Horror movies to avoid - extensive spoilers throughout

[Neil W]

Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things

A group of unpleasant young people, having (eventually) carried out a mock Satanic ritual, are discomfited when the dead come back to life and start killing them.

I am sometimes bemused at the reactions I see towards certain movies at the IMDb, and this is one such film. We are all entitled to our own opinions, and none is any more or less valid than another. Even so, I do wonder whether some of the effusive praise for this film is coming from blind and deaf people. It is slow, the script is lame, the makeup is awful, the acting is shockingly bad, and the film looks even cheaper than it actually is. Which is clearly cheap. It isn't even good at being the type of film it purports to be: it aims to be a low-budget horror comedy, and succeeds only in being low-budget.

Definitely one to avoid.

 

[Neil W]

The House By The Cemetery

Father, mother and truly annoying son move to a creepy old house where - after several years have passed, though only for you, not in the film - mum and dad are killed by the evil old zombie monster which inhabits the house, and truly annoying son is saved by the ghost of the evil old zombie monster's daughter.

If you are a fan of Lucio Fulci and/or overwrought 1970s Italian gorefests then you may indeed regard this film as a masterpiece. I am not - although I remain open minded and open to persuasion - and I thought that this film was almost entirely without merit. I award points for use of tripod, staying in focus, and gore (on the assumption that's why you're watching it).

But it makes little sense, the dubbing is poor, it is full of basic amateur technical mistakes (kid screaming down in the basement, parents hear it outside the basement door at exactly the same volume), and is fairly tedious. I thought it was pretty rubbishy.

 

[Neil W]

Bad meat

Some teens are sent to a juvenile detention facility. They fall foul of the guards who, having eaten the bad meat of the title (served up in soup by the cook), want to eat the teens.

This is fairly routine horror fare, with cardboard characters going through a Last Man Standing zombie victim routine which isn't very well done. I don't mind it being predictable and treading a well-worn path, I don't even mind the rubbish acting, but I do object to it being dull. If you're going to be rubbish, at least be entertaining rubbish.

Elizabeth Harnois and Dave Franco have gone on to better things. They could hardly have gone on to something worse.

 

[Neil W]

Don't Let Him In

A rather dull couple take a break at a remote cottage in the country. Our dull couple take with them the bloke's whingeing sister, and the chap she picked up yesterday for a one-night stand, who is aggressive, secretive, and generally extremely unpleasant. They have hardly been at the cottage for 10 minutes before the local copper turns up (not all that remote, then) and warns them about the local serial killer who is dismembering people and hanging the bits from trees. That night, a man turns up badly injured from assorted knife wounds: our heroine is a nurse and she stitches him up in no time. But that doesn't stop the killings. By which I mean it doesn't stop the killings starting within our group. Who on earth could the killer be? (by the way, don't bother asking, because the answer makes little sense).

This is a cabin in the woods, last man standing, slasher horror. If it had been an American cabin in the woods movie, all the trees would have been in leaf: as it is British, it is inevitably filmed in the winter when cottages don't have holiday letting, so all the trees are bare and everyone looks frozen.

I digress. It is extremely slow to get started, and afflicted with a script in which the characters are a) almost all completely unlikeable and b) even more than usually inclined to behave with suicidal stupidity. Some of the acting is OK, and the technical aspects of the film are dealt with professionally.

But it isn't very good, and I don't recommend it.

 

[Neil W]

Evil Aliens

You know those TV programmes which make out they are serious investigations into the paranormal. Well, this movie features such a film crew who are investigating reports of aliens - they know it's all nonsense, so does their audience and, oh dear, they just happen to have encountered actual aliens, and they're not friendly. All this happens in the depths of the Welsh countryside.

This film has a lot going for it, particularly a knowing screenplay which is constantly winking at its audience, and lots of gory mayhem for those who are fans of such things. It also manages to make a very small budget look merely small.

Unfortunately, its very creditable attempt to make a sci-fi horror comedy with goals which exceed its apparent ability to achieve them is fatally compromised by some of the ropiest acting I have seen in a long while. The lovely and personable Emily Booth is head and shoulders better than everyone else and, to be perfectly frank, she's pretty dire, too.

 

[Neil W]

Monstro

Three delinquent young women find themselves battling a sea monster in a small Australian seaside town while swearing a great deal.

Bad acting meets cheap and shoddy effects in a film which is such appalling rubbish that it gives appalling rubbish a bad name. The script is one of those which believes that the more profanity you spout, the harder you are. Like so many before it, it is incorrect in this assumption.

I can't award lower than one star, and then I'll award another for the use of tripod to avoid the ubiquitous wobblycam. Nothing else merits praise. The monster's tentacles are arms in long socks. Oh, please.

 

[Neil W]

The Inside

Tramps assault partygoers in a warehouse, following which things get worse - some alleged supernatural gubbins is involved.

This horror film is yet another found footage effort (with edits and changes in camera angles).

It is so dark as to be almost impossible to follow visually, not to mention the large amount of jittercam. The image quality is poor. And someone thought it was a brilliant idea to have screaming and non-stop snivelling featuring on the soundtrack for at least an hour longer than the film lasts.

This film is so horrible as to be virtually unwatchable.

 

[Neil W]

I have now shot my bolt: I have nothing more to say, so talk among yourselves.

By way of setting some context, I thought Frankenhooker was great - low budget, rubbishy special effects, but with a real sense of style and fun, and so bad as to be good. The foregoing films are not in that class, nor anywhere near it.

I may, in compensation, do a thread featuring films which may have snuck in under the radar but which are worth tracking down (in my view).

 

[carrie's younger brother]

Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things

A group of unpleasant young people, having (eventually) carried out a mock Satanic ritual, are discomfited when the dead come back to life and start killing them.

I am sometimes bemused at the reactions I see towards certain movies at the IMDb, and this is one such film. We are all entitled to our own opinions, and none is any more or less valid than another. Even so, I do wonder whether some of the effusive praise for this film is coming from blind and deaf people. It is slow, the script is lame, the makeup is awful, the acting is shockingly bad, and the film looks even cheaper than it actually is. Which is clearly cheap. It isn't even good at being the type of film it purports to be: it aims to be a low-budget horror comedy, and succeeds only in being low-budget.

Definitely one to avoid.

Sorry, you lost me on this one. It's one of my all-time favorite horror movies. Back in high school, my best friend and I used to go out into the middle of the street at midnight and walk around like zombies because of this movie. The name alone is brilliant!

The closing shot of this movie is classic.

 

[blunthead]

Manos: The Hands of Fate

There are lots of "B movies". Manos is an "F". It should be used in filmmaking classes during the what-not-to-do lectures.

 

[blunthead]

The Creeping Terror. The worst movie I've ever seen, and yes I have seen Plan 9. According to IMDb, this film is listed among The 100 Most Amusingly Bad Movies Ever Made in Golden Raspberry Award founder John Wilson's book THE OFFICIAL RAZZIE® MOVIE GUIDE.

 

[Neil W]

I would never have included Plan 9 - yes, it's a very bad film, but a) it definitely is in the "so bad it's good" category, and b) I am among those who admire Ed Wood for managing to put together a feature film and get it out at a time when you couldn't just wander around with a camcorder (viz. Colin) there despite having a complete absence of talent.

 

[Neil W]

Sorry, you lost me on this one. It's one of my all-time favorite horror movies. Back in high school, my best friend and I used to go out into the middle of the street at midnight and walk around like zombies because of this movie. The name alone is brilliant!

The closing shot of this movie is classic.

Fair enough. I repeat - We are all entitled to our own opinions, and none is any more or less valid than another!

 

[GNTLGNT]

Who is Joe Bob Briggs?

Joe Bob Briggs - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[no bounce no play]

Who is Joe Bob Briggs?

Joe Bob Briggs hosted a show on TNT in the late 90's called MonsterVision. The show featured classic B and cult films. Joe Bob would comment on the films during breaks... he was hilarious

 

[no bounce no play]

Joe Bob Briggs - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

lol... I replied before I saw GNT's post. Thanks GNT

 

[no bounce no play]

Basket Case

A young man lugs around a hamper which turns out to have his homicidal (separated) conjoined twin in it. Said twin commits multiple murders, very bloodily.

The large number of reviews on IMDb tend to acknowledge that this film is poorly made trash, but then praise it highly for having some originality (fair enough) and a lot of blood.

Neither of these is sufficient, in my view, to make up for a bad script, worse acting by the unknown cast, and a monster which manages to be hilariously unconvincing, appallingly badly constructed (necessarily, given a budget which appears to be too small to cover the average week's shopping), and arguably incapable of life, let alone multiple homicides, in the anatomical form designed for the film.

A half decent idea and fountains of blood are insufficient to compensate for the sheer amateurishness of the production.

Hey! I loved the Basket Case movies!

 

[Neil W]

Joe Bob Briggs hosted a show on TNT in the late 90's called MonsterVision. The show featured classic B and cult films. Joe Bob would comment on the films during breaks... he was hilarious

We did not have Joe Bob Briggs in the UK. We had Barry Norman (dead serious, big words), then Jonathan Ross (fan of trash cinema, bit of a potty mouth) and now Claudia Winkleman (squinting sniggerer accompanied by smug git). We are not overblessed with decent TV film reviewers at the present time.

 

[Neil W]

Hey! I loved the Basket Case movies!

Which is absolutely fine! I didn't love it, despite having a taste for stuff at that end of the market, as you can tell from the amount of stuff here, and even more which I haven't included - Basket Case 2, for a start, isn't in the stuff here, because I don't regard it as one to avoid. And it's only my opinion, which is no more or less valid than yours!

 

[Grandpa]

The Human Centipede. If you ever wanted to watch this dehumanizing film with no redeeming qualities, read no further.

Nutso German surgeon kidnaps two American girl tourists and one Japanese male and, after sedating them, surgically connects them so that the Japanese guy is first, with one American girl's mouth connected to his anus, and the second American girl's mouth connected to the first girl's anus. So they have to crawl along on all four limbs each, connected to each other. Human centipede, get it?

Well, it's not a very nutritious scheme, especially when holed up (nyuk) with an insane surgeon. He makes them do degrading things, like the Japanese guy is so hungry he eats dog food and can't help but defecating, which of course the first American girl has to ingest, and... need I continue?

They finally overcome him, I forget exactly how because I was fast-forwarding through the online display at the time, feeling that I was mortgaging my soul every moment, but I think they do it with a scalpel, and rather than slicing and dicing him when he was down, which I certainly would've done, they crawl past him in their pathetic multi-limbed connected way.

Ultimately, two German detectives show up, and I can't remember exactly because of the fast-forwarding, but they both get killed but kill the surgeon as well, the Japanese guy inexplicably commits suicide with a knife or piece of glass or something, the girl at the tail end of the "centipede" dies of sepsis, and the girl in the middle is left latched onto the Japanese guy's anus, her friend the second girl still connected to her anus, the first and third dead, and now with her having nowhere to go. Fade to black.

If I haven't dissuaded you by now, there's no hope. Go watch it. Ask for absolution for me while you're at it. I am a lesser human being for having spent the 20 fast-forwarded minutes of my life watching this 90-minute (or whatever it was) dehumanizing effort. I am not proud. It's not on my resume.