Horror Show

[kensei]

Robert Ressler, the FBI profiling pioneer, has stated that Hannibal Lector is not an accurate depiction of a serial killer in his opinion.
Ressler feels that Lector is a combination of organized and disorganized elements that he has never encountered in his professional life.
No organized killer who is able to maintain a profession requiring highly developed social skills and sophisticated judgement in so many arena's has ever practiced cannabalism.

I never saw anything disorganized about Hannibal. Even his cannibalism was carried out with the finest kitchen utensils, even side dishes like some fava beans and a nice chianti.

[Scorpio]

I've always found "The Fog" to be deliciously creepy.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080749/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2

There aren't enough supernatural revenge movies.

[Penhalion]

I've always found "The Fog" to be deliciously creepy.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080749/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2

[Scorpio]

Robert Ressler, the FBI profiling pioneer, has stated that Hannibal Lector is not an accurate depiction of a serial killer in his opinion.
Ressler feels that Lector is a combination of organized and disorganized elements that he has never encountered in his professional life.
No organized killer who is able to maintain a profession requiring highly developed social skills and sophisticated judgement in so many arena's has ever practiced cannabalism.

[kensei]

The serial killer has provided a rich harvest for the horror genre, but do any of these movies portray the phenomena with any fidelity?.
Here are some of my nominations:
10 Rillington Place ( John Christie )
Citizen X ( The Rostov Ripper )
Henry, Portrait of a serial killer ( Henry Lee Lucas )
Casebook fans, can you think of any to add to the list ?.

Hannibal Lecter, the genius gentleman serial killer, is not likely to be realistic. But for consideration, Ralph Fiennes in "Red Dragon" and the Phantom in the embellished true story "The Town that Dreaded Sundown" were both interesting. They both put a ton of effort into their grim hobby.

[Scorpio]

The serial killer has provided a rich harvest for the horror genre, but do any of these movies portray the phenomena with any fidelity?.
Here are some of my nominations:
10 Rillington Place ( John Christie )
Citizen X ( The Rostov Ripper )
Henry, Portrait of a serial killer ( Henry Lee Lucas )
Casebook fans, can you think of any to add to the list ?.

[Scorpio]

SPOILERS...SPOILERS...SPOILERS...SPOILERS!!!


Did you see this in the theater when it first came out? I did, and something very clever happened that made the ending almost unbearably tense, and isn't repeatable-- you just can't experience it anymore.

That actors died in reverse order of their degree of bankability. That's totally counter to what normally happens in a Hollywood (yes, I know this was a British co-production) film. Usually the most famous person is alive at the end, if anyone is, and the unknowns are red-shirted. If the star dies before the end, you can pretty much count on everyone dying.

In 1979, John Hurt was hugely famous. He'd been popular in Britain for years, and was a hit in the US with I, Claudius. Tom Skerritt had been working for almost two decades, and had just been in a hit film with Shirley MacLaine & Anne Bancroft. Veronica Cartwright had been acting since childhood. She'd had a recurring role on Leave It to Beaver, and had been in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. Sigourney Weaver, no one had heard of. She'd had one line in a Woody Allen movie, and a part in a TV mini-series, and that was pretty much it. The ink was still damp on her SAG card.

So, first of all, it's a shock when John Hurt dies at all, because your expectation is that Ripley (Weaver) is the throw-away character, and that either Dallas (Skerritt) or Kane (Hurt) will be alive at the end, if anyone is. Once both of them are dead, you're sort of ready for an outer-space disaster movie, where everyone dies-- another thing to know is that it isn't entirely clear from the commercials and previews exactly what the Nostromo encounters, and there had been a fad for disaster movies, like The Towering Inferno, & The Poseidon Adventure, which were sort of "who's going to die?-- maybe everyone" suspense movies; Alien came at the end of this fad.

So, really, when the ship is counting down, you aren't expecting Ripley to make it. When she and the cat are asleep, you stay to watch the credits roll, still expecting a surprise. It isn't until the screen goes black, that you are really sure she made it.

It's still an awesome movie, but there's no way to see it now, without knowing that Sigourney Weaver is a huge star, and famous for playing tough women, and maybe getting young Tom Skerritt confused with Kris Kristofferson.

I was to young to see the movie in theaters, but i have vague memories of an elder family friend enthusiastically describing John Hurt's demise.
' oooohhhhmmmyyyygggod'.

[Scorpio]

Max von Sydow = totally amazing.

What a fantastic career: he's done Ingmar Bergman movies, he's played a pope, Jesus, Otto Frank, Eugene O'Neill, August Strindberg, he was married to Barbara Hershey in a Woody Allen movie, he did a TV-movie version of the Nuremberg trials (that compares surprisingly well to the earlier film) with Alec Baldwin & Jill Hennessy, and he also voiced one of the ghosts in Ghostbusters II. Among other things. In at least three different languages. I'm kinda surprised he hasn't done a voice-over on The Simpsons.

Max was also supposed to be Peter Weyland in Prometheus. Critics feel that he would have made a more convincing centenarian than Guy Pierce.

[RivkahChaya]

Well, bankability, is partly in the ey of the beholder, but I don't think you can argue that Hurt was not the best kniwn, or that Weaver was the only true unknown. For some, it msy have been a US/UK thing-- Ian Holm was probably better known in the UK, and Kotto better known in the US. Skerritt had bankability as a lead actor type, while Cartwright had sentimental appeal, and a sort of in-joke for older viewers-- her sister Angela was part of the main cast of Lost in Space .

[kensei]

SPOILERS...SPOILERS...SPOILERS...SPOILERS!!!


Did you see this in the theater when it first came out? I did, and something very clever happened that made the ending almost unbearably tense, and isn't repeatable-- you just can't experience it anymore.

That actors died in reverse order of their degree of bankability. That's totally counter to what normally happens in a Hollywood (yes, I know this was a British co-production) film. Usually the most famous person is alive at the end, if anyone is, and the unknowns are red-shirted. If the star dies before the end, you can pretty much count on everyone dying.

In 1979, John Hurt was hugely famous. He'd been popular in Britain for years, and was a hit in the US with I, Claudius. Tom Skerritt had been working for almost two decades, and had just been in a hit film with Shirley MacLaine & Anne Bancroft. Veronica Cartwright had been acting since childhood. She'd had a recurring role on Leave It to Beaver, and had been in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. Sigourney Weaver, no one had heard of. She'd had one line in a Woody Allen movie, and a part in a TV mini-series, and that was pretty much it. The ink was still damp on her SAG card.

So, first of all, it's a shock when John Hurt dies at all, because your expectation is that Ripley (Weaver) is the throw-away character, and that either Dallas (Skerritt) or Kane (Hurt) will be alive at the end, if anyone is. Once both of them are dead, you're sort of ready for an outer-space disaster movie, where everyone dies-- another thing to know is that it isn't entirely clear from the commercials and previews exactly what the Nostromo encounters, and there had been a fad for disaster movies, like The Towering Inferno, & The Poseidon Adventure, which were sort of "who's going to die?-- maybe everyone" suspense movies; Alien came at the end of this fad.

So, really, when the ship is counting down, you aren't expecting Ripley to make it. When she and the cat are asleep, you stay to watch the credits roll, still expecting a surprise. It isn't until the screen goes black, that you are really sure she made it.

It's still an awesome movie, but there's no way to see it now, without knowing that Sigourney Weaver is a huge star, and famous for playing tough women, and maybe getting young Tom Skerritt confused with Kris Kristofferson.

Some great observations, but you left out Yaphet Kotto and Ian Holm, who'd been making movies since the early and late 60s respectively. Kotto dies at the same time as Cartwright, while Holm gets it just previous to them though he doesn't really "die" because he turns out to be an android and isn't really alive to begin with. I think the bankability of some of the cast could have been viewed as equal at that time, but it's still a good point you make. Sigourney Weaver must have felt a little star-struck on that set.

A good joke can be made about the line that was used to advertise "Alien"- "In space no one can hear you scream." Really? There was an awful lot of screaming in that movie. The monster was such an incredible and original creation, though, as designed by H.R. Geiger. The face-hugger, the metamorphosis, the acid for blood, the mouth within a mouth- nothing even remotely like it had ever been seen before. It truly embodied the very word "alien."

P.S./Edit- Woops, now we both left someone out. Harry Dean Stanton, who was second to die in the film after John Hurt, had the longest history of all as he'd been making movies since 1956.

[RivkahChaya]

Along with Gandalf,Saruman and Rhadagast, I believe that Max Von Sydow is a member of the immortal Istari.

Max von Sydow = totally amazing.

What a fantastic career: he's done Ingmar Bergman movies, he's played a pope, Jesus, Otto Frank, Eugene O'Neill, August Strindberg, he was married to Barbara Hershey in a Woody Allen movie, he did a TV-movie version of the Nuremberg trials (that compares surprisingly well to the earlier film) with Alec Baldwin & Jill Hennessy, and he also voiced one of the ghosts in Ghostbusters II. Among other things. In at least three different languages. I'm kinda surprised he hasn't done a voice-over on The Simpsons.

[RivkahChaya]

SPOILERS...SPOILERS...SPOILERS...SPOILERS!!!

In the sci-fi horror genre, two classic's really stand out.
Alien ( 1979 )

Did you see this in the theater when it first came out? I did, and something very clever happened that made the ending almost unbearably tense, and isn't repeatable-- you just can't experience it anymore.

That actors died in reverse order of their degree of bankability. That's totally counter to what normally happens in a Hollywood (yes, I know this was a British co-production) film. Usually the most famous person is alive at the end, if anyone is, and the unknowns are red-shirted. If the star dies before the end, you can pretty much count on everyone dying.

In 1979, John Hurt was hugely famous. He'd been popular in Britain for years, and was a hit in the US with I, Claudius. Tom Skerritt had been working for almost two decades, and had just been in a hit film with Shirley MacLaine & Anne Bancroft. Veronica Cartwright had been acting since childhood. She'd had a recurring role on Leave It to Beaver, and had been in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. Sigourney Weaver, no one had heard of. She'd had one line in a Woody Allen movie, and a part in a TV mini-series, and that was pretty much it. The ink was still damp on her SAG card.

So, first of all, it's a shock when John Hurt dies at all, because your expectation is that Ripley (Weaver) is the throw-away character, and that either Dallas (Skerritt) or Kane (Hurt) will be alive at the end, if anyone is. Once both of them are dead, you're sort of ready for an outer-space disaster movie, where everyone dies-- another thing to know is that it isn't entirely clear from the commercials and previews exactly what the Nostromo encounters, and there had been a fad for disaster movies, like The Towering Inferno, & The Poseidon Adventure, which were sort of "who's going to die?-- maybe everyone" suspense movies; Alien came at the end of this fad.

So, really, when the ship is counting down, you aren't expecting Ripley to make it. When she and the cat are asleep, you stay to watch the credits roll, still expecting a surprise. It isn't until the screen goes black, that you are really sure she made it.

It's still an awesome movie, but there's no way to see it now, without knowing that Sigourney Weaver is a huge star, and famous for playing tough women, and maybe getting young Tom Skerritt confused with Kris Kristofferson.

[kensei]

In the sci-fi horror genre, two classic's really stand out.
Alien ( 1979 )
The Thing ( 1982 )
Despite both films being atmospheric and hugely watchable, Alien was far more critically successful. This seems to defy horror movie logic as The Thing was far more Visceral and pessimistic, and shocking imagery and negative emotions are surely the soul of horror flick's. Could it be that the Alien sustains tension into its final act with more success and provides a more emotionally satisfying ending like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre that gives more sense of closure?.

I wish I could provide the kind of answer to your point here that I think you're looking for, having seen both films, but unfortunately I only saw "The Thng" once and it was many years ago and I don't remember much about it, whereas I've been an ongoing fan of the whole "Alien" franchise and have seen the first two of those (the best ones) several times over. "Alien 3" and "Alien Resurrection" were fairly forgettable, and the tie-ins to the "Predator" films were fun but huge departures.

By far though, I feel that the best in the franchise was the second film, "Aliens," for which Sigourney Weaver was even nominated for the Oscar for best actress (extremely rare for a horror or sci-fi performance). The relationship between Ripley (Weaver) and the little girl Newt (Carrie Henn) was heartbreaking. That little girl- my god, what a good little actress she was, though I think it was actually the only movie she was ever in. It delivered two of my most favorite lines in movie history. The first was by Henn, delivered with such childish innocence:

"My mommy always said there was no such thing as monsters, not real ones, but there are. Why do they tell little kids that?"

The second was Weaver's, in the final conflict against the alien queen, defending that child to the death with a line that rivals Clint Eastwood's "Go ahead, make my day." It's crude, but it was SO effective and totally made the movie for me:

"Get away from her, you BITCH!"

Good stuff.

p.s. This thread is 18 pages long and I haven't gone back to make sure but I wouldn't be surprised if I have already written some of what I've said here. Sorry if so, but these really are some of my very favorite horror movie moments.

[Scorpio]

In the sci-fi horror genre, two classic's really stand out.
Alien ( 1979 )
The Thing ( 1982 )
Despite both films being atmospheric and hugely watchable, Alien was far more critically successful. This seems to defy horror movie logic as The Thing was far more Visceral and pessimistic, and shocking imagery and negative emotions are surely the soul of horror flick's. Could it be that the Alien sustains tension into its final act with more success and provides a more emotionally satisfying ending like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre that gives more sense of closure?.

[Scorpio]

Along with Gandalf,Saruman and Rhadagast, I believe that Max Von Sydow is a member of the immortal Istari.