Cinemassacre's Monster Madness

[Daikun]

Huh. I just noticed there's no thread for this. How the hell did that happen? Let's rectify that.

Every year in October, James Rolfe (he might review video games or something) releases Monster Madness on Cinemassacre, a series of horror movie reviews in chronological order, every day of the month. Each year has a different theme.

2007: A History of Horror
2008: GodzillaThon
2009: Monster Madness 3 (no real theme for this one)
2010: Camp Cult
2011: Sequel-A-Thon
2012: 80s-A-Thon
2013: Sequel-A-Thon 2
2014: Whatever-The-Hell-You-Want-To-Call-It-Athon
2015: Viewer's Choice!
2016: The Final Marathon
2021: Around the World

And here are the "off" years...

2017: Son of Monster Madness
Monster Madness 2018
Monster Madness 2019
Monster Madness 2020

[talonmalon333]

Best Monster Madness years in order (not counting the GodzillaThon since it wasn't horror-based).

2011 > 2009 > 2007 > 2010 > 2012 >  2013

I loved the 2011 Sequel-A-Thon and still make an effort to watch those every October even now. Maybe because every movie franchise he did that year (no matter how good or bad it is) is fun to hear about, and James is good at making it interesting in general. To me, it felt like he really got into it that year.

On the contrast, I was kind of bored during the 2013 Monster Madness. I had been hoping he'd do a second Sequel-A-Thon since there was so much to cover, but I thought he picked some fairly uninteresting choices. Most importantly, I felt there was too much time dedicated to Gamera. It's like, I know James loves those giant monster movies, but we already had GodzillaThon. A Gamera marathon should have been its own separate thing.

[Speedy]

I need to play catch-up on 2011-2013.  Haven't watched those yet.

One of my favorite Monster Madness reviews was "Monkey Shines", especially this line:

"There's a Casablanca poster in the background, just to remind you we're talkin' classic cinema.  Here's looking at you, shithead."

[Daikun]

My personal favorites are the History of Horror and the 80s-A-Thon. MM3 and Camp Cult have a great selection, too.

I'm not a fan of the Sequel-A-Thons, personally. I feel they're too limiting when James could be covering many more titles during the month.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I love these video series. I look forward to them every Halloween. Also I vehemently disagree with Talon about Sequel-A-Thon 2, which IMO was better done than the first one. Yes, the first one has much more classic movies, but I find that Rolfe's commentary on many if the sequels becomes redundant and tired. He gives us excellent insight on the originals and certain sequels that are among his favorites, but many of the other videos are kind of him rambling on about how formulaic those films get, especially for the Universal Monster movies. The stand-out among those is probably his Hammer Films Dracula series reviews, as I enjoy all of those.

With 2013, he had a fresh perspective and something interesting to say about each film, and generally covered movie series that I was honestly more interested in, anyways, like the Alien series and the Romero zombie films. I have no idea how you could call those uninteresting. As for Gamera, how exactly could he make it into its own thing when there weren't nearly enough films in the franchise to last for an entire month? That's just nit-picking, IMO. I'd argue that this was one of his better MM's, and personally I liked it more than 2011.

As for my order:

2008 > 2013 > 2007 > 2012 > 2009 > 2011 > 2010

For the record, though, I like them all. This year could be his best, though. The theme he picked seems more interesting and far less limiting than anything he's done before. He can simply just talk about films that he's most interested in taking about, leading to far more interesting commentary than talking about a movie that he's forced to talk about just because it's a sequel or part of whatever specific theme that he's doing.

[talonmalon333]

With 2013, he had a fresh perspective and something interesting to say about each film, and generally covered movie series that I was honestly more interested in, anyways, like the Alien series and the Romero zombie films. I have no idea how you could call those uninteresting.

They weren't. Those were the exceptions for me.

As for Gamera, how exactly could he make it into its own thing when there weren't nearly enough films in the franchise to last for an entire month? That's just nit-picking, IMO.

I guess what I feel, in the end, is that I just wasn't particularly interested in hearing about Gamera. It's personal preference. I like my Monster Madness videos to be swimming in horror elements. Gamera just doesn't fit too well into the Halloween season for me.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

They weren't. Those were the exceptions for me.

That was like half the month right there. You said his choices were uninteresting, which makes it odd that you'd neglect to mention that at least half of the month was stuff that interested you.

I guess what I feel, in the end, is that I just wasn't particularly interested in hearing about Gamera. It's personal preference. I like my Monster Madness videos to be swimming in horror elements. Gamera just doesn't fit too well into the Halloween season for me.

Yet an entire month of Godzilla was fine? It's called Monster Madness, and just because it's on Halloween month doesn't mean that Rolfe has to limit what he talks about to pure horror movies. Anything that involves monsters or supernatural forces counts as well, and in the end it still features people getting terrorized, so it fits in with the month just fine. I liked his Gamera videos because it gave me insight into a more obscure series, which is refreshing, especially since I've already heard a lot about the more classic movies. With something like Gamera, I'm actually learning something new, which I've always appreciated, personally.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Anyways, as for this month, I'd be interested to see if James will ever talk about any recent horror movies that have been generally well received, particularly some of the ones from James Wan. I doubt it, since he seems to be mostly fixated on oldies, but it'd still be cool if he did it.

And since he said that TV shows go as well, I wonder what he'll cover. He's already talked about Tales From the Crypt in the past, but not in Monster Madness, so we might see something about that. If he decides to tackle something more recent (which is, again, unlikely), it would be interesting to see his opinion on AHS. At any rate, I'll probably be surprised, and not knowing what to expect is half the fun of these videos.

[talonmalon333]

That was like half the month right there. You said his choices were uninteresting, which makes it odd that you'd neglect to mention that at least half of the month was stuff that interested you.

The other half wasn't as interesting to me.

Just keep in mind I didn't say I disliked it. I just felt like I a bit bored during some parts of that Sequel-A-Thon.

Also, I should probably mention that I didn't watch his videos on most of the Alien movies last October, as at that point, I hadn't yet seen all of the sequels. I didn't see his videos on them until a few months ago when I saw the movies and then went back and watched his videos. If I were to rewatch the 2013 videos with those movies included, my overall opinion on that year would likely improve.

Yet an entire month of Godzilla was fine? It's called Monster Madness, and just because it's on Halloween month doesn't mean that Rolfe has to limit what he talks about to pure horror movies. Anything that involves monsters or supernatural forces counts as well, and in the end it still features people getting terrorized, so it fits in with the month just fine. I liked his Gamera videos because it gave me insight into a more obscure series, which is refreshing, especially since I've already heard a lot about the more classic movies. With something like Gamera, I'm actually learning something new, which I've always appreciated, personally.

The GodzillaThon also came at a point before this was a thing. And, if I remember correctly, he actually started it in September of that year (might be wrong there, though). More importantly, though, the Gamera series has eight movies. That's a huge window of time for a non-horror series (the Romero and Alien franchises combined come out to only about twelve movies). You could bring up the Halloween franchise having even more movies than that, but that was a, well, a literal "Halloween" series.

I wouldn't mind James doing a Gamera marathon if it was kept separate. I mean, he's done stuff like that in the past, doing series' on the Batman movies and Star Wars movies at random times. It's just that, for Monster Madness, there are still so many movies and sequels I wanted to see him do that are more horror-based.

EDIT:

Just watched his video on this year's Monster Madness. I'm already looking forward to it.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

The other half wasn't as interesting to me.

Yet it was still more interesting than anything from the 2011 series.

The GodzillaThon also came at a point before this was a thing. And, if I remember correctly, he actually started it in September of that year (might be wrong there, though). More importantly, though, the Gamera series has eight movies. That's a huge window of time for a non-horror series (the Romero and Alien franchises combined come out to only about twelve movies). You could bring up the Halloween franchise having even more movies than that, but that was a, well, a literal "Halloween" series.

Godzilla-thon lasted throughout the month of October, and honestly, just because he did something earlier doesn't mean that he can't do something similar later on. If anything it establishes that he can incorporate that into MM. As for it being done before MM was even a thing, I don't exactly understand your point there, considering that it was already called MM at that point, and he made the Godzilla-thon as MM videos, so it was totally a thing by that point. I'm not really sure how you could view it any other way.

I wouldn't mind James doing a Gamera marathon if it was kept separate. I mean, he's done stuff like that in the past, doing series' on the Batman movies and Star Wars movies at random times. It's just that, for Monster Madness, there are still so many movies and sequels I wanted to see him do that are more horror-based.

If that's the case, then he shouldn't have done Camp Cult either. The idea of what makes these great is that he doesn't limit himself to just pure horror. Anything that fits in with the theme of "Monster" in MM can count as well, and as previously stated, it still deals with people being terrorized, so it can be seen as a form of horror. Not all horror has to be traditional haunted house or slasher movies and the like. If you really think about it, the term horror is very vague, in that regard. And I've seen plenty of horror lists and such count giant monster movies within the genre, hence why I've seen The Host, among other films, turn up on plenty of top 10 contemporary horror film lists (I myself consider it to be one of my favorite horror comedies of all time).

[talonmalon333]

Yet it was still more interesting than anything from the 2011 series.

Nah, man, nah.

Godzilla-thon lasted throughout the month of October, and honestly, just because he did something earlier doesn't mean that he can't do something similar later on. If anything it establishes that he can incorporate that into MM. As for it being done before MM was even a thing, I don't exactly understand your point there, considering that it was already called MM at that point, and he made the Godzilla-thon as MM videos, so it was totally a thing by that point. I'm not really sure how you could view it any other way.

What I mean is that, before then, he had only done one Monster Madness, so it wasn't as set in stone for me that it's a horror thing.

If that's the case, then he shouldn't have done Camp Cult either. The idea of what makes these great is that he doesn't limit himself to just pure horror. Anything that fits in with the theme of "Monster" in MM can count as well, and as previously stated, it still deals with people being terrorized, so it can be seen as a form of horror. Not all horror has to be traditional haunted house or slasher movies and the like. If you really think about it, the term horror is very vague, in that regard. And I've seen plenty of horror lists and such count giant monster movies within the genre, hence why I've seen The Host, among other films, turn up on plenty of top 10 contemporary horror film lists (I myself consider it to be one of my favorite horror comedies of all time).

That's true. I quite liked the Camp Cult year, and I actually agree with a lot of what you just said... To be honest, I should probably cease here because I'm starting to realize that my points here haven't really been making perfect sense. I think what it really all comes down to is that I just wasn't as interested in hearing about Gamera in general. That's the reason why I didn't like those videos as much. Truthfully, the reason I accepted the GodzillaThon (despite it not being horror) might just have more to do with me being more interested in hearing about those movies than I was with Gamera. That's really the least hypocritical way I could sum it up.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

What I mean is that, before then, he had only done one Monster Madness, so it wasn't as set in stone for me that it's a horror thing.

And it's still not set in stone. In 2010 he did Camp Cult, focusing more on the comedic and cheesy aspects of monster movies than pure horror. He did this quite a bit with 80's-a-thon as well, and the fact is that since part 1 was a history of horror and during Halloween season, he already broke the concept of just having to stick to pure horror by doing the Godzilla-thon the following year. To me, it means that anything goes, which is actually the tag-line of this year's MM (in which he even said that some entries will be funny or weird more than scary).

That's true. I quite liked the Camp Cult year, and I actually agree with a lot of what you just said... To be honest, I should probably cease here because I'm starting to realize that my points here haven't really been making perfect sense. I think what it really all comes down to is that I just wasn't as interested in hearing about Gamera in general. That's the reason why I didn't like those videos as much. Truthfully, the reason I accepted the GodzillaThon (despite it not being horror) might just have more to do with me being more interested in hearing about those movies than I was with Gamera. That's really the least hypocritical way I could sum it up.

Fair enough. I'm content with that explanation.

[talonmalon333]

Should this thread be renamed to be a more generic Cinemassacre thread? I was just thinking about that because we don't have one. Obviously this can still be used for Monster Madness, but other things about the site can also potentially be discussed here, if anyone agrees with me.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

MM is pretty special (at least to me), so I think that it deserves its own thread. You can feel free to create a separate Cinemassacre thread for everything else, though, or I'll just do it myself, later on, if nobody else does.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

On the first day, James takes a look at the seemingly stereotypical Cabin in the Woods, except it has a twist....

Honestly, I always found this movie to be overrated. So many people praised it for being unique and unpredictable, but it was so obvious what the film was going for given that it had Joss Whedon behind it, and the trailers flat out gave away that this would be a spoof if you actually watched them. I also felt that it was mocking cliches that weren't even that relevant to modern horror movies, so it felt like a film that should have been produced around the same time as Scream, or even back in the 80's, when it was a more appropriate time to make fun of those cliches since they actually applied to most of those films at the time. These days, films like the Saw franchise and other super gory horror films seem to be what dominate the market for the most part, but a lot of them seem to forgo the teen stereotype trope as well, which is why it doesn't feel as relevant anymore.