Horror Show

[Scorpio]

Guilty please "Death Ship" with George Kennedy and Richard Crenna.

Never read a review that didn't completely slam this movie, but I enjoyed it (In a "so stupid it's fun" kind of way)

I personally this "Ghost Ship" was a loose, uncredited remake of it (and I enjoyed that one too)

I saw Death Ship an age ago. I seem to remember Nazi's in it for some reason.

[RivkahChaya]

I think King regards himself primarily as a storyteller, and it shows in the movies.
A lot of directors are ignorant of the story tellers art, and the result is often way to literal and heavy handed.
DePalma and Kubrick possessed enough ability to convert King's engaging but often self indulgent style into pure cinema.

I have never liked the movie The Shining, but then I'm not much of a fan of Kubrick. I recognize that what he does, he does well, it just isn't my taste.

[SPOILERS, if you aren't familiar with The Shining, and don't want to be]

Apparently, Stephen King didn't like the choice of Jack Nicholson for the main role, because he said that from the very beginning, you just look at him, and you know he's going to go crazy-- which is pretty much true of Nicholson, no matter what movie he is in, unless he starts out already crazy.

King wanted Michael Moriarty for the role, someone who would come across so sane and sober, that it'd be a shock later when he went crazy, and you would believe there had to be a supernatural, or some outside force, at work, because a guy like that doesn't just go off the deep end, he has to be pushed (yes, I realize the character was already an alcoholic, but not all alcoholics are violent or even detectably altered, if they have been drinking for a long time, but they are generally more suggestible than sober people.)

Michael Moriarty is the guy who played Ben Stone, the first ADA on Law & Order (the first US version). Tall, blonde, nondescript, slow-spoken, and born to play a guy with the last name "Stone." He plays immutable characters a lot, people who, even when they are deeply moved, show it through quite action, not through rending their garments. It would have been shocking and disturbing to see him become an ax-murderer.

Also, he would have been believable with Shelley Duvall.

[Scorpio]

I think King regards himself primarily as a storyteller, and it shows in the movies.
A lot of directors are ignorant of the story tellers art, and the result is often way to literal and heavy handed.
DePalma and Kubrick possessed enough ability to convert King's engaging but often self indulgent style into pure cinema.

[kensei]

Do you mean Christine? I didn't make it all the way through that film, so I can't remember if it was a sedan or a sports car, but I'm pretty sure it was black.

It was Stephen King, and to be honest, I've not read his books much. I read Dolores Claiborne, two of the novellas in Different Seasons, and a couple of short stories, but I've never made it through one of his really long novels, in spite of the fact that his writing is pretty tight, and they start off well. I just never identify with his characters. I thought the idea at the beginning of Gerald's Game was great, but once the initial problem was resolved, I was done with it.

His books are always a struggle to bring to screen. I loved Dolores Claiborne (the movie), but the pairing of Kathy Bates and Jennifer Jason Leigh really couldn't miss, I don't think, and Stand by Me was great, mainly because Rob Reiner trusted his child actors, and didn't over-direct them, and then, it was a suspense film, but not a monster movie, or a supernatural story. In spite of some really gross stuff in King, I think he puts some things in them that no special effects creator can make, which can compete with what he manages to conjure up in reader's minds.

Come to think of it, his other successful films, like Misery haven't been supernatural, and Carrie saved it to the end. (And to be honest, I know that film was well-received, but I didn't like it much myself.)

No no, not "Christine," but "The Car" which was referenced by Scorpio up in post #87, 1977 starring James Brolin. Big black nondescript sedan with no driver. Christine was 1983 and the car was a red '58 Plymouth Fury that required an owner for the demon within it to be released. It could operate driverless but primarily the demon possessed the owner. That was a genuinely good movie, whereas "The Car" pretty much sucked.

Love Stephen King, sporadically at least. Agreed that Kathy Bates and Jennifer Jason Leigh together in "Dolores Claiborne" were awesome, though that's not a horror film really. One of my favorites King films is "Silver Bullet" which came from the novella "Cycle of the Werewolf." Though it's a pretty big cheese fest, I just like werewolves. Plus, Megan Follows at that young age was heartbreakingly cute, Cory Haim was still alive and had yet to descend into drugs, and Gary Busey is always entertaining no matter if he's acting or just being himself.

[Magpie]

Guilty please "Death Ship" with George Kennedy and Richard Crenna.

Never read a review that didn't completely slam this movie, but I enjoyed it (In a "so stupid it's fun" kind of way)

I personally this "Ghost Ship" was a loose, uncredited remake of it (and I enjoyed that one too)

[Magpie]

"The Car." Oh yeah, I remember that one too. A big black sedan with no driver that is possessed by the Devil and goes around running over people. Can't drive across holy ground so you're safe to hide in a cemetery. Bullets bounced off it. Driver's door flew opened suddenly to knock down the guy trying to shoot it. Defeated in the end, if I recall correctly, by being led to drive off a cliff that had been rigged with dynamite that then detonated and brought the whole cliff face collapsing down upon it. Loved it as a kid. If I saw it today, I'm sure I would laugh.

The bizarre thing about The Car is that everyone seems to remember it being a lot more gory that it actually was. It was a TV movie, after all, so it didn't really show anything too gross.

[RivkahChaya]

"The Car." Oh yeah, I remember that one too. A big black sedan with no driver that is possessed by the Devil and goes around running over people. Can't drive across holy ground so you're safe to hide in a cemetery. Bullets bounced off it. Driver's door flew opened suddenly to knock down the guy trying to shoot it. Defeated in the end, if I recall correctly, by being led to drive off a cliff that had been rigged with dynamite that then detonated and brought the whole cliff face collapsing down upon it. Loved it as a kid. If I saw it today, I'm sure I would laugh.

Do you mean Christine? I didn't make it all the way through that film, so I can't remember if it was a sedan or a sports car, but I'm pretty sure it was black.

It was Stephen King, and to be honest, I've not read his books much. I read Dolores Claiborne, two of the novellas in Different Seasons, and a couple of short stories, but I've never made it through one of his really long novels, in spite of the fact that his writing is pretty tight, and they start off well. I just never identify with his characters. I thought the idea at the beginning of Gerald's Game was great, but once the initial problem was resolved, I was done with it.

His books are always a struggle to bring to screen. I loved Dolores Claiborne (the movie), but the pairing of Kathy Bates and Jennifer Jason Leigh really couldn't miss, I don't think, and Stand by Me was great, mainly because Rob Reiner trusted his child actors, and didn't over-direct them, and then, it was a suspense film, but not a monster movie, or a supernatural story. In spite of some really gross stuff in King, I think he puts some things in them that no special effects creator can make, which can compete with what he manages to conjure up in reader's minds.

Come to think of it, his other successful films, like Misery haven't been supernatural, and Carrie saved it to the end. (And to be honest, I know that film was well-received, but I didn't like it much myself.)

[kensei]

Oh, and couldn't fail to mention this. I just acheived a goal I've had for many years. I have acquired a VHS tape of "The Vulture," which I mentioned in post #14 as being a movie I saw on tv in my childhood that absolutely SCARED THE HELL OUT OF ME. Half man-half bird creature with a vendetta against an English family, stalking them one by one, luring them out on to balconies and then an eerie flapping of wings and then terrifying talons come down and grab them by the shoulders and whisk them away to a gruesome fate! At least that's how I remember it. For many years I have wanted to see it again to see if it would seem funny today or if it still chills. It was out of print, unavailalbe, for the longest time. Then I found it on Amazon.com for some staggeringly expensive price. Finally, this month, I saw one affordable copy listed. It arrived yesterday. I haven't watched it yet. Has anyone else seen this and if so how do you remember it?

[kensei]

SNOWBEAST! Oh, what a grand memory from when I was about 10 years old. I have always been very into cryptozoology so this movie about a killer Bigfoot absolutely captivated me back then. I thought it was terrifying. Tracked it down on video in adulthood so I could relive that memory and found, as I suspected, that on a second viewing it was pretty goofy. I've seen a lot of movies where you don't get a full view of the monster until late in the film, but in this one when that finally happens we literally only get to see a few seconds of him. And then he is shot a bunch of times, which slows him down a bit. And then he is killed- by being stabbed with a ski pole. Oh well. He did have a really scary roar. Best actor in the film (which did not have any actors that could be called stellar) was Robert Logan, more famous for the "Wilderness Family" movies of the 1970s which I remember enjoying very much. The first one of those had a very scary grizzly bear in it called Three-Toes that seemed almost too much for a family-friendly film.

"The Car." Oh yeah, I remember that one too. A big black sedan with no driver that is possessed by the Devil and goes around running over people. Can't drive across holy ground so you're safe to hide in a cemetery. Bullets bounced off it. Driver's door flew opened suddenly to knock down the guy trying to shoot it. Defeated in the end, if I recall correctly, by being led to drive off a cliff that had been rigged with dynamite that then detonated and brought the whole cliff face collapsing down upon it. Loved it as a kid. If I saw it today, I'm sure I would laugh.

[RivkahChaya]

Any horror movie with a machine in the title is Z grade.
' I bought a vampire motorcylce.'
' The car. '
' Driller Killer '
Machines are not scary. I would laugh in a homicidal milk floats face

Check out The Mangler. A mangler is an old hand cranked machine clothes wringer, and this movie is about a possessed one. It is still scarier than the movie about the possessed pinata, mostly due to having good actors who agreed to be in it inexplicably.

I was a Scooby fan; but i didn't like Scappy much.

Everyone hated Scrappy. Every. One. You could make a TV show with nothing but Cousin Oliver, the second Darrin Stephens, Coy and Vance Duke, and Jar-Jar Binks, and people would watch it before they'd watch a "Scrappy" episode of Scooby-doo. Did you see the live action Scooby-doo movie? It was generally lukewarm, except for the 4-star ending, a gift to Scrappy haters everywhere, which is pretty much every American born after 1964.

Snow Beast was written by Joe Stefano: writer of Psycho.

Couldn't get any hits one "Snow Beast" at IMdb, so I tried "Snow Creature," and tried it as "plot," and "key words." I finally found it under Joseph Stephano. Turns out "Snowbeast" is one word. Wow. You'd think IMDb would be smarter then that. People must make that kind of entry error all the time, especially since, if I were using an autocorrect feature, it would have separated the words even if I'd entered them correctly. Correctly for the movie, anyway.

[Scorpio]

How about Killdozer!?

Any horror movie with a machine in the title is Z grade.
' I bought a vampire motorcylce.'
' The car. '
' Driller Killer '
Machines are not scary. I would laugh in a homicidal milk floats face

[Scorpio]

That sounds exactly like a Scooby-doo episode from the original series called "That's Snow Ghost!"

Of course, it also sounds vaguely like a lot of bad TV horror films from the 80s.

Something that gave me nightmares for weeks, that I saw when I was about seven, took me literally 37 years to track down, but I did finally get a grainy DVD copy of it. What I remembered from when I was seven was a ghost wandering around a hospital, and losing parts, so that you eventually had a handless, legless ghost with empty eye sockets floating (through the magic of double exposure) around, as parts of him were transplanted onto other people. It turned out [SPOILER ALERT] that he'd been murdered, and the people with the transplants begin to have memory flashes limited to the part of the body they had-- the woman with the eyes saw what had happened, but out of context, the guy with the hands kept waking up and pounding on the door to get out of the room, but didn't know why. One of the doctors puts it all together, so to speak. Mainly, I remembered the creepy ghost losing parts.

Of course, when I finally saw it, the production values were lousy-- like, people would bump into sets, and they'd be clearly made out of cardboard and Styrofoam, and the acting was, umm, maybe they just got the script the night before, but the worst part was that the murdered guy turned out to be a total tool, who had almost deserved it-- if it had happened today, his wife might have gotten off with "battered woman's syndrome." I had either missed that part, or just not understood it, when I was seven. It was really a bad dramatic choice on the part of the scriptwriter, but it's almost not fair to critique it, because that was the most down-and-out looking hospital anywhere. I wouldn't go there to have a splinter pulled, let alone experimental hand-transplant surgery. By the same guy who transplants eyeballs. Geez. Spring for a second actor.

But cripes, did that give me nightmares when I was seven.

I was a Scooby fan; but i didn't like Scappy much.
Snow Beast was written by Joe Stefano: writer of Psycho.
Perhaps, he was having a trouble paying the rent.
Bo Svenson,Yvette Mimieux,Clint Walker, and Robert Logan starred.
Its a Colorado Yeti movie.

[RivkahChaya]

How about Killdozer!?

My nominee for very worst monster ever, even worse than the bunny-rabbits on Night of the Lepus, was the monster of Survival Island (aka, Demon Island): a killer pinata. Seriously. Not making it up (OK, it's a demon-possessed pinata, as if that makes a difference). It makes the guy in the gorilla suit and diver's helmet from Robot Monster look scary. If the movie were campy, it might be really funny, but it's not even Plan 9 from Outer Space. The people who are in it look like it was either make this movie, spend the weekend in jail after some frat kegger got waaay out of hand.

[RivkahChaya]

Does anyone remember a TV horror drama called ' Snow Beast '. It was set in a skiing resort in the Rockies,in the early eighties. The beast scared me; i was about seven.

That sounds exactly like a Scooby-doo episode from the original series called "That's Snow Ghost!"

Of course, it also sounds vaguely like a lot of bad TV horror films from the 80s.

Something that gave me nightmares for weeks, that I saw when I was about seven, took me literally 37 years to track down, but I did finally get a grainy DVD copy of it. What I remembered from when I was seven was a ghost wandering around a hospital, and losing parts, so that you eventually had a handless, legless ghost with empty eye sockets floating (through the magic of double exposure) around, as parts of him were transplanted onto other people. It turned out [SPOILER ALERT] that he'd been murdered, and the people with the transplants begin to have memory flashes limited to the part of the body they had-- the woman with the eyes saw what had happened, but out of context, the guy with the hands kept waking up and pounding on the door to get out of the room, but didn't know why. One of the doctors puts it all together, so to speak. Mainly, I remembered the creepy ghost losing parts.

Of course, when I finally saw it, the production values were lousy-- like, people would bump into sets, and they'd be clearly made out of cardboard and Styrofoam, and the acting was, umm, maybe they just got the script the night before, but the worst part was that the murdered guy turned out to be a total tool, who had almost deserved it-- if it had happened today, his wife might have gotten off with "battered woman's syndrome." I had either missed that part, or just not understood it, when I was seven. It was really a bad dramatic choice on the part of the scriptwriter, but it's almost not fair to critique it, because that was the most down-and-out looking hospital anywhere. I wouldn't go there to have a splinter pulled, let alone experimental hand-transplant surgery. By the same guy who transplants eyeballs. Geez. Spring for a second actor.

But cripes, did that give me nightmares when I was seven.

[sdreid]

How about Killdozer!?