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My brother lent me his Shudder account! I've been making my way through a long-ignored recs list while I unbind and scan artbooks. This has proven a very effective way for me to actually watch entire movies, since my biggest issues with movie-watching is that i get too bored or too spooked while watching...but now when that happens I just concentrate very hard on the book scanning process. X)
Anyway here's some spoilery thoughts on what I've watched. I've liked everything I've seen and would recommend all of them, unless you really like gore because these are fairly light on that front.
Scare Me: This is a very funny movie until the last 10 minutes when it becomes one of the most frightening things i've seen in recent memory. Ultimately it is a story about how true horror is basic white men who feel entitled to success. I think this is the only movie I've seen that conveys how...exhausting it is when you see boring white dudes answer their insecurities. Like, the dude "writer" is given so! many! opportunities to grow, to learn, to become something more than shitty basic white dude, and at the end of the movie he just self-destructs in a frightening and also frustrating way, because he never acknowledges his personal responsibilities to the very end.
also loved the pizza guy who had graduated from Oxford. Just a great example of how you can paint a fascinating character with just a few telling strokes, who also serves as vicious social commentary.
also, also! i liked that there was an instance of hard drug use that was neither glamorous nor condemning in tone. it was just...there.
i guess i was a little disappointed that the initial supernatural hook of the movie ended up not being a thing (the idea that fictional stories would manifest in reality) but given the theme of the movie, that's understandable.
Host: This movie takes place within the confines of a free Zoom meeting, which is a really clever conceit I think, and as a found footage style film it does some deeply unsettling things with customized Zoom backgrounds and filters. After a certain point though, it becomes clear how things will end, and after that watching becomes less frightening and more grueling. However, the movie's short enough that I didn't find this quality too overbearing.
Hell House LLC: My favorite thing about found footage films is how effective they are at taking relatively innocuous imagery and making it terrifying, and I think Hell House does this remarkably well. I loved/was horrified by:
- the recurring shots of the stairs leading to the basement and the handprints left behind
- the emphasis on navigating by room settings, rather than understanding the layout of the floor as a whole
- the way mannequins (which maybe, probably, were not mannequins) kept creeping into shots
- never seeing the aftermath of what happened in the basement
in retrospect, the plotting is a bit confusing, in the sense that i'm not sure if i was watching a documentary on the Hell House event or a documentary about an unfinished doc on the Hell House event, but that's a minor complaint given the (spooky) feels it delivers.
Housebound: I don't have anything particularly insightful to say here. This was a well-crafted murder mystery that had some supernatural/slasher elements and was also pretty funny. I found the numerous plot twists surprising and satisfying, and I enjoyed how it had an unabashedly happy ending.
On my to-watch list:
V/H/S
Noroi
Medium
Werewolf Within
Poughkeepsie Tapes
whatever this unlisted youtube found footage film is
On the fence about watching the sequels to Hell House LLC. The summaries and trailers look...kinda dumb tbh. Not really big on horror sequels that clarify the mysterious horror that lies at the heart of the initial story...but at the same time, I want to know what's in the basement, lol.
Anyway here's some spoilery thoughts on what I've watched. I've liked everything I've seen and would recommend all of them, unless you really like gore because these are fairly light on that front.
Scare Me: This is a very funny movie until the last 10 minutes when it becomes one of the most frightening things i've seen in recent memory. Ultimately it is a story about how true horror is basic white men who feel entitled to success. I think this is the only movie I've seen that conveys how...exhausting it is when you see boring white dudes answer their insecurities. Like, the dude "writer" is given so! many! opportunities to grow, to learn, to become something more than shitty basic white dude, and at the end of the movie he just self-destructs in a frightening and also frustrating way, because he never acknowledges his personal responsibilities to the very end.
also loved the pizza guy who had graduated from Oxford. Just a great example of how you can paint a fascinating character with just a few telling strokes, who also serves as vicious social commentary.
also, also! i liked that there was an instance of hard drug use that was neither glamorous nor condemning in tone. it was just...there.
i guess i was a little disappointed that the initial supernatural hook of the movie ended up not being a thing (the idea that fictional stories would manifest in reality) but given the theme of the movie, that's understandable.
Host: This movie takes place within the confines of a free Zoom meeting, which is a really clever conceit I think, and as a found footage style film it does some deeply unsettling things with customized Zoom backgrounds and filters. After a certain point though, it becomes clear how things will end, and after that watching becomes less frightening and more grueling. However, the movie's short enough that I didn't find this quality too overbearing.
Hell House LLC: My favorite thing about found footage films is how effective they are at taking relatively innocuous imagery and making it terrifying, and I think Hell House does this remarkably well. I loved/was horrified by:
- the recurring shots of the stairs leading to the basement and the handprints left behind
- the emphasis on navigating by room settings, rather than understanding the layout of the floor as a whole
- the way mannequins (which maybe, probably, were not mannequins) kept creeping into shots
- never seeing the aftermath of what happened in the basement
in retrospect, the plotting is a bit confusing, in the sense that i'm not sure if i was watching a documentary on the Hell House event or a documentary about an unfinished doc on the Hell House event, but that's a minor complaint given the (spooky) feels it delivers.
Housebound: I don't have anything particularly insightful to say here. This was a well-crafted murder mystery that had some supernatural/slasher elements and was also pretty funny. I found the numerous plot twists surprising and satisfying, and I enjoyed how it had an unabashedly happy ending.
On my to-watch list:
V/H/S
Noroi
Medium
Werewolf Within
Poughkeepsie Tapes
whatever this unlisted youtube found footage film is
On the fence about watching the sequels to Hell House LLC. The summaries and trailers look...kinda dumb tbh. Not really big on horror sequels that clarify the mysterious horror that lies at the heart of the initial story...but at the same time, I want to know what's in the basement, lol.
