Horror october #1

[beer_good_foamy]

So I'm going to try a challenge and watch a horror movie every day in October. Or at least 31 horror movies in October. Or at least recommend a horror movie every day in October. We'll see how far I get. (Suggestions of movies I may not have seen are most welcome, though fair warning, I've seen a lot of horror movies...)

#1 is Gerald's Game, which just opened on Netflix. Based on a Stephen King novel I read when it came out and always considered completely unfilmable, since the entire plot is that a woman agrees to let her husband chain her to the bed 50 shades-style to spice up their marriage, and then he gets a heart attack and dies and she's chained to a bed miles from the nearest neighbour and nobody due to miss them for at least a week. So 90% of the story is just her, trapped in a bed, dragging through a lifetime of bad memories of men who think they own her to try and find a way out.

Still works rather well, though, up until the ending that gets way too comfortable. Carel Struycken (the Giant in Twin Peaks) in a small but crucial role. Also, one of the singularly goriest scenes in the whole history of Stephen King films, which is saying something. Not great, but not bad, and when it comes to Stephen King adaptations that's usually all you can ask.

Director Mike Flanagan also made Hush and Oculus, both of which are recommended.

Watch on YouTube

Comments

[ruuger]

Oh, it's a horror movie! I had been wondering why Netflix would recommend me a 50 Shades knockoff :D

[dragonyphoenix]

You've most likely seen it, but Pontypool.

[snickfic]

Have you seen Decoys? It's a very odd little film that seems unsure whether it's a horror movie or a botched first contact story. Also confused as to which guys are the good guys. And at the end I still wasn't sure how much of it was intentional! It's a personal fave, though, because there's a cute het xeno relationship with mpreg. :D

Cult Horror Films...that require strong stomachs...

[shadowkat]

I dare you to watch "The Human Centipede". (Which is the one that I made the mistake of reading a synopsis of once...and really wish I hadn't. A co-worker (who is also a frustrated screenwriter/cinemaphile) saw it and said it was actually an interesting commentary on torture. But I can't.)

The other horror film I dare you to see is Irreversible, which is a 2002 French film that had audiences leaving in the middle of. (A video store clerk described it to me once, I haven't seen it either. [ETA: Irreversible is told in non-linear fashion and features a very disturbing and possibly the worst rape sequence on camera...another film I've avoided. Also it gave people motion sickness -- similar to Blair Witch.]

Also "mother!" which may or may not be a horror film, people appear to be debating it.

You've probably already seen The Host - the 2006 Korean Horror film, not the Stephanie Meyer one. This actually is tame compared to all the others...and possibly the only one on my list I could make it through.

As an appetite cleanser...go with Anna and the Apocalypse - its a horror movie, a YA dystopia movie, a zombie movie, a musical, and a Xmas movie all at the same time!

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Gerald's Game reminds me a little of Misery.

[yourlibrarian]

I remember reading that book a while back too, and would have agreed about how difficult it would be to film it, mostly due to the subject matter with her father rather than the flashbacks.