Identify This Movie

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Antoine Doinel
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#26 Post by Antoine Doinel » Tue Nov 20, 2007 1:31 pm

THANK YOU!!!!

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NABOB OF NOWHERE
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#27 Post by NABOB OF NOWHERE » Tue Nov 20, 2007 2:47 pm

apologies for the extreme haziness- An enchanted forest with a medieval knight leading a horse carrying an injured child. Black and white 30's/40's, French, and for some bizarre reason although I can't remember anything else but this image I think it was a woman director.

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bunuelian
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#28 Post by bunuelian » Tue Nov 20, 2007 3:53 pm

There's another one: a demonic creature is being carried on a train. It doesn't really ever show up on the screen other than its red eye, which glares out through cracks in doors and possesses people to do evil things. I think the train is eventually sent hurtling off a cliff, to destroy this evil thing. I can vividly remember the characters in the film being in late 70's/early 80's styles. I saw this film when I was too little for horror films and it gave me nightmares for years afterward (this monster appearing at my window telling me to look into its red eye . . . eesh).

I'd love to know the name of this one, so I can send it hurtling off a cliff.

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ogygia avenue
Joined: Mon Nov 28, 2005 4:51 pm

#29 Post by ogygia avenue » Tue Nov 20, 2007 4:13 pm

bunuelian wrote:There's another one: a demonic creature is being carried on a train. It doesn't really ever show up on the screen other than its red eye, which glares out through cracks in doors and possesses people to do evil things.
Terror Train?

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Kinsayder
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#30 Post by Kinsayder » Wed Nov 21, 2007 3:25 pm

Or is it the Cushing/Lee classic Horror Express?
IMDb wrote:Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing play two "distinguished gentlemen" at odds with a nasty frozen "fossil" that Chris picked up in the far East and is now taking back to Europe on the Trans-Siberian Express. The fossil, a half man/half ape Neanderthal that he believes may be the missing link, thaws out and becomes surprisingly animated. The creature begins attacking and murdering the passengers, draining them of their brain contents through their eyes, which turn white and bleed.
The bleeding eyes thing gave me nightmares, too.

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Lemmy Caution
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#31 Post by Lemmy Caution » Wed Nov 21, 2007 4:16 pm

A creepy movie I saw as a kid -- so this would be pre-1980 -- involved a young guy who accidentally killed his neighbor. So he goes into hiding in a small secret room in his house. I guess time passes and the house is sold (or something), and this guy is still living behind the walls of the house.

One day he forgets to cover up one of his peepholes, and someone who now lives in the house sees a strange light coming out from a small hole in the wall. They move in for a closer look and just as they put their eye up to the hole, so does the hidden dweller. Detected, he comes crashing out through the wall [IIRC]. The idea of someone living in your walls and watching you seemed pretty scary at the time.

Could have been a TV movie.
Anyone know what that was?

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colinr0380
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#32 Post by colinr0380 » Wed Nov 21, 2007 4:38 pm


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Lemmy Caution
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#33 Post by Lemmy Caution » Thu Nov 22, 2007 1:28 am

Yes!
Much thanks.

Pretty crap title though.
I probably saw that when it first aired in 1974, and I was 9. I thought it was a cool idea that someone could be living behind your walls (why not? insects do it all the time).

The film also plays on an elemental fear of totally relying on your mother only to have her die. Some very Freudian overtones of being trapped in a safe womb-like prison protected by mom, only to be forced to crash out in a panic into a dangerous world. Fun stuff.

Some Bad Ronald scenes on YouTube.
The film was adapted from a novel by sci-fi writer Jack Vance. The film has an ultra 70's look/style to it.
And some Bad Ronald fan with too much time and a computer even made a music video using scenes from Bad Ronald and Radiohead's song Creep. Works pretty well, and includes the best scenes from the end of the film. (better than the trailer, which has a blaring soundtrack, and surprisingly is also on You Tube.

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bunuelian
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#34 Post by bunuelian » Thu Nov 22, 2007 5:56 am

Hmm Terror Train is definitely not it. This film wasn't camp enough - just too dark. All the characters I recall were very unhappy men with overlong hair.

Horror Express sounds closer, though the eye sucking business doesn't sound right, either. In the movie I remember, we never saw the beast. All we ever saw of it was its glowing red eye (the scene I remember most vividly was a guy seeing the glowing eye through a crack in a door, and losing his mind because of it). My memory of the film suggests that someone was actually transporting this monster from one place to another and it got loose, though the more details I try to supply, the less certain I am of them. I do feel very strongly that the film based the horror of the thing upon its unknowableness - someone who loves H.P. Lovecraft and his lazy adjectives ("infinitely horrible!" "unknowably terrifying!" etc.) probably was responsible - granted, it worked on my little brain.

EDIT: Actually the "transporting" that I mentioned does match up with the plot of Horror Express. Maybe that's it, though I have a hard time reconciling my memories of late 70's style with early 1900's pomp. But surely the "seeing the eye through a crack" could correspond to what's described online. Thanks, guys.

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Kinsayder
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#35 Post by Kinsayder » Thu Nov 22, 2007 6:38 am

As far as I recall, the monster in Horror Express never actually gets loose. The brain sucking is a sort of psychic control that it exerts on anyone who peeks at it through the door of its crate, wearing them out until their eyes turn white and bleed. The bit that really gave me the shudders was the sight of a whole trainful of zombified passengers with white, bleeding eyes (or maybe that's just one of my subsequent nightmares). It'll probably look very hokey if I saw it again 30 years later.

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colinr0380
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#36 Post by colinr0380 » Thu Nov 22, 2007 7:06 am

It seems a lot like Horror Express. The creature is being transported by Cushing's character in a crate and one of the first victims is the baggage car man of the train who opens the peephole to take a look inside and sees the creature's red eyes (which causes the bleeding as it wipes the brains of its victims - it doesn't exactly suck their eyes, they just start bleeding and fall to the ground dead). The body is then dragged inside the crate (I think you get to see the creature's hand!) from which the creature then manages to escape.

After killing a few people a police inspector on the train shoots it dead but it does the eye-to-eye transference of psychic powers trick (strangely similar to the end of The Fury a few years later). The policeman then becomes the creature, with glowing eyes and a disfigured hand (a nod to Victor Carrune in The Quatermass Experiment?) and he then becomes the main villain.

One of the interesting things about Horror Express is the way it combines a number of different plots in one film. There is the monster on the loose plot, the posession plot and then the film stops once again to let Telly Savalas and his band of cossacks onto the train whereupon it becomes a zombie/runaway train film.

And yes it does end with a model train being driven off an unfinished bridge!

I still love the Exploitica re-editing of the film in which the mad monk who appears throughout the film in a Renfield-style role to the policeman is compared to Robert DeNiro and does look quite like Mr DeNiro did in The Mission!

There is also a brilliant sequence in which the Countess plays the piano while her small dog listens from a chair nearby - the Exploitica re-edit takes this inconsequential scene from the original film and turns it into a comedy classic as the dog whimpers loudly in response to the Countesses terrible off key playing! There is one point where she stops, looks back over her shoulder at the dog smugly and then starts up again which is brilliantly funny!

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domino harvey
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#37 Post by domino harvey » Sun Dec 23, 2007 5:22 pm

Holiday family help needed. My stepbrother is telling me about a recent "indie" movie-- a young call girl is propositioned online and meets a guy in his hotel room. He thinks it won some festival awards, ring any bells for anyone?

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Dylan
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#38 Post by Dylan » Sun Dec 23, 2007 5:25 pm

It's a vague description, but The Center of the World and On_Line sort of fit it.

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Lino
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#39 Post by Lino » Sun Dec 23, 2007 5:31 pm

domino harvey wrote:Holiday family help needed. My stepbrother is telling me about a recent "indie" movie-- a young call girl is propositioned online and meets a guy in his hotel room. He thinks it won some festival awards, ring any bells for anyone?
I'm almost sure it's David Slade's Hard Candy. Tell him to check out his new movie too, 30 Days of Night. Fantastic stuff. Really love this director's work.

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domino harvey
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#40 Post by domino harvey » Sun Dec 23, 2007 5:32 pm

Yeah I know, he says it takes place entirely or almost entirely in the hotel room. My first thought was Tape but he says it's about a girl who advertises her services online and a guy picks her up and they spend the whole movie in the hotel room and there's some sort of twist at the end. He said the title had nothing to do with the movie (He gave an example of She's All That-- it' NOT She's All That tho obv). Neither of those were it, thanks anyways tho.

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domino harvey
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#41 Post by domino harvey » Sun Dec 23, 2007 5:33 pm

Lino wrote:
domino harvey wrote:Holiday family help needed. My stepbrother is telling me about a recent "indie" movie-- a young call girl is propositioned online and meets a guy in his hotel room. He thinks it won some festival awards, ring any bells for anyone?
I'm almost sure it's David Slade's Hard Candy. Tell him to check out his new movie too, 30 Days of Night. Fantastic stuff. Really love this director's work.
That was my first thought as well but he said it wasn't Hard Candy.

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jesus the mexican boi
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#42 Post by jesus the mexican boi » Sun Dec 23, 2007 10:04 pm

Sounds like You Are Alone. IMDb entry here.

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domino harvey
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#43 Post by domino harvey » Mon Dec 24, 2007 12:02 am

jesus the mexican boi wrote:Sounds like You Are Alone. IMDb entry here.
This was it. Great job!

UbuRoi
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#44 Post by UbuRoi » Sun Dec 30, 2007 11:20 am

When I was in elementary school, probably in second grade, I remember seeing what is probably a Russian or Polish film about Christmas/ wintertime, involving someone I think was a snow monster in a raggedy costume or something like that. I recall it being in color, the makeup was horribly slathered to the faces of the poor, wincing actors, and that it was the first time in my young life that I instinctively understood the camp value of something. If someone could help, I'd be forever thankful... this movie has been gnawing at my brain for about twenty years or so.
Thanks!

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denti alligator
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#45 Post by denti alligator » Mon Jan 14, 2008 3:04 am

Ok, so I saw this on TV in the early 90s. It was a kind of Stepford Wives rip-off where in a small town when the youth reach a certain age they get "replaced" by non-rebellious versions of themselves that aren't interested in drinking or sex. Anti-authority adults that are new to the town meet the same fate. One person (a woman, I think --- Sissy Spaceck?) is onto it and in the end discovers thi hangar/warehouse where all the (skinned) bodies of the real people who've been replaced are being kept. It's a gruesome scene.

Anyone?

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Matt
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#46 Post by Matt » Mon Jan 14, 2008 12:53 pm


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denti alligator
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#47 Post by denti alligator » Mon Jan 14, 2008 1:05 pm

This might be it. Thanks, Matt. Now if only I could find a copy.

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jesus the mexican boi
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#48 Post by jesus the mexican boi » Mon Jan 14, 2008 1:35 pm

Matt wrote:Could it be The Stepford Children?
Oddly enough, it also stars John Cameron Mitchell -- could these Stepford Children have grown up to ride on the {gasp} Shortbus?

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Awesome Welles
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#49 Post by Awesome Welles » Fri Jan 18, 2008 12:19 pm

Can anyone think of a 1950s western which stars some of the big stars of the time (for the life of me I can't remember who, I want to say John Wayne and Montogmery Clift but I don't think so, it was so long ago). I think what I saw involved father and son out in the desert somewhere and then along comes another group of people and they get their guns out firing rocks or cans or something and the whole thing is a contest of who's got the biggest dick basically! Quite amusing.

Another one which I have hesitated to post in the past because my recollection is even more vague than the above. I was pretty young so we're talking early 90s or late 80s Channel 4 (in the UK) it was an Asian film or a film with an Asian man (there was no dialogue in the sequence I saw). He's conducting some eye experiments and points a laser at a person's eye and it doesn't work causing the eye to explode. It creeped me out and it was late and I knew I had to go to sleep so I turned it off. Any ideas anyone? Any suggestions would be most appreciated. I don;t know why but I always associate this memory with the colour purple.

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tryavna
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#50 Post by tryavna » Fri Jan 18, 2008 12:26 pm

FSimeoni wrote:Can anyone think of a 1950s western which stars some of the big stars of the time (for the life of me I can't remember who, I want to say John Wayne and Montogmery Clift but I don't think so, it was so long ago). I think what I saw involved father and son out in the desert somewhere and then along comes another group of people and they get their guns out firing rocks or cans or something and the whole thing is a contest of who's got the biggest dick basically! Quite amusing.
This sure sounds like Red River to me.

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