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asterisk8 said:

Bingowings said:

I watched it partly because I had recently dug out an old favourite of mine, The Legend Of Hell House (1973) and I was trying to find another good creepy haunted house film which isn't The Haunting (1963).

Any recommendations out there? 

The Changeling
The Others
The Innocents
Woman In Black
The Orphanage
Suspiria

Thanks for the recommendations.

The Changeling is a film I used really like when I was a kid but when I got it on DVD a few years back it wasn't anywhere near as good as I remembered it.

The Innocents isn't really a haunted house film if you read between the lines.

The Woman In Black (assuming you mean the UK telly version) is a really good scare and I'll have to get hold of it again.

I thought about The Udders and it's a nice film but it wasn't quite what I was in the mood for and I saw The Orphanage and Suspiria quite recently.

I settled for The Sentinel (1977) which had a cast to die for and a few good ideas utterly wasted in such a really stupid but admitted bonkers film (Michael Winner, need I say more?). It seems as if after Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist and The Omen every star's agent rang up at once to try and derail the genre at the producer's expense. 

After that crock of spoo I settled down to Let's Scare Jessica To Death (1971).

The early seventies are full of really clever nuanced films forced to walk all eternity with badly fitting titles.

It's beautifully shot, delightfully acted and really strange and purposefully disjointed.

It's almost a culture shock to see a film from an age where you didn't have to look like a fashion model to play a 'normal' person (even if that 'normal' person may be a bit on the mentally unhinged side).

Many frames are littered with subliminal symbolism and hidden details that pop out of the blue.

Like The Haunting (1963) you are never sure if what's going on is real, a delusion or a mixture of both.

I understand there is a remake and I dread to think what that's like.

This is one of my new favourites.

Four fluttering charcoal rubbings out of five.

Star Trek The Motion Picture. Does anyone know the difference between the original and the directors cut?.

Re: star trek - try here - 

http://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=542

comparison of the theatrical and TV versions.

http://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=2400

comparison of the theatrical and Director's cut.

Bingowings said:

Thanks for the recommendations.

No problem! Just what I could think of off the top of my head. I did IMDb's 30 Horror Movies in October challenge a couple years ago and did a big block of haunted house movies.

You're right about The Changeling. I think it's worth watching if you're a fan of the subgenre, but it isn't great. The Innocents deserves to be on any haunted house movie list despite what can be read between the lines at the end. It is a spooky film. I love The Others and recommend it as often as I can. It's one of the most effective haunted house movies I've ever seen.

Of course I knew I was forgetting one good one, and it's the one you liked the most. Let's Scare Jessica to Death is really great!

If you don't mind silent films, I recommend The Cat and the Canary. The character of "Mammy Pleasant" creeps me out.

xhonzi said:

The wife and I watched Unstoppable a few days ago. 

2 things:

1. It made me think of the previous discussions at to whether "knowing the end or knowing who lives/who dies" is enough to wreck the drama of a story/film.

This movie is basically completely understood from the poster.  There's a runaway train.  It's Unstoppable.  Kirk and John Creasy are going to stop it, because they ARE EVEN MORE UNSTOBBABLE!  (X-TREME!!!!)  Tony Scott, however, is able to bring plenty of tension to the action regardless of there never being any doubt in the audience's mind how it's going to end.

2. As I have mentioned before, I have a "motion simulator" chair that moves with some of the movies out there.  Unstoppable supported this feature and frankly I'm not sure I would have bothered with this movie except that I heard it was awesome "in the chair".

And it was.

Just watched this tonight with the wife as well.

I agree with everything you said.

Except for the chair, I have no fancy motion chair. *tear*

Blue Velvet - 8/10

Got to see this in HD thanks to On Demand and boy am I glad I did. What a movie! Definitely one to own on Blu-Ray when it comes out in November.

This is the beginning of my reappraisal of David Lynch, after getting off to a bad start with Lost Highway when I was too young to understand it. 14 years later, I think I'm ready.

Face/Off

A perfect, over the top, sci-fi 90's action flick.

Attack the block. [I aint even lying, bruv!]

3 out of 4 balls. Good fun.

[allow it]

Carrying on with the haunted house theme.

The Uninvited (1944).

Split opinion in Chateau Bingowings.

I thought it was a great mix of a Hollywood style romance/melodrama of the day with some genuinely spooky moments and characters.

If it was made a bit later it could have cranked up the scares and toned down the romance but for it's day it was quite daring (especially the Lesbian subtext).

The other half thought it was too mannered to be enjoyable.

My score

3 frightened squirrels out of 5.

Enjoyed a little blast from the past tonight in the form of Burnt Offerings (1976).

Nice central concept, slightly buggered up by bad narrative pacing.

Like Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall in Kubrick's take on The Shining, Oliver Reed and Karen Black don't do a good job in descending into an insane situation, they seem too screwed up by the first ten minutes to sell the idea and Betty Davis goes from chirpy old-timer to death's door quicker than Yoda in ROTJ.

There are some very clever practical effects which I'm sure would be pulled off with awful CGI if anyone were to remake the thing.

I recently saw a picture of Karen Black and thought she was one of those tragic victims of too much cosmetic surgery, I'd forgotten how weird she looked back in the seventies.

Two shattered fruit bowls out of five.

RedFive said:

The Prestige

Being now the fourth or fifth time I've seen this, I still find more perspectives and understand different characters better.  The whole movie is a magic trick!  Easily one of my all-time favorites.

10/10 dead birds.

Meh.

If they would have had Bowie play Tesla, the movie would have better.