. In that sense, I think the "torture porn" label is kind of a misnomer. It's meant to make you sick from empathizing with the characters, no matter how vile they are, not titilate you.

The potential to do this is dependent on the FX. If they're cheap or CGI, you can't pull it off. A good example of good FX is The Green Inferno and The Passion of the Christ. Cannibal Holocaust doesn't have nearly the dreadful punch because the FX are so obviously bad.

I think the authors of the Bible try to horrify with violence in a similar way. Consider the killing of Eglon in Judges:

"The handle also went in after the blade, and the fat closed over the blade, for he did not draw the sword out of his belly; and the refuse came out."

Nast!

Consider Luke's description of the death of Judas:

"Now this man acquired a field with the price of his wickedness, and falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his intestines gushed out."

In the same way, filmmakers (in general) mean to horrify with violence, not get the audience off.