Unofficial 1980s Horror Movie Tournament

[realdealblues]

I am a rabid Fulci fan and Linnea Quigley is probably my favorite scream queen, but Day Of The Dead is still top of the Zombie peak for me. It took me a long time to realize it, but I now believe it's George's true masterpiece.

[Anthropophagus]

The Beyond or Day,Day or Beyond.................argh the agony.Ok,i go for.................Day of the Dead.But only by a whisker.

[Sculpt]

I vote Return of the Living Dead. A movie that knows what it is, and does that well. Day of the Dead is a solid movie, I liked it more than Dawn, because it had a little more substance and story. For Dawn, I get 1978 mall consumers are like walking dead. That said, it pales in comparison to NOTLD.


I just watched The Beyond last night from Youtube. It's in english with subtitles in I don't know what language. It has that spaghetti western sound, where all non-music is recorded after it's shot, even though the mouths appear to be speaking english. Anyway, people have different opinions, I respect other opinions. My opinion is Beyond wasn't very good, because I thought it was a bit silly, and weak script/characters:

(SPOILERS) Like a guy is 'invisibly nudged' off a library ladder and then bitten by non-indigenous tarantulas, which wouldn't kill him, unless he was allergic to the mild venom, or maybe the 10 foot fall killed him. He was pushed by a dead, or not dead, conjurer who was killed by acid 40 years ago. There's a mother in a hospital corpse room, with the dead acid guy, and her unconscious head ends up under a tripped vat of acid, and her 13yr old daughter comes in just in time to see the first drip, and she does nothing but watches for a minute (maybe she was a gore horror fan). And a blind woman, with a seeing eye dog, runs out of a house, and down the porch steps, with her dog trailing behind her. Later the dog attacks the acid man, and then the dog attacks and kills the blind woman. And the dead/patients at the hospital attack, and you have to shoot them in the head to put them down, even though the acid man didn't seem to need a healthy brain (there's limits, or not). And the last scene is the heroes run down the hospital basement steps, but end up in the hotel basement, decide to walk through a hole in the wall, and are trapped in an 'other world' desert limbo. Movie was sort of some gore scenes, with a premise, but no reasoning or convincing story or characters behind it. And something I don't like, it wasn't about the beyond or gates of hell, except the last 20 seconds of the movie. Just my opinion. = )

[tiberius]

The Beyond

[knife_fight]

Return of the Living Dead

[xX_StarChild_Xx]

Day of the Dead

[realdealblues]

Originally Posted by Sculpt

I just watched The Beyond last night from Youtube. It's in english with subtitles in I don't know what language. It has that spaghetti western sound, where all non-music is recorded after it's shot, even though the mouths appear to be speaking english. Anyway, people have different opinions, I respect other opinions. My opinion is Beyond wasn't very good, because I thought it was a bit silly, and weak script/characters:

(SPOILERS) Like a guy is 'invisibly nudged' off a library ladder and then bitten by non-indigenous tarantulas, which wouldn't kill him, unless he was allergic to the mild venom, or maybe the 10 foot fall killed him. He was pushed by a dead, or not dead, conjurer who was killed by acid 40 years ago. There's a mother in a hospital corpse room, with the dead acid guy, and her unconscious head ends up under a tripped vat of acid, and her 13yr old daughter comes in just in time to see the first drip, and she does nothing but watches for a minute (maybe she was a gore horror fan). And a blind woman, with a seeing eye dog, runs out of a house, and down the porch steps, with her dog trailing behind her. Later the dog attacks the acid man, and then the dog attacks and kills the blind woman. And the dead/patients at the hospital attack, and you have to shoot them in the head to put them down, even though the acid man didn't seem to need a healthy brain (there's limits, or not). And the last scene is the heroes run down the hospital basement steps, but end up in the hotel basement, decide to walk through a hole in the wall, and are trapped in an 'other world' desert limbo. Movie was sort of some gore scenes, with a premise, but no reasoning or convincing story or characters behind it. And something I don't like, it wasn't about the beyond or gates of hell, except the last 20 seconds of the movie. Just my opinion. = )

The Beyond was in Italian and dubbed into English other than David Warbeck and Catriona MacColl I think. Also, it was Fulci's idea of "Absolute Film" where it doesn't really have a plot per say. His idea was that it should be more like a nightmare where things don't make sense. Example, go in your basement and suddenly you're in some other basement, just like in a dream. The main idea, as he said, is there is a Hotel that sits on one of the Gates Of Hell, there are some people and some living dead and this is what happens. You have to remember the movie was also made for less than the catering budget of most American films at the time. Fulci was a magician who was usually given pretty much nothing to work with and had to pull a rabbit out of his ass to make a movie that most directors couldn't have made anything out of. You're welcome to think it's silly or not very good, but it also helps if you understand more of the background of what Fulci had to work with and what he was trying to achieve at the time. For me it was a very revolutionary film.

[natedog722]

The Return of the Living Dead

[Sculpt]

Originally Posted by realdealblues

The Beyond was in Italian and dubbed into English other than David Warbeck and Catriona MacColl I think. Also, it was Fulci's idea of "Absolute Film" where it doesn't really have a plot per say. His idea was that it should be more like a nightmare where things don't make sense. Example, go in your basement and suddenly you're in some other basement, just like in a dream. The main idea, as he said, is there is a Hotel that sits on one of the Gates Of Hell, there are some people and some living dead and this is what happens. You have to remember the movie was also made for less than the catering budget of most American films at the time. Fulci was a magician who was usually given pretty much nothing to work with and had to pull a rabbit out of his ass to make a movie that most directors couldn't have made anything out of. You're welcome to think it's silly or not very good, but it also helps if you understand more of the background of what Fulci had to work with and what he was trying to achieve at the time. For me it was a very revolutionary film.

Thx, Realdeal. Yes, that does make more sense, it being meant as a bad dream. I wouldn't have guessed that. I thought a movie like Lenora, was similar, but with much better results. I tend not to give extra points for being low budget, unless I actually liked it over all. As always, it's personal taste. I lost an appreciation for a movie like this around 14 (just when I happened, not saying it's an adult thing). But that does help to know the intent. Still, a movie should stand on it's own; easy enough for the director to indicate it's a dream (in the movie itself, though it may just have escaped me) -- such as the indications of 'dreamish' in Jacobs Ladder, Johny Darko, etc.

[metternich1815]

Once again we have a tie, despite one film getting five votes first. I will give this tournament until tomorrow. If a film does not win by tomorrow (I do not know exact time, it could be midnight, could three P.M.), then I will, for the first time, break the tie.