# Big Hollywood, Classics, or cheap indie flicks?



## The Archivist (May 31, 2009)

What do you prefer? I prefer the REALLY old classics like Frankenstein, the Mummy, or Wolfman. But I also appreciate the indie flicks like Blair Witch Project (NOT the sequel, sequels are stupid).


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## GothicCandle (Mar 26, 2007)

I'm not into gory horror but besides that I like anything with a good storyline. So, I'm not that picky.


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## The Archivist (May 31, 2009)

gore if not done right makes a movie too tacky. Look at real life, when someone gets shot, how much gore do you see? Take examples from the CSI series, they usually get it right.


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## The Bloodshed Brothers (Jan 25, 2009)

yup anything with a good story.


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## Mr_Chicken (Nov 26, 2008)

GothicCandle said:


> I'm not into gory horror but besides that I like anything with a good storyline. So, I'm not that picky.


Agreed!
I have no interest in gore-- it's just gross.
Story is the most important element of any good film (okay, it's usually all about the story..._Ballet Mecanique_, anyone?:googly


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## Devils Chariot (May 23, 2007)

I like it all except the torture/snuff movies like Saw and Hostel.

I like Sci-Fi monster more, I guess they seem more plauseable to me. Occult stuff doesn't scare me, and only asain ghosts seem to be scary anymore.

Alien was my favorite movie ever. Because of that monster and it's creator H.R.Giger I got into art, and because of art that I got into haunting.


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## Sinister (Apr 18, 2004)

The Archivist said:


> But I also appreciate the indie flicks like Blair Witch Project (NOT the sequel, sequels are stupid).


Sequels are stupid, huh? Here go some Horror sequels. Lets see how "stupid" they are:

*Bride of Frankenstein, Return of the Vampire, Dracula Prince of Darkness, Aliens, Dawn of the Dead, Phantasm II, Evil Dead II: Dead By Dawn, The Devil's Rejects, Halloween II, Friday the 13th Part II, Blade II, 28 Weeks Later, Hellbound: Hellraiser II, Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust, Underworld II*...

And that's just what I can think of right off the top of my sleep addled brain right now. 

I might be getting just a tad off topic here, but if so, another thread can be easily started: Can somebody PLEASE tell me what makes The Blair Witch Project such a great Horror film? All these years, and I have yet to hear one viable explanation. There are just so many things wrong with it. I must be missing what others who hold it in such high regard, are getting. 

As for what I go for in a Horror film, it's ALWAYS about story to me. I don't care if it's psychological thrillers, classics, gore fests, anime, slashers, blockbusters, micro-budget indies, remakes, etc. as long as there's a good explanation of what is unfolding before me on the screen, then I'm down with it. :xbones:


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## joker (Sep 25, 2007)

Sinister said:


> Can somebody PLEASE tell me what makes The Blair Witch Project such a great Horror film? All these years, and I have yet to hear one viable explanation. There are just so many things wrong with it. I must be missing what others who hold it in such high regard, are getting.


I watched maybe 5-10 mins of that movie and turned it off. The home movie, shaky camera stuff got to be really annoying. Maybe the whole movie wasn't that way and another 30 seconds from when I stopped watching it quit, but I never made it that far into it if it did.


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## The Archivist (May 31, 2009)

The reason I liked the BWP was that you had to use your imagination as to what was just beyond the next point or what that sound was, etc. As for the list that Sinister put up; yeah, those were pretty good, I was thinking more in terms of modern sequels where the studios throw them out to the public just because they can, not because they were well thought out and practically their own stand-alone movie.


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## Devils Chariot (May 23, 2007)

I like BWP too. I think the shaky camera made it feel more authentic, like a real piece of evidence, and also the unknown, you don't even know if its really ghost, a weird animal, evil hillbillys, serial killer, but probably not actually witches. And I wondered if the they were gonna kill that guy for throwing away the map, was it just gonna get all lord of the flies. But that was a once in a life time movie, you can do it again because people now know what to expect.

Same with TCM, you could guess someone would get killed with a chainsaw, but did you see the dinner scene coming? F'd up! It was just so unexpected, it stuck with you.

I think the difference between BWP and regular horror movies is the in BWP you want to see what the story it going to be, whereas in say 30 days of night, you want to see a familiar story (vampires) play out in a new way, to perfect a good story, or series of vampire stories, to ad to the lore and legend of vampires. BWP doesn't belong to a familiar story until the end, then you know its a serial killer or at least human (or suspect that is so).


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## The Archivist (May 31, 2009)

too true. never saw TCM but I did read the backstory out a comic once. The other problem in my opinion regarding modern horror flicks is the over abundance of special computer effects. There's just way too much! It's like people today have forgotten what it's like to have an imagination and how to use it.


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## Bone To Pick (Oct 23, 2007)

I liked the concept and bits of the movie - just think the shakey-cam was used too much in BWP. It became painful for me to watch after a while. Also felt like the visuals never built up to any significant payoff, just kind of went on and on.

I had the same issue with the shakey-cam in Cloverfield, although ultimately there was more to see. Gave me a headache.

Digital FX regularly get a bad rap these days. I don't believe that they're over-used as much as too many movies are too reliant on the FX to prop them up. If so many movies weren't absolute crap story-wise, you probably wouldn't be complaining about the visuals. But I have to admit that I am not impartial on that subject.


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## DeadDudeintheHouse (Jul 23, 2008)

The only classic-era horror films that I love are Carnival of Souls, Repulsion, a couple William Castle films, and of course Roger Corman's Edgar Allen Poe series.

As for cheap indie flicks... there is a very long and broad and thick world of indie flicks. Many different levels of cheapness, or... indie-ness. For instance- does Halloween count? And do Halloween and something like The Dead Next Door qualify as the same kind of indie? How about horror films shot on video instead of film, such as Shatter Dead? Do Troma and Friday the 13th belong in the same category? Does Nightmare on Elm Street count as cheap? Does it count as indie if New Line wasn't famous yet? How much is cheap? The Exorcist looks pretty cheap to me but I hear it wasn't (Wikipedia says $15 Million, all totals combined). Suspiria looks like it cost _a fortune!_, but was probably cheaper than, say... Rosemary's Baby. The Omen only cost $2 Million to make and the studio didn't want it but it spent years in turn-around. The Omen is to 20th Century Fox what Friday the 13th is to Paramount, both were projects funded low budget. Point being- what if it looks cheap but wasn't? What if it's cheap but looks expensive (like... Brain Damage)?



The Archivist said:


> gore if not done right makes a movie too tacky.


Agreed- overall. I've met a lot of gorehounds online and often with them - quantity equals quality.

Though... if it looks too good and becomes attractive, then with an audience it won't do it's job, which of course is to repulse people.



The Archivist said:


> sequels are stupid


Some are. _Especially_ Phantasm II.



The Archivist said:


> The reason I liked the BWP was that you had to use your imagination as to what was just beyond the next point or what that sound was, etc.


I'll tell you one thing you didn't need your imagination for in BWP - to make you hate the characters. I hated them within the first 5 minutes. Unfortunately, we're stuck with them for *another* 75 after that.



Devils Chariot said:


> I like BWP too. I think the shaky camera made it feel more authentic, like a real piece of evidence, and also the unknown, you don't even know if its really ghost, a weird animal, evil hillbillys, serial killer, but probably not actually witches. And I wondered if the they were gonna kill that guy for throwing away the map, was it just gonna get all lord of the flies. But that was a once in a life time movie, you can do it again because people now know what to expect.
> 
> Same with TCM, you could guess someone would get killed with a chainsaw, but did you see the dinner scene coming? F'd up! It was just so unexpected, it stuck with you.


There's a huge difference between Blair Witch Project and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Chainsaw actually had a point to it. It wasn't just about five 20-somethings getting lost and picked off one-by-one. Not to mention that something actually happened in that movie. Every scene in Blair Witch Project when they got in the woods took place in the same-looking part of the woods. Every set, every scene, everything they did looked the same and felt the same. It was painful to have to sit through. Not just because nothing happened- but because all these people did was complain and say "****" a million times every minute.


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