Spooky Movies!

[Wolf Kanno]

It's Halloween season, so what spooky movies are you going to watch this year? I have Session 9 to check out. Since I finally got Netflix, I'm probably going to check out a few exclusives like The Ritual. I will also probably do my annual Nightmare Before Christmas and Corpse Bride views as well.

What spooky movies do you plan on watching? What's your favorite horror movies? How about just Halloween type films?

[Wolf Kanno]

Watched Session 9 this evening. I saw parts of this movie years ago, but it was nice to watch it from the very beginning. It's a good psychological horror film, though not as surreal and interesting as Jacob's Ladder nor does if have the serious shocking twists of A Tale of Two Sisters. Still it's a commendable film and I feel the highest honors really should go to the films cinematography and audio accompaniment. The film has a very strong Silent Hill vibe with the decaying corridors of the Danvers Hospital shown with the haunting and industrial music score. There are a few unnerving moments as well where screams are used to transition to machine noise and other interesting audio tricks. Pretty good flick overall.

I think I'll check out The Ritual next.

[Vincent, Thunder God]

I tend to prefer psychological horror like Cube. Gore isn't great to watch if it's gratuitous, which is the case in most mainstream horror

[Wolf Kanno]

I don't mind gore when it pertains to either horror comedies or in some specific cases, body horror like The Thing. With that said, I'm not big in to torture style horror so things like Hostel really don't do it for me. I tend to prefer psychological horror and supernatural horror over slasher films as well.

[Vincent, Thunder God]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2-C16mQVLo

[Wolf Kanno]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2-C16mQVLo

Sadly the video is down when I try the link, but I know about The Cube. :)

[BG-57]

Session 9 was filmed in the abandoned asylum in Danvers (renamed from Salem Village for obvious reasons). Most of it was torn down not long after, but one building was repurposed into an apartment building. That gives the setting a lot of additional creepiness.

My favorite spooky movie is the little known the Haunted Lantern. It's set during the O-Bon festival in Edo-era Japan and involves a love triangle between a samurai and a pair of sisters. It's got everything: ghosts, blood sprays, unrequited love, magic talismans, blind priests, floating lanterns, and some unintentional comedy.

Two other movies that are spooky but were sorely misrepresented in trailers was Shutter Island and Crimson Peak.

Shutter Island was portrayed as an agent investigating a spooky asylum, but it's really a psychological horror story.

Crimson Peak was portrayed as a haunted house movie, but it's really a gothic love story that involves ghosts.