Underrated Performances
 

Horror/Exploitation are genres with many ignored and lets face it trashed performances....

Joe Spinell in Maniac

I was flicking thru Leonard Maltin's movie guide and it was funny what he said about Maniac. Nice to see he hasn't updated it in ten years. Do people actually take this cunt seriously these days?

Michael Rooker in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer

....and perhaps one of the most criminallly underappreciated performances in recent cinema Harvey Keitel in Bad Lieutentant.

Keanu Reeves only good role was in the River's Edge.

Seems only the nice clean cut stuff gets the props.

Leonard Maltin is pretty much a joke within the critic community. And no, mainstream critics will very rarely recognize outstanding performances in a horror film. Horror is such a ghettoized genre that most critics don't want to commend it too much, for fear of losing their credibility.

Performances that I personally found fantastic:
Bill Paxton in Frailty
Koji Yakusho in Cure
Choi Min-Sik in Oldboy
Sam Neill in... well, everything.

Michael Moriarity in Larry Cohen's 'Q'

brilliant ..

Brad Pitt in Se7en
Michael Moriarity in The Stuff (He really was good... The movie just sucked)
Famke Jansen in The House on Haunted HIll (Okay, that one was a joke)

oh man i hated him in that...

i saw it right after Q and it smelled up the place in comparrison ..

have you seen Q ?

No. We are getting "Vongo" in the near future, so i think i will be updating my mental library soon, though.

try to find Q - the winged serpent.


5 minutes into it you'll understand why i hate The Stuff so much.


its like, i dunno... following the brilliance of the Matrix with - oh - lets say ... the matrix 2

Q, as in Quetzalcoatl?


Already sounds interesting :)

thats the one ..

also a smooth downbeat performace by David Carradine...

Like in Hudson Hawk? :)

Killer actor for sure dude. Hopefully now he's got his TV show people will get amped on Near Dark too.
I've always thought the dude was likeable as hell in the shit I've seen him in. He had a bunch of roles where he was the disposable (how often do you find an attachment to a character like he brought across these days?) wisecrackin' guy but Near Dark showed his lead role abilities. "I hate it when they ain't been shaved" :D

Good point about horror being a ghettoized genre there's not a lot of good writing on it and its legitimized with a feminist (The whole Men, Women & Chainsaws deal)/whatever (mainly "war") latley spin.

thank your own fave slasher films for that ... since the 80's (i wont repeat my rant again)..

you dont watch slashers for the writing .. most people watch them for the gore and cheese and tits.

unfortunately this was a huge contribution to the 'ghettoizing'.

pre 80's horror films were made with big stars/big directors .. 99% adult oriented.

not often that we get one like that now.

People not being able to see thru the "cheese" and missing the gems contributied to the ghettoizing.

A hell of a lot of the pre 80's shit with big (real) stars/directors is totally dull to watch and the majority of them were lame Exorcist (or whatever supernatural trend was cool at the time) rip offs.

oh i know there are a couple of good slashers - but you have to admit they are overwhealmed by the sheer multitudes of bad ones (remember i grew up on this stuff - i've seen and own tons of them -

i've always loved the 70's horror films .. cant think of any i dont like even if they arent all that fast paced .. i still really dig the grittiness of them ..

the vidoi rental market is the biggest culprit ... why spend a lot of money on good writers/actors/directors if kids will rent whatever shit you throw at them with an interesting cover.

the budget is covered once all the rental places have bought their copies !

there is also the fact that they arent even making movies for theaters any more. Who cares how it will do in the box office? People will still buy the DVD....

Everyone I know still cares about the box office:D

Good. If i had things my way, i would always go to the theater. I saw Independance day 7 times in the theater, simply because the special effects blew me away on the big screen. I own the DVD and i think i have watched it twice. In 5 years.

newb, if you see this, can you photoshop a giant squid in a moat for me ?

:confused: :confused: :confused:

maybe have the giant squid fighting the vodwok..

Kraken vs Vodwok....


Didnt that star Treat Williams and Famke Jansen?


Oh wait. That was deep rising. My bad.