The Shrine

Halloween marathons can be fun. First up was the store defence series: The Mist, Dawn of the Dead Romero, and Dawn of the Dead Snyder.

If you have never seen the 1978 version of Dawn of the Dead, better late than never. This film holds up extremely well, a lot better than The Mist and Dawn of the Dead 2004. I would rank them as follows:
1. Dawn of the Dead 78 (and it’s not even remotely close)
2. Dawn of the Dead 04 (still a good movie)
3. The Mist (I found it way too glaringly plot mechanical, it felt more forced along than natural, so I disn’t Enjoy it).

I think the Mist is a good movie to watch once, if you don’t know anything about it. But honestly, the short is a lot more enjoyable... but if you read the short, you probably won’t enjoy the movie. Also, the film was made in 2007, and it REALLY does not hold up well in 2017 as far as special effects go. Seriously, Stranger Things does the Mist Story WAY better.

Dawn of the Dead 04, suffers a lot with quick camera pans, very brief shots of zombies, and cg-gore, which seems to lack the realness/wetness/grossness of the gore in the 78 version. I think the element which made the film great was the cast. Sbyder’s quirks in... notably slow-motion effects, and speed-ups (Although, not nearly as obnoxious as 300 or Batman vs Superman). Towards the end of the film, he became obsessive with showing gun casings hit the floor in slow motion after shots were fired. I am just pointing out the flaws, they don’t ruin the film, it’s still a good movie, and holds up a whole lot better than The Mist IMO.

Dawn of the Dead 78 is a brilliant film. The zombies are shown in great detail and at much closer range than Snyder. Romero was WAY better with the camera work and overall direction. The gore, bites, shooting, everything in this was shown without any quick camera pulls, weird angles, or slow motion. Just look at this videoclips, and you get a bit of an idea of why Dawn of the Dead 78 is such a brilliant movie - I mean, you get your huge violent bloodbath scenes too, but it's these that set it apart, and how they fit into the context of the film. Without spoiling much, the way they build the mall up into a home really makes the third act into one of the most emotionally engaging of any movie.

The Mist is better if you can find a black and white version of it... as silly as that sounds. It also has alternate endings that are well done and arguably better.

I just re-watched [rec] and [rec]2 and those would be my recommendations. The second one is just as good as the first. The third movie is horrible. The fourth movie that finishes out the story is... passable. But I really like the first two movies.

I can see that. Especially for the monster scenes. They looked much better in the colour drained mist. Maybe next year. I’ll keep that in mind.

Dawn of the Dead (2004) is great....but the girl/dog/decision to leave the mall annoys the shit out me every time.

I have never seen The Mist. I will check that out.

...Hocus Pocus....

*runs out of thread*

For haunted house movies. My four favourites are as follows:

1. The Conjuring 2
2. The Conjuring
3. Evil Dead 2
4. The Grudge

So, essentially two James Wan and two Sam Raimi films.

I know there’s a tendency to put “Ju-on” - the original Grudge movie - above the 2004 remake of the Grudge, but I don’t really know why. Mostly everyone saw the JU-on after seeing the Grudge, so it’s not a case of the 2004 version being too similar. Takashi Shimizu directed both the original and the remake, but the remake had horror veterans Sam Raimi and Robert Tapert as producers; and IMO, took a horror movie with an interesting concept, and fixed most of the problems, and majorly upgraded the creepiness and scare factor. Ju-on is like the rough draft, while the 2004 Grudge is like the final. My issue with the original is that it was kind of like the exorcist, it came off a little more cartoony and clownish than I believe what the director intended.
An issue with both the Grudge and Ju-on is interspersing “safe” moments throughout the film, which IMO completely drop the tension.

In both Conjuring films, there are falling action moments, but at no point do they drop off the tension. So, they end up being overall much creepier, more intense, and scarier movies than the Grudge. Don’t get me wrong, the Grudge IMO is still definitely in the top 5% as far as scary movies go, and could be the scariest movie of the time, when it was released.

I can’t say the Grudge is what I would find the scariest movie prior to 2005 for certain, as I have never seen the Ring or Ringu. Again, people are saying Eingu is scarier, but these are all largely the same people that swear up and down that Ju-on was scarier than the 2004 Grudge, which I can’t believe anyone would honestly believe upon watching both. I’ll probably end up watching both sometime this season.

But I find more recent films are scarier and creepier, better crafted than older horror movies trying to achieve the same. Right now Conjuring 2, followed by Conjuring 1 are IMO the scariest. Both movies caused me to jump a lot, but Conjuring 2 caused me to jump more, and bigger - although I should say many times it just manifests itself as a very cold chill =D
The Conjuring, the first one, IMO, didn’t have nearly as good of a climactic ending as the second one - although the first 3/4ths of the movie were dread-inducing, it drops off in the last 20-30 minutes or so when they get into the much more action-packed climactic ending. The Conjuring 2 managed to keep that dread-inducing feeling from top to bottom. The tent scare gets me every time, and is IMO, the current scariest scene of any movie - I wonder if that’s the one that killed the 65 year old?

Just to summarize the dread inducing moments:
The Grudge - a bit at the beginning, and then mostly in the second half, but with moments breaking it up.
The Conjuring - In the first 3/4ths or 4/5ths of the movie.
The Conjuring 2 - about 100% of the movie is dread inducing.

Another way to look at it:

The Grudge - 25% to 30%
The Conjuring - 75%
The Conjuring 2 - 95% to 100% (the 95% is because there’s one moment that comes off as a little silly, but not overly so)

And the Grudge’s 25-30% doesn’t mean bad; not at all. Most horror films IMO are 0-5% dread inducing. My favourite film in the horror genre, The Thing, probably falls around 5%, maybe 10% (hard to tell at this point, since I have probably seen it between 20 or 30 times in my life).


I don’t really need to say anything about Evil Dead 2, it’s more of a horror comedy thriller than a dread-inducing suspense horror like the other 3. I think we have all seen it many times. It’s IMO, better crafted than Evil Dead, funnier and entertaining than Army of Darkness. I actually like the medieval setting of Army of Darkness more than a haunted house - but find the novelty wear off after the first 20 minutes of the film. After that, the humour is mostly a weak recycle of Evil Dead 2, with no where near as good of a pacing.

Lights out and a good surround sound system are pretty much the only way to watch the Conjurings and the Grudge - as audio is a big part of the craft of these. Evil Dead 2 is probably more fun that way, but it’s not as essential.


Also, Stranger Things season 2 is out, I have seen the first few episodes, and they’re VERY good. Again, lights out + surround.