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Debaser Film

The Mortuary Collection

This is a Shudder original that was released earlier in the month, and I really enjoyed it. It’s an anthology horror collection à la Creepshow and Tales from the Crypt, but with a connective tissue à la Tales from the Darkside, but one that manages to blend into some of the tales (especially the last one). I’m a big fan of anthology horror films like this, and so it’s good to see a new one like this come out, and I wouldn’t mind at all if they managed to turn this into a franchise (which I think the outcome of the connective storyline would lend itself to that). Definitely a good pick to watch on this Hallows’ Eve.

Categories
Anime Debaser Film

Vampire Hunter D

This is another 80s anime film that I decided to revisit for this horror-filled marathon, and I’m glad I did. Sure, it drags on here and there, but it’s still a neat story (despite the traditional vampire setup, the setting is Mars) and the designs of the creatures are pretty gruesome and fun to take in (especially in that sequence where he enters the castle through an underground corridor filled with monstrosities). I think I missed that a sequel was released in 2000 (although note that this is an adaptation of a rather large book series), so I think I’ll probably check that out at some point.

Categories
Debaser Film

Peninsula

I have mixed feelings after watching this. For most of it I felt pretty down on it, as not only is zombie fatigue big with me, but especially when it comes to the zombie post-apocalyptic variety (blame Walking Dead probably). I can say that I much preferred Train to Busan (this is a sequel to that film, taking place four years later), and I think that’s because of the train setting, which made things quite tense. I also preferred the animated prequel, Seoul Station, because I think the start of an outbreak is a more interesting story to tell, and it’s a really nicely animated film, with a neat little twist towards the end. Also, I absolutely hated the overly sentimental ending of the film, which just felt like it went on forever. But I did enjoy parts of this, and thought that the big car chase climax was especially thrilling to watch (think Mad Max Fury Road level of goodness), and that made sitting through all of this worth it for me. If you’re a fan of Seoul Station and Train to Busan, then you should probably watch this as well, but go in prepared.

Categories
Debaser TV

Creepshow Animated Special

I was very happy to see that this was going to get released this week — as I wrote in my other post about Creepshow, it’s what reminded me to go back and watch the rest of the series. This was quite good, especially the first story which is by Stephen King, and deliciously macabre — the second tale, by his son Joe Hill, gets good by the end, but the constant Twitter chatter by the main character annoyed me a bit. Also, this is more done as motion comics than purely animated, but it didn’t really make me enjoy it any less, as they did a good job of using this style to illustrate the stories, which both pretty much entirely revolve around long monologues. Well worth checking out.

Categories
Debaser Film

Child’s Play 2

After watching the reboot not too long ago, and the original first film late last year, it was time to revisit the sequel. Is it good? I’m definitely more a fan of the reboot and the way they position Chucky (as an A.I. run amok, instead of the supernatural take of the original films), but Brad Dourif’s voicing of Chucky is still classic and fun to hear. I did feel a bit bored throughout, but there were a few fun sequences, especially the climax and the way they “kill” Chucky at the end. It doesn’t really make me want to revisit the other sequels though.

Categories
Debaser TV

Creepshow (Season 1)

I had watched the first couple of episode of this Shudder-produced series adaption of the classic 80s anthology film during my October marathon last year, and only now have I gotten around to watching the other episodes. I’m glad I did, because as I wrote in that original post, this is a really fun series, and does a great job of telling the same sort of creepy (and occasionally silly) stories that the original film did, which makes me happy. I was reminded of the series with the recent announcement that a new animated Halloween special is getting released later this week (also on Shudder).

Categories
Anime Debaser Film

Lily C.A.T.

Released back in 1987, this is another anime film I dug up while searching for anime releases that were horror-themed. It’s pretty much a take on Alien, and so a crew on a long-distance cargo ship starts having to deal with something killing the crew. Nothing groundbreaking, but it was entertaining, and decently animated. I only wish I could have watched the original Japanese edition — I could only find the American dub, which was apparently heavily edited (by Carl Macek of Robotech fame no less).

Categories
Anime Debaser Film

Gyo: Tokyo Fish Attack

Since I’m a big fan of Junji Ito’s work, I’m really surprised that I had missed the release of this (back in 2012) — I just stumbled upon it while searching for horror-themed anime to watch. If you’re a fan of Ito, then you know what to expect: deliciously grotesque happenings of the weirdest kind — in this case, fish (and other creatures of the sea, including sharks) start roaming the streets with insect-like appendages. And then it gets even weirder. I quite enjoyed this, and would now like to read the manga story it’s based on.

Categories
Debaser Film

Suspiria (2018)

After Nocturne, watching the Suspiria remake suddenly came to mind, and I’m glad I did as it made for a very good match. I’d been meaning to watch this ever since its release, but for some reason never felt in the mood to do so — I had even started it at some point, but stopped after about 10 minutes. Well, this time I was completely sucked in, and enjoyed the whole thing from start to finish. I watched the original Suspiria a few years ago, and while it does keep the main ideas, it does swerve quite a bit, but in a way that makes for a much more interesting story. The way its shot and the general aesthetic of the film are definitely its strong point, and I particularly liked the division in acts with an epilogue. Yes, it gets pretty nuts towards the end, but in what I thought was a satisfying way, and I felt that the scene that sees torture through dance (movements from one person affecting the other) was particularly inspired. A very good film indeed.

One thing I’ll note though is that I continue to have issues with subtitles on “auto” in Prime Video, in that they just stop working, and so when you’re watching a film that includes sequences in languages other than English (there’s a lot of spoken German in Suspiria) you need to put on Closed Captioning, which I find incredibly distracting. I had the same issue watching Jack Ryan, and it made it annoying to watch at times. It looks like this is a known issue with Prime Video, and I wonder why they don’t fix it.

Categories
Debaser Film

Nocturne

If you’re into horror films than you definitely know of Blumhouse (the company behind some of the best indie horror films of recent years), and this past month Prime Video released four new exclusive films produced by them, under the “Welcome to the Blumhouse” banner. Nocturne is the first one I watch, and I enjoyed it. If you were to compare it to something then I guess it would be Black Swan, in that it’s about an artist (in this case a piano player) who deals with the stress — and pyschosis? — related to the pressure of being at the top of her game. Not a bad little film.