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Author
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Comment
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RexObitus
Registered User
(9/6/02 3:51:46 pm)
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What about SCAREY Fairy tale movies????
My favoites are things like:
"The Crow" The entire series is very good (surprisingly even the ones released to video!) They are'nt really scarey though...
Clive Barker is one of my favorite directors as far as horror is concerned. My favorite of his (I highly recomend it) is:
"Candyman"
Candyman is a character who only exists because of the strength
of his "followers" belief. It's a very intelligent, well
thought out movie. You may have to watch it twice to get any real
value out of it... Once for the GORE and once for the story!!!
Another of his is "Night Breed" where monsters co-inside with mosters who keep themselves hidden from humanity for protection...
I'm much more likely to pop in a horror than not can anyone else
reccomend any other scarey fairy tale type movies??
I'll leave you this qoute of Clive's (I love it!)
" A monster lies in wait in me,
a stew of wounds and misery.
But, feircer still in life and limb,
the ME that lies in wait in him."
Anyway, happy movie watching!!
- Obitus
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Majicou
Registered User
(9/6/02 4:46:43 pm)
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Re: What about SCAREY Fairy tale movies????
I enjoyed both the movie Vampires by John Carpenter and the novel it was based on Vampire$ by John Steakly.
The characters in the novel were quite developed, it doesn't quite come through as well in the movie.
I just wish they would make a decently budgeted film with shapeshifters besides Wolves. The werewolf myth is so played out for me. Its a bit borring now...
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Munin
Registered User
(9/18/02 2:37:12 pm)
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Re: What about SCAREY Fairy tale movies????
The book version of nightbreed(Cabal) was pretty interesting.
There have been some good werewolf movies but most are obscure made for tv movies. Disney(!) put out a decent one named "Bad Moon" it has quite a bit of violence and some not for children content but the cgi was decent. Also Sci Fi put out a movie series about a troop of soldiers getting eaten by a group of werewolves in Ireland.
I would have to suggest Labyrinth for a good fantasy movie. The rest look like they were made in the 60s with a $1000 dolar budget. I didn't get a chance to see Reign of Fire. Hopefully it will be decent when it comes to DVD.
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fherman1
Unregistered User
(9/22/02 7:12:34 pm)
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Scary fairy tale films?
Scary fairy tale films?
_In the Company of Wolves_: Red Riding Hood with an extremely nasty edge.
_The Blair Witch Project_. What, this *isn't* Hansel and Gretel?
_Kwaidan_: Anthology of several ghost stories, iirc.
_Akira Kurosawa's Dreams_. Another anthology. Actually, parts of it are frightening, other parts are kind of treacly; your mileage may vary.
_Queen of Hearts_ isn't scary in the slightest, but it's a wonderful film, so go watch it anyway.
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Zai000
Registered User
(9/22/02 7:35:42 pm)
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scary movies
And don't forget Leprechaun! Though by the forth and fifth (Leprechaun
in Space; in the Hood) it gets pretty bad. Anyone feel bad for Warwick
Davis?
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Helen
Registered User
(9/22/02 8:24:41 pm)
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Red as blood, indeed ...
A unavoidable addition:
_Snow White: A Tale of Terror_. Three years later, and I still have flashbacks ...
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fherman1
Unregistered User
(9/23/02 10:00:06 am)
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more movies
Warwick Davis is another actor who *should* have had a great career; he's by far the best thing about _Willow_.
Some films:
_The Wicker Man_: All is not as it seems on Summerisle. Would *you* trust a suede-wearing Christopher Lee?
_Demon Pond_: It starts off as a young Japanese researcher visiting a recluse up in the mountains. It turns into something *very* different...
_The Witches_: Not sure if it's exactly a fairy tale structure, but a lot of the elements are there. Middle Ages religious paranoia from Ken Russell.
_The Wave_: Early Peter Weir myth-may-be-coming-to-life story. Could use a little more plot, but it's effective.
_Wolfen_: Contemporary intelligent-wolves story, with Albert Finney doing a credible American accent. Horror, not fairy tale, but it's got much of the development-bad, (red-toothed-and-clawed) nature-essentially-better trope that characterizes much of fantasy.
_Fanny and Alexander_: Dad dies, Mom marries the Preacher From Hell, and only a crazed psychic with a hotline to God can save us. Now *that's* scary.
_Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street_: Not a movie, but I've seen a movie-length video of this Sondheim production, so there. A wronged barber gives people te closest shaves they shall ever know. (There's also a good BBC made-for-TV version of the story, with no relation to Sondheim, that radically alters the premise *at the end*, but I dunno if it's ever been repeated.)
(I'm not listing a movie-length video of Sondheim's _Into the Woods_, which is as specifically fairy-tale as it gets in that it shows what happens after the original stories end, because it's not particularly scary--on screen, that is. The giant's footsteps are *terrifying* in the theater.)
_The Fog_: Horror again, but very much about folklore coming back to haunt you. Very scary when I was twelve; haven't actually seen it since, so your mileage may vary.
_Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!_: More accurately translated "Tie Me! Tie Me!", but who cares. Not fantasy, but very much a fairy tale about a woman falling in love with her rapist. And if *that's* not scary, what is? (I'd argue that under the surface, _The Piano_ is much the same story, even if it's Jane Campion telling it instead of Almodovar.)
_Babette's Feast_: Okay, another not-scary-in-the-slightest one that I wanted to mention. Also not supernatural, but very much a fairy tale about two saintly sisters and the French refugee who becomes their cook. Sounds like it should be boring, I know, but it's a wonderful, wonderful film.
Whew!
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fherman1
Unregistered User
(10/5/02 5:44:21 pm)
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Spirited Away
_Spirited Away_, which I've finally gotten around to seeing, certainly belongs on the list--the structure is very fairy-tale (child must join the fairy world to rescue her transformed parents), and parts of it are quite frightening.
The first half of the film is just wonderful in its imaginative brilliance. Much of the rest flags--the film goes on *way* too long, and we get sidetracked by two different side-plots (and a teeny bit of Miyazaki treacliness) when we ought to be concentrating on the girl-must-save-her-parents central story--but it's certainly worth seeing.
It's probably a measure of the film's quality that the audience was well-behaved throughout, despite the fact that I saw it in a theater with maybe five adults and, seemingly, every child on Earth.
Fred
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Midori
Unregistered User
(10/6/02 3:56:41 am)
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were-twists
"Ginger Snaps"--girl werewolf--really well done. humor/gore/rites of passage.
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MarkS
Unregistered User
(10/6/02 10:49:51 am)
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It would be nice...
...if when you get the message to use your "back" button to fill in a missing field, it wouldn't completely erase your entire post! As a warning to others, make sure you copy what you type before posting, in case this happens, to spare you a lot of grief.
Where was I? Oh yes...I can't see how anyone can be tired of werewolf films when the only two good ones ever made were Wolfman and An American Werewolf in London! There have been great non-werewolf movies with wolf themes, like Wolfen and Brotherhood of the Wolf, both excellent movies, but for pure werewolf movies what do we have? The Howling? Great effects - now THAT is a werewolf! - but a putrid film with a terrific idea of a werewolf as serial killer for the first ten minutes, then a stupid, campy retreat for stressed out yuppies run by werewolves with Patrick McNee (mother of God) as the head alpha counselor! The following sequels stunk on ice.
What I've had enough of is VAMPIRES! Give it a rest already - how many angles can we see this subject from? I've read the Lestat books, Sonia Blue, Bloody Red Baron, The Anita Blake series, Dracula, The Covenant Chronicles, etc., I've watched Buffy, Night Stalker, Vampire The Masquerade (and read the game source material), Blade, Vampires (which I found vulgar in the extreme), From Dusk to Dawn, Near Dark, Nadja...and I'm here to say that if I've had enough. I've enjoyed them but it is time to bury the corpse, so to speak. If there is any vampire left to do, it is the real, mythical vampire, which resemble the zombies out of Night of the Living Dead or the creature from Nosferatu more than Frank Langela, Angel, or Lestat. We have Tod Browing to thank for the bedroom eyes character Legosi portrayed, with the attending legions of ardent (read 'horny')female fans, and that's totally cool, but it's been done to death.
I have to disagree with the above review of "Sprited Away," another winner from Hayao Miyazaki, with his unique cast of traditional and invented fairy tale people. He has yet to make a bad film, and his movies are a breath of fresh air compared to the stale fare I see in most Hollywood product these days. Even that great media whore Disney recognizes the attraction and wants their fingers in the production pie, and well they should, because his films are everything their's are not - witty, smart, original, and complex. His cute little creatures are genuinely sweet and funny, unlike the bevy of smart-ass, high-fiving singing furries that populate animated Disney movies these days. The kids in the audience when I saw "Sprited Away" were rapt, and left the theater talking about the characters. I get the general impression they took it to heart, and didn't think of it as just eye candy. Bitter? You bet I am, when films this good are playing in art houses while excrement like "Hercules" and that God-awful Peter Pan sequel do first run theaters. I don't waste my time being curmudgeonly about it (except when my posts get eaten!LOL!) but it is ironic. This is my opinion - anyone is welcome to disagree. I'll wrap it up by saying that I agree that there were a couple of faults in this film, one of them being (SPOILER ALERT - IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE MOVIE AND CARE ABOUT NOT KNOWING A PLOT POINT, DON'T READ BEYOND THIS....)
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...I had a problem with the story of the girl in the bathouse not
being resolved at all. She was kind of just dropped without any
further ado. I thought with her talk of trains and leaving the spirit
"resort" that she should have been the one to go with
Sen on the train and not the masked spirit. I get the feeling there
is either a sequel planned (the boy telling Sen he would definitely
see her again) or, the story being told basically from the viewpoint
of a ten year old girl, people and things just generally fall out
of their lives without much concern, which is rather selfish, but
then again, so are most 10-year-olds! Storywise it was a little
sloppy, but not from a realism vantage. In my view, another magical
adventure in the spirit world (or faerie world, otherworld) by a
master of perception.
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Marks
Unregistered User
(10/6/02 12:23:59 pm)
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Here is an interesting review...
...of "Spirited Away." I'm not sure I agree 100% about the dismissal of the "good vs. evil" convention, as it is as old as recorded history, but it is something I do tire of, and the bending around this archetype is something I like about Miyazaki's films. By the way, this movie received a 100% fresh rating on the "Rotten Tomatoes" review site - not one bad review. I can't remember that ever happening before, even with some movies universally agreed to be great.
www.rottentomatoes.com/cl...rid=784594
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fherman1
Unregistered User
(10/6/02 6:35:22 pm)
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Um, Marks?
So where's the part where you disagree with me about _Spirited Away_? I didn't see any contradiction....
Fred
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Gregor9
Unregistered User
(10/7/02 6:25:01 am)
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Spirited Away
I agree with Fred completely on "Spirited Away". I loved the film. It is just one beautiful image after another, until you almost forget you're watching something animated. I did think it was too long, and the great moment of revelation wasn't nearly as powerful as I would have liked. But, hey, I'm a hardcase on cinema, and in the case of this movie, it's really really small potatoes.
I'd have a tough time picking this over "Princess Mononoke"-- both are astonishing, and both deal with notions of good and evil in indirect ways that I find a lot more exciting than, say, anything Disney. Speaking of which, Disney is distributing this movie with the intention of burying it deep. Miyazaki is their competition, and they are repeating the same pattern as with Mononoke. You may well have to search far and wide to find a theater playing it. It's worth the search.
A lot of the films listed in previous posts I've seen and, having done so, can say fairly I wouldn't see again at gunpoint. I've never understood the appeal of Clive Barker films, but I suspect there are just some things the forebrain is not meant to understand. Take "Nightbreed." Please.
Greg
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Richard
Parks
Registered User
(10/7/02 8:17:25 am)
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Re: Spirited Away
I didn't bother waiting for a local theater to show the film; around here, I knew it wasn't going to happen and went straight for the import dvd.
Sure, there are things I wish Miyazaki had done differently, but they're all quibbles. Great story, great film. I won't say I liked it better than, say, Princesss Mononoke or Kiki's Delivery Service. They're different films, and frankly I wouldn't give up any of them.
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Gregor9
Registered User
(10/7/02 8:54:31 am)
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Re: Spirited Away
And what could possibly best the cat bus from "My Neighbor Totoro"?
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MarkS
Unregistered User
(10/7/02 7:56:07 pm)
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Sorry.........
...I suppose I should have said I disagree in part with your review, fherman1. I didn't find it overly long at all. In fact, it ran exactly 2 hours and 10 minutes, which is about as long as many movies. It's the pace that I think people find slow. It isn't the usual blip editing and constant motion rollercoaster ride that audiences demand out of films these days. And I say thank God for the pace. I like slower. I enjoy movies that unfold, establish characters, and tell a story in something other than flashes. I would also state that while she was concerned with rescuing her parents, she had to go about it a certain way, and those ways became whole other stories. She visited them once, and dreamed about them another time, and fretted about them from the other side of the island yet again, just to remind the audience that it was still a concern. I think that is acceptable. Look at how many sidetrips Pinocchio takes us on in his efforts to become a real boy. Anyway, we probably agree more on what was right about it than disagree on what may have been wrong.
Speaking of Pinocchio, anyone see the trailer for the upcoming and horrible looking version featuring non other than that out-of-control weasle on crank, Roberto Benigni? Augh!
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Kyra238
Registered User
(10/9/02 12:57:50 pm)
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Vampires and Werewolves
The problem with a lot of current vampire and werewolf interpretations, IMHO, is that the terror has been taken out of the monsters. The vampire as a protagonist was a great idea at first, but unfortunately this turned into the sexy vampire. I don't have a problem with sexy vampires per se, since it gives them another sort of power. However, the thing that originally made "Interview with the Vampire" and "Vampire: The Masquerade" so amazing was the fact that the vampires involved see it as a curse. And that idea has been downplayed since then.
Werewolves have become less scary now that people want a positive image of the wolf. However, the fact that I like wolves has always made traditional werewolves more terrifying to me, because they really aren't the same thing at all. Essentially a werewolf is a human who decides to take the shape of a very powerful creature so they may kill indiscriminately for the sake of killing. Incidentally, there was an episode of the X-Files several years ago (4 or 5) that dealt with a crypto-zoologist who had gone to China to investigate the possible existence of a probably extinct type of wild dog associated with (somewhat malicious) trickster ideas but ended up becoming one and killing several people. It really nailed the terror of the willing killer for me. I also thought it was an interesting take on the idea.
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fherman1
Unregistered User
(10/25/02 8:25:07 pm)
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Sexy vampires...
...have been around in fiction since at least the early 19th century. Not a new thing. In fact, aside from _Nosferatu_/_Shadow of the Vampire_ (and, of course, White Wolf Games' Nosferatu, who exist alongside other vampire types who *are* attractive), have there been *any* non-sexy vampire portrayals this past century?
(I'm talking Western pop-culture vampires, not Chinese hopping vampires et al.)
Fred
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catja1
Registered User
(10/26/02 9:43:51 am)
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Also
_Freeway_ (Little Red Riding Hood in modern California, with a serial killer twist, and Reese Witherspoon and Kiefer Sutherland giving the best performances of their careers), and _The Piano_ (Bluebeard themes).
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