films you've seen recently and would NOT recommend

luka

Well-known member
I found techno alienating and chilly then I realised that was the point. That it's emotional charge lay in its distance, it's
Ice and opacity
 

droid

Well-known member
A lovable character is the antithesis of Ballard. What fascinates me about his work isn't the narratives, but the level of identification he illicits in the mind of the reader. After finishing one of his books it would take me days to shake off the cold clinical viewpoint of his characters, like his famously fastidious prose infects you somehow, imposing the mindset of his protagonist on your psyche. NLP through literature.
 

Leo

Well-known member
"running wild" was good, certainly one of his lesser works but i remember being pretty captivated. i read "crash" when i was fairly young and it really creeped me out at the time, not sure if i'd feel feel the same way reading it now. possibly.
 
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droid

Well-known member
The calculation in his speculative fiction writing is really thrown into relief by the warmth of stuff like Empire of the Sun and the kindness of women, which are basically normal books with rounded characters and strong emotional cores. A bit like Dick's utter failure to write anything resembling a real human being other than when he wandered into the autobiographical with VALIS and the sequels - except Ballard did it on purpose.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Or is the implication that the book isn't for reading at all, but displaying prominently on a shelf in your room in 'halls' to make girls think you are well cool and deep?
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
The Witch. Dreadful, hackneyed rubbish, with added goat. My bar is quite low for horror films - I tend to see the merits in most anything...but this was a struggle. Would have been (much) better had Ralph Ineson been turned into Finchy by the Witch.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
The Witch. Dreadful, hackneyed rubbish, with added goat. My bar is quite low for horror films - I tend to see the merits in most anything...but this was a struggle. Would have been (much) better had Ralph Ineson been turned into Finchy by the Witch.
Oh no, that is the first negative review I've seen. I've been trying to a) summon up the courage and b) persuade Liza to watch it with me. Think I've finally crossed both thresholds and I am hoping to watch it in the next few days. Will still watch it but with suitably lowered expectations.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Ah, don't let me put you off (even though I guess that's precisely the point of this thread). As ever, film opinions are very personal - on an objective level, it is very professionally made and the acting is competent, but I felt zero emotional connection to the film, and that its ideas are very derivative.

To put it another way, it's not in the same league as The Babadook or It Follows. But loads of people loved it.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
The problem with horror films is that they're best when they're holding back on what the Big Bad It is, and then they tend to collapse into (or explode out to) hysteria and histrionics. That was the problem with the Babadook, as it was with Kill List, and The House of the Devil. It's also the case with The Shining; in real life, a mad man running at you with an axe is even scarier than ghostly twins appearing at the end of a corridor, but not (I'd argue) in the movies.

The audience demands this release, of course. One horror film that I think manages to pull it off is Suspiria, partly because it's absolutely crazy from the very opening, and the descent into madness therefore feels of a piece with even the quieter scenes.

I haven't seen It Follows yet, but I really want to.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
The problem with horror films is that they're best when they're holding back on what the Big Bad It is...

Case in point: the other day I watched The Last Winter. I knew it was an ecological morality tale, so I was prepared for the monochrome ethics and heavy-handed 'message'; that wasn't what bothered me. It started out as a pretty atmospheric piece of cosmic horror, with a nice shout-out to Algernon Blackwood's short story 'The Wendigo', but unfortunately degenerated by the end of the film into a flurry of shit CGI monsters when the atmosphere would have been infinitely better served by a classic horror film suggest-don't-show approach. Indeed, there's an excellent bit of Blair Witch-esque found footage taken on a camcorder by the first character to die which would have made an excellent climactic semi-revelation, except it was shown about a third of the way into the film!

Shame. Doesn't really belong on this thread because it actually wasn't a bad movie really, just one that could have done a lot more with what it started out by promising.
 
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Corpsey

bandz ahoy
That reminds me: the Blair Witch Project managed to completely avoid the usual Horror pitfall of showing too much and (for me, at least) was chilling right up to and after the final frame.

I realise many people find the Blair Witch Project tedious and/or absurd, but what can I say? I shat myself.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
That reminds me: the Blair Witch Project managed to completely avoid the usual Horror pitfall of showing too much and (for me, at least) was chilling right up to and after the final frame.

I realise many people find the Blair Witch Project tedious and/or absurd, but what can I say? I shat myself.

Glad I wasn't in the seat next to you at the time!

But yeah, I think it's a hugely effective horror film and fully deserves its cult status.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I realise many people find the Blair Witch Project tedious and/or absurd, but what can I say? I shat myself.
I concur, when I came out of the cinema with my friends we said "is it the scariest film you've seen?" and none of us could think of anything scarier.
 

Lichen

Well-known member
I think I may have cried with fear, or at least simpered, watching Blair Witch.
 
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rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
blair witch was scary.

the witch didnt try hard enough to be a horror. it was like a bit of horror tacked on to a fairly dreary, sub carl dryer rural medieval piece.
 

droid

Well-known member
Spent most of Blair Witch moaning about the Cannibal Holocaust rip-offs, but yes, it was scary.
 
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