mistressofmuses | Red Riding Hood

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Red Riding Hood

If I had a nickel for every dark-ish fantasy-ish movie I've seen that was directed by Catherine Hardwicke, based on different source material, at least partially about werewolves, featuring a love triangle with an obvious conclusion, where Billy Burke played the protagonist's father...

I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot but it's weird that it's happened twice.

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Periodically Alex and I remember that tubi (the kind of off-brand streaming service with a surprisingly extensive catalogue) exists AND forget that we don't use it because the ad breaks are so damn long and half the time force you to restart the movie because the picture and/or sound die afterwards.

This time it suggested the 2011 Red Riding Hood film under the horror category. (That may be overstating it, but okay.) I hadn't seen it before, despite being exactly the target audience for aesthetically pretty dark/horrorish fairy tale retellings.

I enjoyed it. It's probably not going on any top ten lists for me or anything, but it was fun in a pretty, brain-popcorn way, and the ending was satisfying. I liked it more than Twilight, the other one I'd have a nickel for, though that maybe isn't saying much. Really, I enjoyed Red Riding Hood the whole way through, which is much better than a lot of recent movies I've watched have given me.

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Also, bless AO3. As soon as there was a scene where the 'rival' love interests decide to team up to rescue the protag with a reluctant "you need me" "we have to work together for her" kind of thing, my hindbrain gave an *eyes emoji*: wouldn't it be a shame if this love triangle resolved in a surprisingly equitable OT3 kind of way? And then I can go to AO3 and discover that at least three other people in the decade that this movie has been out came to the same conclusion.

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I have Tubi, too, but I don't mind the ad spots. The only thing I don't like about the ad spots on any of the Roku channels is that they'll suddenly be LOUD AS FUCK, but I can mute them and it shows you when the ads will end, so you don't miss anything.

Is that the Red Riding Hood with...yeah. I just looked it up. I LOVE that movie. Kas and I actually saw that at the theatre (I could rarely coax her into horror movies, but she was interested in that one).

I wouldn't mind the ads so much if I didn't have to watch the same set several times in the hopes of the movie not freezing after them, lol. I think that's really just that the app isn't playing nicely with our TV - just that the ads play, and then sometimes the picture doesn't come back.

I'm really surprised that I never saw it before now! I enjoyed it - it was very pretty to look at the whole time - the costumes, the set design, the cinematography, - and I was quite pleased with the ending.

No I get that. I've had things freeze up occasionally with the Roku -- it's an actual Roku TV. Will be a year old (or at least a year in my ownership) this April. I don't know that it's so much the Roku part of it locking up or if it's just momentary shitty internet. But it's a pain when it happens.

I'm a little surprised you hadn't seen it either. I've gotten SUPER picky about 'horror' movies. I can't watch most of what's out there on the streaming channels, and I'm not going to pay for Shutter to get better horror movies, but I remember when Red Riding Hood was coming out, and I was so excited about it because the cast was pretty awesome. It's even got Abigail Hobbs from the Hannibal series. LOL Though she's a bitch in RRH. Big surprise. Abigail was pretty much a bitch, too. Haha. Did you ever watch The Wolfman with Benicio del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, and Hugo Weaving? I thought that was a great movie, but the people I saw it with whined about it a lot. Well, Kas didn't whine as much as the two guys we saw it with, but yeah. I thought it was great, they hated it.

But yeah, I LOVED the ending of RRH. I loved that SHE was the werewolf. LOVED THAT.

Our TV is a Vizio, but one of the smaller kind of low-end models. (We also may be hampered by our internet service - it's provided by the apartment complex, which is great, but isn't terribly reliable.)

I really am the IDEAL target audience for Red Riding Hood, and kind of couldn't believe I hadn't seen it!
I recognized Abigail's actress! When she gave her nasty snide speech to Valerie when she was locked up in the square I think I made some comment like "Psh, you're one to talk Abigail."
I did not ever see the Wolfman, but that sounds like a rad cast.
Alex has much more narrow taste than I do, so if something ISN'T a horror/thriller he's rarely interested. Which doesn't mean I can't watch other stuff, obviously, but if I do, I'll be watching it alone.

I still watch a LOT of horror, but there aren't all that many that I would say I enjoyed, or at least not enough to rec or watch again. We pick a lot of terrible stuff off of Prime/Hulu/Netflix, but almost all of it winds up being things I'd give a C grade at best, if I were still writing reviews. Sometimes something strikes me as pretty good, but some stuff gets DNF'd because it's so bad or boring. Generally I let Alex pick something, and I half-watch in between flitting around Dreamwidth or trying to write. (Frustratingly, I'm failing to even remember most of the ones I liked, lol. I thought "The Body at Brighton Rock" was pretty good, though the thing I liked most is a spoiler for the end.)

I've had a Vizio. In fact, that was the one I bought when I moved to San Marcos in 2010, and I didn't get a new TV till April of last year, so it lasted me 10 years. It was starting to get dark, but I was able to angle the brightness so I could make it last a little longer till I got this one. The one I have now is a TCL, and it's a good TV, though it does jerk sometimes with Roku, but it does it with all the channels. Netflix included. Netflix has been jerky a lot over the last couple of weeks.

I know! At the time I saw Red Riding Hood, of course, Hannibal wasn't out so I didn't know who she was. Of course, later found out that she's also in an episode of Supernatural (who the hell wasn't in Supernatural?)

Honestly, I think you'd like The Wolfman, if for nothing else but the amazing cast, but I really do like the story, too.

I get that about horror movies. Have you watched the two Sinister movies? Those still scare the shit out of me when I re-watch them, and I KNOW what's going to happen. Those are really well done, I think. And the two Conjuring movies. Annabelle...no. Didn't like. Predictable. The Nun...kinda scary. Exorcism of Emily Rose, always good. Exorcist/possession moves are. Almost overdone at this point. The Rite with Anthony Hopkins and Colin O'Donaghue? Great! Truly a great one. I *hated* Possession with Jeffrey Dean Morgan. I think it had great bones, but I really think that the battling ex-spouses, the trope of the put-upon ex-wife making the ex-husband look like shit is just gross. I hated that. The bones of Possession were good, though. A dybukk instead of a Christian demon = GREAT! Same with that movie The Unborn. I really like that one. I mean, dybukk AND Nazi past? Fantastic. Have you ever watched The Exorcist series? Sadly only got two seasons just when the sexy priests were getting good (one of them = very bisexual, more into men), and of the two seasons, the second is my favorite.

This last week I've been watching a lot of British police procedurals/crime dramas. I re-watched Broadchurch and then ventured into a few others. Collateral, The Stranger, Retribution. All good ones.

Our TV has mostly been pretty good, though it doesn't always want to play nice with the internet. (Though that's probably on the internet end.)

I feel like everyone was in Supernatural at least once, lmao. And The X-Files.

It sounds like I would. If I get a chance to watch it, I'll definitely do so.

I have seen the Sinister movies (though I always get them confused with the Insidious movies, lol, and have to remind myself which is which.) The first Sinister film especially was super creepy! I did like The Conjuring 1 and 2. Annabelle was pretty mediocre, imo. Creepy dolls can be a good horror element, but I hated their choices on how she looked - she was so OBVIOUSLY creepy, that there was no surprise to it.
The Nun was one that I was very disappointed in, but think could have been vastly improved by just removing the prologue section. If the film *started* with them finding the dead nun outside the apparently-abandoned convent, I think it would have been WAY better. There could have been some sense of wondering what was happening, instead of the audience already knowing it, and just watching the characters figure out stuff we'd already been shown.
The Rite is one I think I should watch again. It felt a little too generic the first time I saw it (like just a retread of other exorcism films), but I think maybe I just wasn't in the right mood for it, so didn't get into it. I didn't see Possession, but I did enjoy The Unborn. Sadly I did not ever see any of the Exorcist series, except for pretty gifsets on tumblr.

Criminal Minds has been our current background series. I've heard lots of good things about Broadchurch, but haven't seen it.

I can see how you'd get the movies confused with the names of them, but they're way different. The Insidious movies are creepy, but they don't really leave me scared and shaken when I have to go from the bedroom to bathroom. Sinister. Man, even after seeing them several times, they still leave me so out of sorts that I'm very careful when I rewatch them. If I'm in just the slightest off mood, I can't watch them or else is leaves me shaking and anxious -- just like with Event Horizon. Seriously, it's like if I'm in that fucked up mood and I watch those movies, my mood just gets...haunted.

Oh man. Yes, yes! Annabelle was made intentionally creepy, and the original Annabelle doll was nothing more than a Raggedy Ann doll. Dolls are inherently creepy on their own, esp old dolls. I've got one of my mom's dolls from her childhood, and it's in a box in storage because I just don't have space for it, and honestly. I do not want it on display at the moment.

The Rite is just a gorgeous sort of creepy exorcist movie. Anthony Hopkins and Colin O'Donaghue are just fantastic in it. I really recommend giving it another shot. Possession had so many good things about it, but the whole...Jeffrey Dean Morgan-Kyra Sedgewick ex-married couple constantly harping about the kids. I just felt that really killed the mood for me. It just really felt like this gross trope was in the way of good storytelling.

OH...Oh I'm watching this series now. I think it's just one season. It's on Netflix, and it's called Requiem. It's British/Welsh, and it's got some pretty creepy supernatural overtones and some sort of weird-creepy angelic (not in a Christian way -- not like Supernatural gross overbearing Christian bullshit way) - like otherworldly angelic way shit going on that I can't figure out, and I love that. I love that it's not predictable, but it's not out of left field either, whatever it is. I seriously recommend this if you're looking for something like that to watch.

Oh yeah, it's only the names that I get confused with each other - I just struggle to remember which franchise has which name! Sinister is definitely way better. I think I've seen the first movie three times? And even the most recent time I saw it, I was genuinely creeped out by it, which isn't a thing that usually happens to me with movies.
And oooh, yes, Event Horizon. I hadn't seen that movie in a LONG time, and just watched it a few months ago again, and ho damn did I forget how creepy it was.
Another one that stuck with me for a while and was still pretty creepy on a second watch: The Children. It's a British horror movie about kids that get sick and turn murderous, but it had a pretty good build up in the violence, I think.

Dolls (along with anything else that's got the uncanny valley/not-quite-a-person thing going for it) definitely have plenty of inherent creepiness. TBH an "innocuous" or "cute" or "innocent" looking doll, like the 'real' Annabelle doll, that turns out to be evil or haunted is way creepier to me than one that looks like it was shit out by Satan. (Also, every single time there's a creepy doll in a movie or something, I get the Creepy Doll song by Jonathan Coulton stuck in my head.)

I will have to give The Rite another shot if I have a chance to watch it and see if I like it better. I didn't *dislike* it, but just had a hard time getting into it.
I hate when movies have unnecessary subplots that wreck it for me. Ones about sniping spouses (or exes) tend to be the worst. *Sometimes* it fits, but it's like every mediocre writer decided that they have three family-tension plots to try and pick from, and must incorporate one, no matter how poorly it works.

I will have to look into Requiem! It sounds like the kind of thing I'd like, so I'll stick it on my list!

The Insidious movies are good, but they don't leave me shaken and jumping at shadows the way the two Sinister movies do. The first is definitely the more horrific and terrifying, and I have to be honest, one of the scenes that is both beautifully choreographed and utterly, heart-stoppingly terrifying is the scene where Ethan Hawke is walking down the hall, and the children's ghosts are shadowing him, but they switch up and do it in such a way that just shatters my rational brain. That...THAT makes me wonder if that's happening to me when I walk down a hall or through the house, esp at my aunt's house, which already freaked me out at night, esp because of her (Alzheimer's).

I haven't watched The Children, I don't think. I'll have to look for it. Taking Deborah Logan is scary af, esp for me. I watched it after we moved up to my aunt's house and my aunt was still there (years before we had to put her in the nursing home), and that movie fucked with me big time. Deliver Us From Evil is also really, REALLY good. The Visit (I think that's what it's called - where the grandkids go stay with their grandparents who both have Alzheimer's). Yeah, that was another one that fucked with me, so I haven't seen it or The Taking of Deborah Logan again because those hit way too close for comfort. There's another one...based on a Stephen King short story called 'Gramma'. Here it is. Mercy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercy_(2014_film) That is a great one, too.

Definitely check out The Rite again. It's strange, but it's not as predictable as some exorcism movies. The acting is just really stellar.

Yeah, I don't know what the 'broken/dysfunctional family' trope has that all these directors are using it now. Nicely, the remake of Poltergeist didn't do that. Didn't cause problems in the family. The one kid has a lot of anxiety, and the dad (Sam Rockwell) has lost his job, but the remake really blew me away with how good it was. I loved the use of the drone to see the 'other side' where Carol Ann was (or whatever her name was in the movie - it wasn't Carol Ann LOL).

Requiem is definitely your kind of thing. I don't want to give anything away, but I really think it'll be a good watch for you!

Yes, Sinister gave me the *hide under the blanket* feeling, which not a lot of horror movies do. And that is a good scene - the fear of something following me, or watching me, that I can't see is one of the things that worries me. (I had the not-entirely-irrational fear when we lived in our car that I'd wake up to someone staring at me. It never happened, but that idea of something outside my window, or behind me in a room... that freaks me out.

I often like creepy kid movies well enough, but "The Children" stuck with me.
I have seen The Taking of Deborah Logan, and that one was super creepy! I can definitely see it being extra frightening with your aunt.
I don't think I've seen Deliver Us From Evil... I'll look for that one.
The Visit was pretty good, too. I think Alex and I saw that one in the theater.
I'm almost certain I've seen Mercy, but I think it may be one that I was multitasking during. But it sounds very familiar.

"Broken/Dysfunctional Family" CAN be a great addition to a horror movie, in part because that is a mundane fear that a lot of people have, and one that a lot of people have experience with. And having the conflict between family members parallel the bigger horror conflict can be effective at conveying broader themes.
But... it feels like EVERY paranormal horror movie (haunted house movies are the worst at it) suddenly has to "really be about" the husband who resents his wife/wife who hates her husband/parents who hate having kids/etc.
I know it's a cliche for a reason, but for every great movie (like Sinister) that features "a nice white family getting a new start in a new house after moving away from a bad past (and also the dad is probably a writer and/or the mom has fertility issues)", there are a dozen that are super generic and boring.

I'll certainly add it to my list!

I did a search on my Roku last night before I watched anything else and found The Children free on Tubi and Plex and one other channel that I don't have. I watched it on Tubi, and there were hardly any ad spots. FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK. That movie made me SO FUCKING GLAD that I don't have children, will NEVER have children, and that I will not be taking children to visit asshole relatives anywhere in some remote fucking place where it takes cops and ambulances half an hour to get there if needed. FUCK FUCK FUCK. Normally, I'm skeptical about movies like that, but the fact that there was no explanation, never any explanation at all of HOW the kids got that...bacteria in the first place just made it creepier! I was really sad that the teenage daughter wound up infected because she was the only sensible character in the fucking movie - except for her choice of clothes, however. What she wore was NOT sensible to be running around in the snow! I wanted her to dress warmer. The only actor I recognized was the one playing...what was his name? Jordan? James? The stepdad. He was in Bright Young Things, and I liked him in that movie. Not a horror movie, but you might like it. It was directed by Stephen Frye, and I think you'd like the cast.

The Taking of Deborah Logan had a really cheesy, hokey ending that was just bad CGI, I think, but the build up through the rest of the movie was terrifying as fuck. Deliver Us From Evil was just really good. You really have to pay close attention to the whole thing because there are some good scary parts that happen in a flash and you miss them if you look away. The fun thing with that one is that it's based off a real NY cop who worked with a real priest and eventually quit the police force to work full-time with this priest in exorcisms. I've got the book somewhere that he wrote. Mercy I can't recommend enough. It's got all the great factors to it, plus it's based on a Stephen King short story that is creepy af anyway.

No, the dysfunctional family/broken family CAN be a decent trope if you're not hammering the viewer over the head with it. Possession hammered, I felt. The ex-wife was just on his ass constantly about not feeding the kids pizza (making sure they ate healthy meals ALL THE TIME) and about all these little things, and the ex-husband just wanted to be a dad and hey look, I have a house so that you each get your own room, and sure we can stop at this yard sale and buy this creepy old box for a $1 because I'm a dad and we don't buy into haunted things. Blah blah blah. I mean, it's got really fucking *good bones*, but that ex-wife/ex-husband nagging shit just drained on me a lot. Otherwise, definitely watch it for the bones of it because it's got great creepy factor to it, and because it's not a traditional Christian demonic possession thing, it's really *interesting* and different. Same with The Unborn.

Last night, after I watched The Children (aka FUCK FUCK FUCK), I watched stuff on Amazon Prime. There was a movie called The Inspector Calls with David Thewlis, Sophie Rundle, Ken Stott, Miranda Richardson, and Finn Cole. It wound up having a supernatural twist to it that I didn't see until a certain point and then it was like OOOOOOOO CREEPY COOL!

Lol, FUCK FUCK FUCK sums that one up pretty well! It was one that stuck with me for a bit after watching it. I agree that there not being an explanation makes it way creepier... and also agree that it sucks the teen girl got it in the end, too. I felt like that one had a good pattern of escalation to the awful things the kids are doing. That they don't go straight from 0 to 100, they build up to being monstrous homicidal horrors, haha. A few of the early things are the things that you could think were just accidents or done without understanding the consequence... I don't have children, and I never will have children, but that one definitely creeped me out.

Yes, I very much wish The Taking of Deborah Logan hadn't gone with shitty CGI for the end, because up until that point, it was SO creepy.
I will definitely look for Deliver Us From Evil.
I am almost certain I have seen Mercy, but it's been quite a while. If that one comes up, I'll give it another watch, too.

Agreed. There are great applications of the dysfunctional family, and usually there's gotta be *some* tension there for plot reasons. But so many of the subplots just come across as lazy... or like they're basing them off of other horror movies instead of off of the idea itself (if that makes sense... like the writers aren't writing about a dysfunctional family, so much as they're just kind of copying the beats from another movie that did). The ones that are too heavy-handed just get annoying, and tend to make the characters cross into the "all right, y'all deserve to get dead at this point" territory.
I definitely agree that sometimes there's such potential in a movie for it to have been better than it was - good bones, a good twist, a wasted cast... It's nice to imagine what could have been, lol.

The Inspector Calls. I'll have to look for that one, too. I love supernatural twists! (That was the case with The Body at Brighton Rock, too.)

Thankfully, that movie isn't sticking with me other than to just to plan on side-eyeing kids from here on out, esp when they're coughing and if one throws up, I'm outa there. Fuck that shit. LOL

I think having the tensions there can be good, but when the tensions outweigh the actual threat...it's not so good. I mean, you're just interrupting Dybbuk/Demon time with the petty bullshit, and I think they're just gonna get bored and walk tf away. LOL

I haven't seen The Body at Brighton Rock, but sounds like it could be interesting. I just tried to watch something called Slender from 2016, and I had to stop it because it was so boring. I couldn't get into the full thing because the docu-set up was just boring af.

That's good! I'm glad it didn't stick with you in a bad way.

Lol, right? Like... there are classics like The Shining where the dysfunctional family dynamics are PART of the horror, or ones where the family issues dovetail with the horror and make it worse in a genuine way. But then there are so many where it just makes the characters unlikeable, or is an annoyance taking away from the rest. Or is so overblown to be unbelievable.

The Body at Brighton Rock was most enjoyable to me for the twist, so I don't want to spoil it. But it was pretty good. It's mostly about fear of isolation, where a young park ranger gets lost on a route she wasn't supposed to take, but then discovers the body of a hiker. She's instructed to stay with the body until they can send rescue for her, but then Suspicious Stuff starts happening, and she starts to wonder if the hiker was actually murdered. The main character had a handful of annoying moments, if I recall, but at the same time, she struck me as fairly realistic.

I haven't tried to watch Slender. I watched the 2018 Slender Man and was unimpressed, but it wasn't the worst thing I've ever watched. We saw "Always Watching" recently, which was the full-length Marble Hornets story and I guess sort of a sequel to the web series. The web series was definitely better (though it has been a hot minute since I've seen it.) Always Watching got pretty mediocre reviews, but mostly it seemed like because people compared it to the web series and liked that better. Alex and I both thought that it was all right.

YES! Stephen King knew how to weave in the broken family into the horror scenario to make it work without beating you with it. Okay. I should probably preface this with the BOOK The Shining was fantastic with this. Kubrick...I have such problems with his adaptation (mostly because I have huge problems with the arrogance of him and how he treated King over the few questions King had). All the actors (save Danny Lloyd) were fantastic in the adaptation, but Kubrick made Jack insane from the get-go instead of gradually losing his mind He also seemed a little old, and I'm saying this as a Jack Nicholson fan. But even in the Kubrick adaptation, the broken family dynamics worked well with the horror. The dynamics weren't broken entirely from the beginning...not obviously broken. There were cracks just like in the book. Cracks that were then exploited by the Hotel and broken wide open where they could've had the opportunity to heal. They were truly healing but the Hotel could exploit the fears, the paranoia, the distrust. King knows how to write. Whomever wrote Possession could've taken big time advice from him.

Ooooo. I love things with surprising twists! I'll have to look for that one. What streaming channel was it on?

Save yourself the time and don't bother with Slender. It's set up documentary style at a time when the document style has passed, and it gives so much aggressive and annoying exposition at the start (using the documentary style to do it, which is just boring af), and I lost interest way before it even got to the Slender Man portion of the movie. I always wondered about Slender Man (the movie) because I had a friend who constantly talked about seeing a Slender Man figure growing up and all through her life, and it just sounded creepy. I was skeptical about the movie, though, and it sounds best that I just steer clear. There's another kind of cheesy horror movie that turned out to have some really *good* parts to it -- Last Shift (2014). If you haven't watched that one yet, it's worth a once through. It was a little scarier than I initial gave it credit for.

Yes! I like the film version of The Shining all right, but have to try and look at it solely on its own and not as an adaptation. I like the book better, by far. (Kubrick was also a dick to the state of Colorado when it came to the movie. He refused to film at the actual Stanley Hotel because he didn't think anyone would believe such a nice hotel was in the mountains of CO.) The thing that bothers me the most about the film is Jack's character - he's crazy/kind of an asshole from the start, so there's no real tension between him loving his family/being pushed to hurt them.
Have you seen the miniseries? I thought it handled Jack's decline into crazy way better, and he seemed like he actually cared about his family. It was also filmed at the actual Stanley Hotel, lol.

I think The Body at Brighton Rock was on Netflix. Not sure if it still is, though. A quick google tells me Hulu has it, which may be where I saw it, actually. It mostly got pretty meh reviews, but I liked it more than the average person, apparently.

I will pass on Slender. I can still do a found-footage/faux documentary, but it's gotta be pretty good in order to hold my interest. If you DO want to watch something Slender Man related, I definitely suggest the Marble Hornets web series. (On YouTube.) It's about a group of friends making a student film, but gradually capturing weird, creepy stuff, including Slender Man (referred to as "The Operator".) It was part of what really popularized him after the original photo manips and creepypasta.

I have seen Last Shift! I remember liking that one more than I thought I would.
Rereading a summary of Last Shift reminds me of another one I enjoyed fairly well: The Void. That one is a mostly-abandoned hospital and a cult trying to bring about their monstrous alternate reality. It was heavy on practical effects rather than CGI.

I didn't realize that he didn't actually film at the Stanley. I'm not surprised because Kubrick was such a dick. He wrecked Shelley Duvall's mental and emotional health by torturing her during filming. The only cast member I think he wasn't a dick to was Danny Lloyd. I saw the mini-series, and I liked aspects of it so much better than the film adaptation. Stephen Weber was a superior Jack (again, not dissing Jack Nicholson because I love him, but he wasn't the right fit for Jack Torrance - that said, I will always use the Jack Nicholson as Jack gifs for reactions because those work really well). He was younger, he had The Look™ to be Jack, he showed that he was struggling with sobriety but that he loved his family and was trying really hard. She showed love for Danny at the end. Wendy was thankfully BLONDE (I love love love Shelley Duvall, but I'm a stickler for hair color sometimes, and that really bugged me) and she was stronger, and sometimes I think she was almost too too strong. The kid who played Danny. No. He was, at least, a more animated actor, but he was TOO OLD TO BE PLAYING DANNY! They tried to de-age him by putting him in overalls, but the fact remains that he was too old. I LOVE that they did the topiary animals, the hose down the one hall, and the wasps. I honestly liked Scatman Crothers in the film adaptation as Dick Halloran more than the guy who played him in the mini-series, who was good, sure, but Scatman WAS Dick for me.

This all said, have you seen Doctor Sleep yet? If not, SEE IT. It is The Shining we deserve. The director worked with Stephen King (something Kubrick refused to do) on how to be true to the book but also to make it cohesive with the Kubrick adaptation, not because either liked the Kubrick adaptation but to give it continuity, and it is fucking BEAUTIFUL. Truly. They use the hotel from Kurbrick's, and there's even a sneaky point where Danny's being interviewed for a job in an office that was the same office supposedly at the Overlook in the Kubrick version, and Jack (his father) is the bartender but it's Henry Thomas playing him (Elliot from ET!) and he sounds and looks just like him. It's just a fucking amazing movie and I love it. I want to say more but that would give away too much if you haven't seen it yet. I loved it so much that Kas bought it for me on blu-ray for my birthday last year so that I could watch all the commentary as well. Oh and Danny Lloyd, the original Danny, was invited to come play a small part.

I'll look for Brighton. I'm watching Taken right now on Roku - it's a series based on the movies with Clive Standon from Vikings playing the main character. I didn't like the Taken movies (I was bored by them) even though I like Liam Neeson, but I'm watching this for Clive Standon, and honestly everyone's good in it. After I finish this, I'll look for Brighton. And I'll look for the other as well on Youtube.

Yeah, I was really surprised by how much I liked The Last Shift. I really expected to get into it and be bored to tears, and it started out a little cheesy and then it was really packed full of scary shit.

Yeah, he was a dick about it, lol. Kubrick seems like he was just in general completely horrible. I can appreciate he made some good films, but fuck, the dude was just the worst. His treatment of Shelley Duvall is legendarily horrid.

I really liked Steven Webber as Jack. I only saw the miniseries once, but his portrayal of the character has stuck out to me ever since. I actually felt the tension between the side of him that loved his family and what the hotel was doing to him.

I have not yet seen Doctor Sleep. Alex and I read the book (I think on a road trip? He drives, and I read aloud.) I've definitely wanted to see it, though! I need to find a copy. That's awesome how many little bits of continuity they have in it!

I saw the first Taken movie, and was pretty meh toward it. I do like Liam Neeson, but nothing else about the movie really appealed to me, and I never saw the sequel. I didn't realize there was a series! (But that explains why I saw someone talking about it recently...)

Last Shift was better than anticipated! I like when I find something like that - something I expect to be pretty mediocre, but I actually end up enjoying.

If you watch Brighton Rock, let me know what you think. (I hope you like it, though apparently I'm kind of alone in enjoying it...) And same with Marble Hornets. I need to rewatch that one.

I watched the miniseries a few times. I might try and download it at some point. The miniseries of 'Salem's Lot was pretty decent, too, and at least the vampire looked like he was supposed to and not just a Nosferatu rip-off. It seems a lot of the time as if they do Stephen King as a mini-series, and it doesn't do too badly. It was really good, though I also liked the new It adaptations done in two 'chapters' (movies). I mean, it had flaws, of course, but there were some really good things in it.

Definitely see Doctor Sleep when you can! It's amazeballs. Ewan McGregor is the best Danny in existence, and he also. Well, no, I can't tell you that until you see it. When you see it, we can discuss it at length because I have watched it so so so many times!

I think I found Brighton Rock, but I haven't watched it yet. I finished Taken and then found out that there was another season up for Sinner and then I've been watching Briarpatch because Alan Cumming plays the very sexy villain in it, and oh is he just bad. Like Loki-Joker level in a posh suit.

I haven't seen the 'Salem's Lot miniseries. Though I agree - a lot of times miniseries of his work are better adaptations than films. That's true for a lot of adaptations - books have so much to them, it's very hard for a film to do them justice. Miniseries have enough time to develop subplots, and give a sense of character development, or a slower ramp up of main plot. (All of which are some of what I love most.) I like that limited series/miniseries/etc. seem to becoming more popular.

I will! I loved that casting choice when I saw the trailer and such, so I definitely want to see it!

Alan Cumming plays the very sexy villain in it... Oh. Oh my.

I thought it was a lot better than the original 'Salem's Lot, though it still had flaws, but 'Salem's Lot is my second favorite Stephen King novel, second only to The Shining. Probably I love them equally to each other. I'm sure you've seen Rose Red and Storm of the Century?

I watched The Body at Brighton Rock last night. Wow, that was a fucked up movie. I kind of guessed the twist ending, though, esp when the guy said, "I had a phone just like this but it won't work." It was good, though. A little slow, and I kept wanting to scream at the girl, but it was an interesting twist. I would imagine she won't be going off in the woods again! LOL

I know I've seen Rose Red, but I don't think I've seen Storm of the Century.

Yeah, I started to suspect the twist partway through (and probably didn't help, having told you there WAS a twist, ha). The main girl got on my nerves a few times, but I thought she was also fairly realistic, in terms of people making equally bad decisions. Though yes, I bet she learned her lesson about staying on-trail, lol.

Storm of the Century is fucking awesome. It was the first one Stephen King wrote first as a screenplay, so what you get in the movie is what he wrote. I think I read the screenplay before I saw the movie, too. It's kind of like Prestige in that there are two views you can take of the conclusion, and it was another one that Jeff and I argued about and I'm always on the opposite side of the majority. LOL But I totally recommend it.

No, I always figure that there are supposed to be twists somewhere in movies, esp horror and thriller types of movies. Yeah, the main girl needed to be shaken, but to be fair, I kind of get her, too. She's underestimated a lot because of her inability to show up on time and to take the job seriously. But they kind of put a spite into her to want to prove she can handle something that she really can't (though in the end, she really does handle it, doesn't she? After all, she survives). I would hope that in the sort of epilogue, we wouldn't see her choosing to remain behind a desk or doing safe work but to just improve how she does the outdoors work and proves that that experience was going to strengthen her because she did survive when the others probably would assume she wouldn't.

I'll have to give it a watch if I can find it. I like stuff that has multiple interpretations available for the ending... that's one of the things I do love about The Prestige. I can see both perspectives on the end of that one.

Same, where I generally expect there to be *a* twist, so my brain starts working out possibilities, even when I'd rather be surprised, lol.
I think that was where I was at with the main character, too. She made some bad choices, but I can see myself making similar decisions and mistakes in a similar situation. Also agreed - I hope she grows and gets better after the experience, rather than retreating.

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