Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve Ever seen a genuinely scary movie in an actual theater… Aw, man. And now I’m depressed.

And I tend to get more freaked out at home than at the theatre, I think, but probably because I live alone, so my imagination just goes crazy. The Doctor Who episode I posted about on MorePop a few weeks ago (“Blink”) just about had me sleepless. But I’m too new to horror to have seen very many in theatres, so I don’t have that good a basis of comparison.

Glad I’m not alone on “The Lost Boys”…It was fun from the perspective of looking back on an 80s movie, but that cheesy sax player with the long hair? Oh man, I wanted to deck him – mostly because he was absolutely destroying the great song “I Still Believe” (by The Call).

Marina, seeing “A Tale Of Two Sisters” in a theatre with an audience must’ve been most excellent – it is so much better watching horror with an audience.

As for THE LOST BOYS, it was never good but man, it’s a fun 80s schlocker. The smooth sax, the bleached hair, wicked clothes and all around vibe is all goodness. I love it.

I totally need to see more horror this month! Still over a week to go!

Let us know what you thought of it Jandy. And Pulse too! I’ll report back on Woman In Black once I see it…

Kurt, I have A Tale of Two Sisters borrowed from a friend – I’ll probably be watching it tonight, actually. You’re making it sound really scary, though!

But I agree with Bob that Kursawa’s PULSE is one of the more adventurous entries in the J-Horror subgenre (in fact almost everything Kurosawa had ever done fits this category, even Tokyo Sonata.)

And Mike, Jandy and I stand together on “Night Of The Hunter”…B-) If only for the underwater discovery scene (I don’t want to give away to anyone reading this who hasn’t seen the film what is found underwater) and the entire trip up the river. I guess that shows my bias towards rich visuals, but I love the story & characters too – Mitchum’s character and performance are almost over the top, but he brings such an intensity to it that it feels genuine (in the sense that the character would actually behave that way).

Retribution had awesome sound design. Agreed. And visuals, too. The woman in red was almost iconic. Kurosawa also did the original Pulse, didn’t he? I almost watched that the other night, but ended up watching The Host instead. Which was my first experience of K-horror.

Mike, ah, but I LOVE Night of the Hunter unequivocally. So I guess I’m all alone again in my indifference toward Out of the Past. I’ll have to rewatch it. I did see it early in my exposure to noir, but I think that had the opposite effect on me than it did on Bob – I didn’t know enough about noir to care about it from that perspective, so I ended up just not appreciating it, I think. Knowing more about noir and its different facets will probably help.

I honestly don’t remember Out of the Past that much except that liked it. And in my movie log I noted the glory that was the femme-fatal manipulation. Gotta love that.

And yeah, Jandy knows her game. Anybody who writes litcrit essays on zombie movies is more than ok in my book.

Too bad there’s not a lot of love coming to “Out Of The Past”. It was an early Noir for me, so perhaps that’s why it’s stuck. “Detour” has stuck as well, but simply due to it being such a prototypical example of the form and that dark spiral downwards for the main character (and the telephone cord…).

But as for “Out Of The Past”, Jandy said:

“but I just don’t see in it what everyone else does, somehow.”

Jane Greer. I’d be putty in her hands too.

“Kwaidan” I love partially for the look of it. Especially the second story (with the Snow Woman). Those painted skies are just gorgeous. And the use of sound is another key element and a distinctive trait of Japanese directors. Kurosawa (who did “Retribution”) is another fine example – the sound design in that film is great. Especially when there is almost no sound at all as the woman in red, slowly, slowly approaches him and her face fills the screen. Geezus, that’s freaky…

Mike, I’ll try to include something about “Woman In Black” in a follow-on post – you’ve got me psyched.

And “Nightmare On Elm Street” (even worse – number 2) is not a shining example of dialog writing. Or any kind of writing at all for that matter. It’s still fun though.

But that’s great that they have The Woman in Black on Zip.ca; Netflix is still behind the curve on that one. And I’d definitely love to hear what you think about it–I’ve only talked to one other person who’s seen it and that was the guy who recommended it to me. It’s got some stock ghost story elements but some pretty quality stuff too. I think the fact that it was a TV movie is really what made it good, since it had to kind of be reserved and work a bit more inside itself rather than depend on a high budget or gore or whatever.

Oh, and I just rewatched A Nightmare on Elm Street last night and whew…never realized how terrible the writing is in that one. It’s still A Nightmare on Elm Street and iconic and blahblahblah, but hasn’t exactly aged like a champ.

The rep cinema also did some J-horror last year, but the only ones I saw were Kwaidan (which I need to see again; didn’t really get most of it, though I did like the monk-with-the-writing-on-his-face story a good bit) and Retribution, which is one of the few Japanese films I’ve seen that I didn’t really have too much trouble getting into. (Just a few “OMG WTF” moments that I couldn’t tell whether they were supposed to be funny or not.)

This year is early Technicolor horror, and next week is a double feature of Hammer films – I’ve never seen any Hammer films at all, so I’m really excited!

I’ve seen Dead of Night, The Haunting and The Innocents – great stuff. I’ve loved Dead of Night forever, and I’m always glad to find people who’ve seen it. I pretty much recommend it to everyone. In the same vein as the ’60s ones, Village of the Damned is great. (Children of the Damned, not so much.) Same kid from The Innocents, and he’s just as creepy/awesome. The remake of The Haunting is only worthwhile because I can point out the exterior of the manor and the great hall to people, because they were filmed at the school where I studied abroad in college.

“Woman In Black” sounds like a keeper! Thanks for the tip Mike. Added to my zip.ca list and moved it to the top.

My preference is also for the atmospheric, slow, creepy, tension-filled stuff. The Japanese filmmakers can do this very effectively (not all J-Horror is of this type of course, but a good deal is). I have faves in all the styles, but most are the slower ones.

Not really a “horror,” but you might want to check out The Innocents if you haven’t already. Talk about moody–the cinematography is stylish and just beautiful.

And pretty surprising: The Woman in Black, if you can find it, was actually a British TV movie but, man…there are a few scenes in there that scare the hell out of me.

Love talking horror! ‘Till next time.

There’s a Val Lewton box set (Lewton was the producer – along with Tourneur, Robert Wise and Mark Robson directed the other films) that has nine of these collected and each is worthwhile.

Tourneur also did “Night Of The Demon” from the late 50s which is pretty darn superb. Not like jump out of your seat films of today, but more of a slow creep as it withholds so much and leaves everything in the shadows. Well, almost everything.

Look for “Dead Of Night” as well – it’s a 1945 British omnibus film (from Ealing Studios) that collects 5-6 shorter stories within one wrap around one. Not quite as much fun as the Amicus films from the 70s, but still pretty solid.