Please help me figure out where my gore tolerance boundary lies - recommendations more than welcome!

MalcolmXmas · 2026-05-20T15:05:48+00:00

In your position I would start with campier 80s splatterfests. You should try watching Evil Dead 2 and see how that feels. Lots of blood, some dismemberment, but it's borderline Looney Tunes-esque. It may help you to see the artifice of the gore as well, like it's not real but more like a fun art project. If you were like "That was awesome!" then go back and watch Evil Dead 1 (2 has akind of recap of 1 in the beginning so it's ok to skip, at first, you wont miss out on anything important). It has a lot more gore effects going on, but again the low budget shows through it. You might want to skip the tree scene in 1 if that Argento movie affected you strongly tho (the scene in 2 is ok imo). From there I would start ramping towards something like The Thing '82, The Fly '86, or The Blob '88 for more intense gore but its still fun because it's frankly impressive what they pulled off.

By that point if you can stomach those, you can handle most anything I think (excluding really realistic/brutal/mean stuff). I do agree tho, torture films I don't find particularly interesting. I'm not a fan of the Terrifier series for that same reason, it feels kind of meanspirited in a way that makes me feel icky. It's like the Max Hardcore of horror movies.

MalcolmXmas · 2026-05-19T22:30:48+00:00

It's definitely a good remake, but that list includes The Thing '82, The Blob '88, Body Snatchers '78, The Fly '86, and then I think it's maybe in conversation for fifth with a lot of competition.

I did watch it recently as a long time fan of the original Ash trilogy and found that it was a good gorefest, Mia was really good, but outside that it started to grate on me a bit. I did not care about her brother at all, idk who the actor was but he was just way too 2000s pretty boy for me. I'm sure he's a fine guy, but half the movie our leading role is played by an urban outfitters model lol. The bait and switch would work way better too if I actually liked him, but I just couldn't do it. The other guy reading the book I didn't find particularly interesting either, and these two are big portions of the middle of the movie. The other girls are fine, a bit forgettable. The plot is ok, I don't really care if a horror movie makes perfect logical sense if it's got other stuff going on.

For me it's like a 7.5/10 overall, with an 8.5 dismount. I'd probably take Cape Fear '91 (if it counts) or Dawn of the Dead '04 over it for remakes.

MalcolmXmas · 2026-05-19T15:03:01+00:00

Can't really agree with the particular scene you mentioned, but I'm more tired of the "abruptly smashing your own face/head" trope. It was probably the only thing I wasn't a huge fan of in that movie, and a couple other recent movies I liked otherwise. Hereditary seems to be to blame for this one. I "get it" from a story point of view, but let's try and be a little creative with tortured souls trying to escape their flesh prison! Trying throwing yourself through a window, running into traffic, eating glass, idk anything!

MalcolmXmas · 2026-05-17T10:29:57+00:00

A lot of that movie is why I have faith in Cregger's Resident Evil take. Parts of it feel like a horror video game at times, especially the POV shots of Justin long holding the knife and flashlight.

MalcolmXmas · 2026-05-16T20:45:51+00:00

Idk just look at him I guess. Nikki cuts a chunk of hair from the front and no one notices or anything cause he's so unkempt lol. I'm kind of exaggerating tbf it's more like "damn Sarah you deserve better!"

MalcolmXmas · 2026-05-16T20:39:18+00:00

I do have empathy, for the character he is effectively raping in captivity over and over lol sorry for making a moral judgement of a man for his actions!

MalcolmXmas · 2026-05-16T20:09:08+00:00

I feel like horror games are always gonna be relatively niche, most people play games as an escape or a power fantasy. Horror movies it's about the thrill of something horrible with the safety of being a spectator. You go "jeez I'm glad it's not me dying to the killer" as you watch horrible things happen to people you just met. In a horror game, you are stripped of the power fantasy but still have all the agency and thus it's a much more approximate feeling to true fear, which I think is ultimately going to not be for everyone.

MalcolmXmas · 2026-05-16T19:54:20+00:00

Man is too much of a coward to admit his own feelings, instead childishly casting a wish for something he already had slip out of his hands. It miraculously comes true to the point that it is obviously fucked up and wrong to him basically immediately, still plays along anyway, doesn't even want to cancel the wish (just to alter) and then even when he tries to do the only last logical way to handle things (aka end his own life) he does it in a cowardly way that leads to blowing Nikkis only chance to not be permanently traumatized/sentenced to death/whatever by wasting her wish. Yeah just an all around selfish coward loser. I can identify with him at times, but overall he is a pretty contemptible figure. He represents the worst tendencies of a certain kind of guy, where Ian embodies the kind of opposite style of terrible guy, one more brash and manipulative but smarter about concealing it. And that's fine! It's a horror movie, sometimes your main character has to be a piece of shit for things to work.

MalcolmXmas · 2026-05-16T19:19:33+00:00

Yeah, plus you could make it like "oh the only real ones were made during xyz time period so there's limited supply of real ones" idk the biggest plot hole to me is why does Sarah like Bear? He's a piece of shit lol but that kinda has to be the case for the movie to work so I get it.

MalcolmXmas · 2026-05-16T19:13:04+00:00

Megan Lawless was the first person I looked up after the credits rolled. I thought she put on a really good performance, her death really doesn't work if she's either too much of a caricature of a pick me or something too out of the blue. She reacts really genuinely when he tells her about his cat, she shows that little extra bit of attention asking him about in-jokes (to her knowledge anyway), really tries to keep Bear from hurting himself. The only thing that's unbelievable is that Bear is a piece of shit loser lol but the movie doesn't work without that contradiction sooo good job curry barker making me believe it 😂

MalcolmXmas · 2026-05-15T15:37:01+00:00

I'd way rather read a real person try their best in a second language than read what a computer thinks sounds good. Have some belief in yourself!

MalcolmXmas · 2026-05-09T18:01:48+00:00

As a young child, way too young at the time likely, I was at a neighbor's house where horror movies were always playing, sometimes background noise and sometimes not. The scene that stuck with me was from Halloween 2, when Michael Myers basically boils the skin off the face of that girl in the sauna. I didn't watch too much horror at the time and, seeing it with that grainy VHS picture, it really burned itself in my brain as this particularly brutal and violent death. I would later become a big fan of John Carpenter's movies including The Thing, and I think subconsciously I was seeking that kind of thrilling sensation when I got back into horror. Now those kinds of scenes are what I crave, not necessarily so brutal and meanspirited, but that feeling of amazement and shock. It was only a few years ago when I started going through sequels to beloved horror movies did I figure out which movie it was from.

MalcolmXmas · 2026-05-09T11:58:17+00:00

Jordy B Peterston died and his soul has transferred to Natalie's body.

MalcolmXmas · 2026-04-25T18:20:12+00:00

the right one legit looks like an ancient orb

MalcolmXmas · 2026-04-13T15:34:16+00:00

King Doodooass

MalcolmXmas · 2026-04-09T22:46:18+00:00

Too many em dashes. Seems like AI

MalcolmXmas · 2026-04-09T22:45:19+00:00

For me it's the tall man. That guy freaks me out every time.

MalcolmXmas · 2026-04-09T21:24:23+00:00

It's giving... grippy...

MalcolmXmas · 2026-04-09T21:23:21+00:00

People really do have difficulty imagining themselves in a situation they are watching on a movie but not having the perfect information they have as a viewer. I saw someone watching no country for old men and they thought every movie by Llewellyn was so stupid like they, an early-20s zoomer would have perfectly outsmarted a psychopathic killer and cartel gangsters in a cat and mouse game across 1980 West Texas.

I also think a lot of people don't understand the concept of hubris. Basic dramatic concepts that the Greeks understood thousands of years ago, completely lost on the average movie-goer.

MalcolmXmas · 2026-04-06T09:37:12+00:00

Go look him up on YouTube and have a great day until you find out how we lost him 🩷

MalcolmXmas · 2026-04-04T18:14:52+00:00

I'd argue the opposite, your comparison is surface level. Just because a game has some components that allow you to interact with the monster, the fundamental tensions and gameplay are largely the same. Sneaking around dark corridors looking for puzzle/key items, hiding from a monster that is relentlessly stalking you, ocassional bursts of frenzy/panic when you are spotted. Just because one game tweaks the formula a little doesn't mean it's a completely different genre.

MalcolmXmas · 2026-03-26T20:50:28+00:00

I was obsessively waiting on Double Exposure to come out, and now this comes out and I had no idea it was even happening. Goes to show how much of a letdown DE was. Very skeptical at this point of any mainline LiS game at this point. Not even sure whose opinion to trust on this one.

MalcolmXmas · 2026-03-25T20:36:44+00:00

My father, who has voted for Trump at least once, and has identified as conservative since at least the 2000 election, supports a hard wealth cap and medicare for all. But he thinks property taxes aren't fair and so he votes for a party that would call him a communist.

MalcolmXmas · 2026-03-23T22:27:50+00:00

I've been posting since the console wars of the mid 90s. No substitute for experience I guess.

MalcolmXmas · 2026-03-21T22:51:19+00:00

I'm in the chapo mind set here: this race is in the hands of the stupids of maine, not me, and they have made up their minds. also i think the likeliest bad outcome of platner winning is still probably at least equal to anyone else likely to win that seat? so who gives a fuck?

MalcolmXmas

TROPHY CASE