What Movie Did You Just Watch

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, for what it's worth, the negative critical reception hasn't done much to hurt Venom's box office opening. It actually has done rather well for an October movie. Also worth noting is that most general audiences seem to be responding well to the movie, so it's one of those films in which there exists a clear rift in opinions between the larger public and the critics, which means it may have a chance at doing relatively well for the next couple of weekends as well, but that still remains to be seen.

I myself fall a bit more in line with the critics, but if this is enough to green-light a sequel I hope that Sony takes the chance to learn from their mistakes with this movie....which is of course unlikely.

[Foggle]

I actually just came out of Mandy, and while I can see it not be for everyone, I really liked it. I've been told to expect something among the lines of Terrence Malick directing Nicholas Cage through an Italian exploitation horror flick, which this more or less delivers on. It also happens to be metal as fuck, which I couldn't help but enjoy.

Ah. I hate Malick so I guess that makes sense why I didn't like it then.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, I tried watching Hold the Dark. When I did finally get around to Green Room (also directed by Jeremy Saulnier), I really liked it, so I was hoping that this would be equally as engaging for me but it was such a mess of a plot and so badly paced with bland characters that I got bored and stopped watching halfway through. I mean, it's on Netflix, so I guess give it a shot if you're curious, but IMO it's not really worth the time.

[Avaitor]

I've been getting Jared Leto vibes from Hardy from what I've been seeing.

How? Always found him more of a Christian Bale type: A guy who's willing to break his body to fit into his role and gets angry when the director doesn't dedicate themselves to that same level. And from what I've seen, most of the cast didn't dislike him. At the very least, he never sent Riz Ahmed used condoms like Leto did.

I guess that's fair. Hardy didn't seem to be as obnoxiously intense as Leto, although he did seem to have different expectations about the film than others.

[Foggle]

So, I tried watching Hold the Dark. When I did finally get around to Green Room (also directed by Jeremy Saulnier), I really liked it, so I was hoping that this would be equally as engaging for me but it was such a mess of a plot and so badly paced with bland characters that I got bored and stopped watching halfway through. I mean, it's on Netflix, so I guess give it a shot if you're curious, but IMO it's not really worth the time.

I swear there have only been like two good Netflix original movies ever. It seems they will greenlight literally anything, and even filmmakers who have proven themselves in the past can't seem to make anything worthwhile for them. This is especially surprising since their TV series output is generally at least decent.

[Avaitor]

I'm really disappointed by Hold the Dark's reception, as I really liked both Green Room and Blue Ruin. I hope it's just a misstep in Saulnier's career.

But yeah, I do think Netflix needs some kind of filter or quality control, since a lot of their original content is crap. Or maybe they should focus a little more on picking up other movies and shows, since they're spending a little too much of their resources on their originals, and they're not making too many agreeable hits on the level of Stranger Things or OITNB.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Also, the title of this movie totally breaks the whole colors schtick that Solmier had going on with the names of his films, which is another lose in my book. Then again, I could see how Hold the Black might sound racist to some people.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Just saw Halloween....the third one in the franchise to be called that....not Halloween III, to be clear....let's just call it the new one, I guess.

I didn't really like it. I enjoyed bits and pieces of it. The last 20-minutes in particular were a lot closer to the kind of movie that I wanted to see, but on the whole it makes many of the same mistakes as every other Halloween sequel. To be fair, I kind of see the franchise like Jaws, in that it's the type of concept that only works as a one-shot story, so I can't really see any way for a sequel to work without feeling incredibly forced or contrived and at best derivative of the original, unless the franchise went the anthology route that was originally intended with Season of the Witch.

And I get that this was done by a director known for comedy, but quite a bit of it comes off as unintentionally funny, not unlike H2O, which this movie feels very similar to in tone and concept (to be fair, though, there are some genuinely funny bits in the movie). I'll give the movie some credit for being well-made on a technical level and having some really great callbacks to the original, but it mostly feels like it's padded out for the majority of its run-time, and there is hardly any focus or drive to the story until the final act. I mean, the trailer sets it up like it'll be some epic final showdown between Laurie Strode and Michael Myers (which, again, I'd like to point out that H2O basically already did), but that's only relegated to those final 20-minutes. It actually kind of feels like the writers just forgot to do anything with her story-line until they decided to put her back in at the end. The rest of the movie is mainly just random characters popping in and out of the story as Michael kills them off, and there's one "major" plot-twist around the middle that is so half-assed that it makes me wonder why it was even brought up to begin with since it's dropped from relevance within literal minutes. It's like the movie starts trying to go down one route and then completely forgets what was going on and hops to another scene.

So, yeah, my two-cents on it, I guess. I wasn't really expecting much to begin with so I can't really say that I'm disappointed, but if nothing else these mediocre to bad sequels always do help me appreciate the original that much more.

[Dr. Insomniac]

How would you rank it compared to all the other Halloween sequels/reboots?

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

That's a bit tricky because on a technical level it's easily a better-made film than any of the other sequels. But on a personal level I have a soft-spot for II and IV even though both are incredibly stupid in their own right. Those for me are the fun kind of stupid, though, so I consider them to be guilty pleasures. Admittedly I have never actually seen Season of the Witch except for a few scenes on YouTube. I find V, The Curse of Michael Myers, and Resurrection to be flat-out garbage so the new one is definitely leagues above those. That just leaves H2O which, funnily enough, is also the closest in tone and concept to this movie. That one is both cheesy and dated, but it also kind of falls into the guilty pleasure category, though it's been quite a while since I've last seen it (more than 10 years), so I'm not sure how I'd feel about it in comparison to this new one. I'd say that the latest one had maybe a couple of genuinely good scares, and some comedic relief scenes worked well intentionally, but quite a lot of enjoyment that I got out of it just came from unintentionally funny writing and directing choices. Even with all of that, though, there were a number of parts that kind of dragged for me (as I said, the movie feels really padded to hold its run time), so I do feel as though it doesn't quite meet that complete dumb-fun feeling that I get from some of the other sequels.

Basically, in shorter terms, it'd rank somewhere in the middle for me.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Just finished this season, and it was my favorite one so far, not just for Daredevil but for any of the Netflix shows so far. Also, before anyone brings it up, yes, this does end up hitting a lot of the same beats as the first season did, to the point where a basic outline of the plot makes it seem like they just did the same thing all over again. However, the thing that worked for me here is that, aside from the better execution of the material, I think that it was intentional to return to the roots of the first season but at the same time re-explore how Matt, Foggy, and Karen's new outlooks on life have re-informed their decisions to very similar moral quandaries than the ones that they faced in the first season. A big theme of this season is redemption, and whereas the characters mostly started out on the straight and narrow at the beginning of the show, they've all made decisions that they have regretted since then and this season's structure being so similar to season one's is essentially them being given a second chance to respond to their past sins. That isn't just true of the returning characters but the new ones as well.

Also, while there wasn't necessarily a single fight that was as much of a stand-out as the hallway fight from season one or the stairwell fight from season two, I can say with certainty that the action overall was done better here than anything in either of those two seasons (and that's saying a lot considering how much those seasons set the bar for action scenes in television). If anything, the shorter bursts of fighting make things feel more intense since you get the sense that the fight could be decided at any given second.

[Dr. Insomniac]

That just leaves H2O which, funnily enough, is also the closest in tone and concept to this movie. That one is both cheesy and dated, but it also kind of falls into the guilty pleasure category,

That one seemed too much like the Halloween franchise riding the coattails of Scream and Buffy, and their meta-eyewink-approach to slasher movie cliches. Sure, it was better than the last three movie's strange attempt to build a character arc around Michael Myers and his niece, but it felt like the turning point where even the rights owners of Halloween didn't take the franchise seriously anymore.

[LumRanmaYasha]

Just saw Halloween....the third one in the franchise to be called that....not Halloween III, to be clear....let's just call it the new one, I guess.

I didn't really like it. I enjoyed bits and pieces of it. The last 20-minutes in particular were a lot closer to the kind of movie that I wanted to see, but on the whole it makes many of the same mistakes as every other Halloween sequel. To be fair, I kind of see the franchise like Jaws, in that it's the type of concept that only works as a one-shot story, so I can't really see any way for a sequel to work without feeling incredibly forced or contrived and at best derivative of the original, unless the franchise went the anthology route that was originally intended with Season of the Witch.

And I get that this was done by a director known for comedy, but quite a bit of it comes off as unintentionally funny, not unlike H2O, which this movie feels very similar to in tone and concept (to be fair, though, there are some genuinely funny bits in the movie). I'll give the movie some credit for being well-made on a technical level and having some really great callbacks to the original, but it mostly feels like it's padded out for the majority of its run-time, and there is hardly any focus or drive to the story until the final act. I mean, the trailer sets it up like it'll be some epic final showdown between Laurie Strode and Michael Myers (which, again, I'd like to point out that H2O basically already did), but that's only relegated to those final 20-minutes. It actually kind of feels like the writers just forgot to do anything with her story-line until they decided to put her back in at the end. The rest of the movie is mainly just random characters popping in and out of the story as Michael kills them off, and there's one "major" plot-twist around the middle that is so half-assed that it makes me wonder why it was even brought up to begin with since it's dropped from relevance within literal minutes. It's like the movie starts trying to go down one route and then completely forgets what was going on and hops to another scene.

So, yeah, my two-cents on it, I guess. I wasn't really expecting much to begin with so I can't really say that I'm disappointed, but if nothing else these mediocre to bad sequels always do help me appreciate the original that much more.

Just saw the new Halloween myself today, and I'm pretty much in agreement with you. I'm in the unique position of only having seen the original Halloween, and not any of the sequels. And from my perspective...this movie just doesn't work as a sequel at all. It's totally disconnected from the original, failing to communicate the paranoia of the original or present Michael as a fearsome figure. I've seen a lot of people say that it's a well-made film on a technical level, but honestly, I disagree. Watching well-made horror genuinely fills me with dread, and schlocky horror bemuses me with its excess of violence. With this film, though, I felt pretty much nothing but annoyance. I thought the shot compositions were really flat and uninteresting, the sound mixing wasn't provocative in a way that induces dread, the editing didn't communicate any sense of paranoia, and honestly, the film only looked average at best in quality. In general, the film didn't effectively frame Michael Myers as something frightening or badass, nor his murders as grotesquely horrifying or entertainingly over-the-top. In this film, he just felt like a dude who murdered people, predictable and uninteresting. Everything felt plainly presented, boring and paint by the numbers.

To say nothing of the story. The idea behind Laurie's character in this film and how her experience has warped her life over 40 years, including inflicting trauma on her own child, would've been fascinating to explore. But it's only brought up, and not really done anything with in a meaningful capacity, and the rest of the time we're watching Michael kill random nobodies, mostly unlikable with generic personalities that I either couldn't care less about or wanted to die so they wouldn't be in the movie anymore. Like, none of the deaths were memorable beyond him stomping on the psychiatrist's head, and that was just stupid.

And yeah, the comedy was just AWFUL. All the "jokes," like "I dropped peanut butter on my penis," the granddaughter and her friend shit-talking their other friend while he's blowing up a pumpkin, and the two random cops talking about Bahn Mi and brownies made me groan. To say nothing of the unintentional comedy, which was pretty much everytime the movie tried to be scary but did it in the lamest way possible, which was constant. Like everyone's said, the last twenty minutes are the closest it gets to evoking a sense of dread in the confrontation between Laurie and Michael, and even then the movie undermines itself with stupid moments like Laurie disappearing when Michael's not looking or how they ultimately defeat him.

It's not a boring movie for sure, but I'm surprised critics have been lauding it so much. I don't think this works as a sequel or a good horror film on its own merits at all, and it doesn't even succeed in being a horror comedy. It's just...lame.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I've kind of gotten used to critics over-praising horror movies that aren't a complete train-wreck these days. Sometimes I agree with the praise, like in The Babadook or this year's Hereditary, but more often than not I feel that it can be rather overblown. Like, It Follows was an OK movie that got made out to be a modern horror masterpiece, yet even thinking about it for half a second shows an incompetently written narrative that sets up too many rules and then fails to follow more than half of them. A Quiet Place is basically this year's version of It Follows in that regard, and it's equally as incompetent (and even though I don't always agree with him, YMS's review pretty much nails why in this case). Happy Death Day was a painfully cringe-worthy attempt at a modern-day horror comedy yet apparently a lot of critics were suckered into the Groundhog Day meets a slasher film hook to the concept without actually analyzing to see whether it pulled any of those elements off well.

With Halloween, it follows a string of equally bad if not worse sequels. A lot of people consider those to be guilty pleasures (like I said, even I have a soft-spot for II and IV, despite how badly written they are), and that makes sense. Likewise, I could understand if people felt the same about this movie, but to see it getting genuinely praised leaves me baffled. If this movie had come out a decade ago following the same beats that it does here, it'd be called out for what it is: a generic, trope-heavy genre flick with no substance beyond its overabundance of clear fan-service. And, again, there's nothing inherently wrong with that, but it's not like it would ever get praised for those things back then. These days it feels like critics have just significantly lowered the bar for what qualifies as a well-made horror movie in their assessment of them.

[Dr. Insomniac]

It could be because of how low the standards of slasher movies are rather than horror movies in general. A decade of nonsensical Saw films, failures to bring back Freddy and Jason back into prominence, and no new up and coming slasher franchise have done heavy damage to the genre, so when a slasher flick comes out and it's okay, it looks great compared to all the other attempts.