Low-Publicity Movies Worth Watching

[mrblakemiller]

I watched a small horror flick called Splinter tonight, and I was pleasantly surprised. I love the conventions of the horror genre, so I don't mind a formulaic horror movie nearly as much as a formulaic drama or romcom. That said, there are still a bunch of horror movies that deserve zero audience. This film wasn't like that. It told a tight, suspenseful story, never devolved into lunatic plot elements (cept maybe for the box cutter bit), and kept me wondering who would survive the whole time.

As good as it was, I won't recommend it without first recommending my favorite horror movie that no one saw: Triangle. It's an Australian horror flick about a group of twentysomethings that hit a storm while sailing and wind up on an abandoned cruise ship. There's a generic masked menace out to kill them, but that's dealt with rather quickly. Then the weird crap happens. The trailer will spoil the crap out of it, so don't watch it. I'll just quote a line that might pique your interest: "If anyone comes here, shoot them. Even if it's me." You can find it pretty easily online, and it was well worth my time.

Just felt like recommending that one again, since it's been a while since I've done so. Do any of you know of any good low-budget, small-release flicks that deserved to do a lot better than half the crap in theatres right now? Please share them with me.

 

[SlaveNumber23]

I really liked Dread: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1331307/

Its a horror/thriller movie about a couple of guys who set out to study peoples fears. Its a great movie which doesn't set out to just scare you like other horror movies but instead focuses on telling a good story. However, it doesn't quite live up to the short story by Clive Barker that it is based on, which I strongly recommend reading. The ending of the movie is also very weak and misses Barker's point entirely. Still, I really enjoyed it.

 

[Dangit2019]

Waking Life.

A rotoscoped art film that has no plot (on the surface), instead providing a sequence of captivating conversations and philosophical concepts. Sounds very pretentious, but is actually very fun to watch.

 

[Rawberry101]

In my film class 2 weeks ago an indie director screened a movies he's gonna release in 2013 (hopefully) called Short Term 12. It was an expanded and reworked story of a short film he directed (also called Short Term 12) that won in the Short Film category at Sundance Film Festival. Also, it was on the shortlist of films up for an Academy Award that same year. Apparently it made the top 10 but not the top 5. That's a pretty big deal as far as I'm concerned.

It was a good movie and well worth the price of admission. It's not life changing but it's a look into a world I didn't know existed until the film showed it to me.

I hope this counts since the movie hasn't actually been released. I guess it's something that you can look out for in the future.

 

[HardkorSB]

Splinter was OK. The monster design was cool but as far as characters go, I knew who would come out alive after 5-10 minutes.

Triangle was good.

If you like low budget lesser known horror movies, try Mulberry Street. It's kind of like a zombie movie but not really.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0473514/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Another one I like is The Loved Ones, pretty messed up but good:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1316536/

Stake Land - a decent vampire apocalypse road movie:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1464580/

Uzumaki - makes little to no sense but is still entertaining:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0244870/

D-Tox - Not really low budget (it has Stallone, Robert Patrick, Tom Berenger, Kris Kristofferson etc.) but due to problems with the studio, it was never properly released so few people know about it:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0160184/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

That should be enough for now.

 

[DoPo]

Primer - movie about time travel. A good movie about time travel. It's fucking brilliant - you have to take notes (really, do scribble them down) and then watch the movie again for it to make sense. I love it.

 

[lRookiel]

Centurion, saw no publicity for that movie yet it was SO good.

EDIT: Ok just saw moviebobs video on it...

 

[WWmelb]

id recomend hard candy. small budget film, very confronting and with a tiny cast and will leave you not wanting to get on the bad side of ellen page ever

This. AND i would recommend going into that film knowing NOTHING about the plot. It makes it oh so much better.

I will have to again recommend my favourite movie of all time: Pi. Darren Aronofsky's first feature, black and white sci-fi thriller that just does my head in. I've watched it at least 20 times and am still picking up on subtle things that i've missed.

The Loved Ones is awesome, best australian horror movie to date.

Undead also a great comedy/horror from australia.

Centurion was pretty good, but probably the least good of Neil Marshall's films. All are great though, Dog Soldiers, Descent (fuck me was that movies TENSE!!!) and my fav of his Doomsday.

And must recommend korean film "I'm a cyborg but that's okay"

Must look into this Triangle and Primer.

 

[Kakistos153]

There are lots that i've seen but i'm probably not going to be able to come up with many.

Dark city (really weird, totally underrated)
Push
Pathology
Lolita '97
Cabin in the woods (doesn't count here cos bob publicised it so hard)
Seeking a friend for the end of the world (steve carell, who i usually don't like so much)
Sleeping dogs lie >
God bless america >(saw these 2 at the same time cos of bobcats involvement)
The revenant (i really enjoyed it, kinda long though)
Jumper
Limitless
Sunshine

Very few horror movies. Its funny actually. I wish there were more horror movies on it, one might be led to believe that I don't like horror movies. Its actually just that really good memorable ones are really really rare and actually horror movies are just an excuse to make your date feel more cuddly. Cabin in the woods is a great movie, i don't really think it counts as horror though cos the horror isn't really the point. Dark city is kinda more horror-y but still, more "what the fuck?" than "ahh, i'm scared". The revenant is also kinda in the vain of a horror movie, but again, horror isn't really the point. Its been a long time since there's truly been an evil dead.

Side note. Why the fuck does the spell check on chrome say that "movie" and "movies" aren't words.

 

[Darren716]

The Forbidden Zone, it's not a very good movie, in fact it's pretty damn awful, but it is an experience because of how weird it is. Some examples of its strangeness include a princess who is constantly topless, a version of the three stooges swinging the alphabet where all he'll breaks loose, sets that seem to be made out of card board, and much more that I do not want to spoil. Also as a fun fact this was The first film that Danny Elfman did the score to since this was when he was unknown and the reason he got the job was because his brother was the director.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Princess Blade

Odd movie about a ninja princess on the run from the rest of the ninjas, who meets a terrorist who's been following orders in the hope that one or two more bombings will somehow bring back the happy times.

 

[Buzz Killington_v1legacy]

Splinter was OK. The monster design was cool but as far as characters go, I knew who would come out alive after 5-10 minutes.

That's...not a huge accomplishment in a movie with only six characters and

Spoiler

two of them die or are infected within sixty seconds of their first appearances, and one is a delusional junkie.

I do recommend Splinter, though. It's pretty much a textbook example of making a good low-budget movie with only a few characters and one main location.

 

[-Adracko-]

The Forbidden Zone, it's not a very good movie, in fact it's pretty damn awful, but it is an experience because of how weird it is. Some examples of its strangeness include a princess who is constantly topless, a version of the three stooges swinging the alphabet where all he'll breaks loose, sets that seem to be made out of card board, and much more that I do not want to spoil. Also as a fun fact this was The first film that Danny Elfman did the score to since this was when he was unknown and the reason he got the job was because his brother was the director.

Ah the wondrous Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo, always love when anyone has any mention of them or Danny Elfman.

OT: Den Brysomme Mannen aka The Bothersome Man was a pretty good movie, gets kinda eerie. I don't remember too much about it, but it was recommended to me by my brother who also recommended movies like Primer.

 

[DoPo]

I will have to again recommend my favourite movie of all time: Pi. Darren Aronofsky's first feature, black and white sci-fi thriller that just does my head in. I've watched it at least 20 times and am still picking up on subtle things that i've missed.

I was going to mention it, but I wasn't sue how to write a description that does it justice, so I left it off, hoping somebody else would mention Pi. Good movie.

Must look into this [...] Primer.

Yes, yes you must. The first time I heard of it, was seeing the quote "anybody who claims he fully understands what's going on in Primer after seeing it just once is either a savant or a liar.", that prompted me to read more about it. So I found a description of it that went something like this (can't actually find the original) "The director is a Maths graduate who also too a Physics course, in order to make the most realistic film about time travel". I stopped reading right there (there was more) and went and saw the movie. It was a blast. I later returned to actually read the whole description and the next sentence was "The film had a budget of $7000" - if I hadn't been convinced by the first sentence, this one would have done the trick.

 

[tippy2k2]

Rubber

It's a little independent movie sitting on Netflix. I put it in my queue due to the description alone but never got around to watching it until @Marter gave me a little push into it. Sweet hilarity am I glad I did that...

Little blurb for movie on Netflx:
A car tire named Robert rolls through the desert Southwest using its strange psychic powers to blow up birds, bunnies, human beings and more.

And I'm glad I did. The movie takes a bit to get....rolling (Hee hee! Get it?! I'm hilarious) but once it goes, it is one of the funniest movies I have seen this year. I absolutely adore movies that take regular conventions (see Cabin in The Woods) and turns them on their head for comedic purposes and this movie does just that.

 

[Soxafloppin]

Dead Mans shoes.

Honestly one of my favourite films, discovered it completely by accident too.

 

[Kakistos153]

Rubber

It's a little independent movie sitting on Netflix. I put it in my queue due to the description alone but never got around to watching it until @Marter gave me a little push into it. Sweet hilarity am I glad I did that...

Little blurb for movie on Netflx:
A car tire named Robert rolls through the desert Southwest using its strange psychic powers to blow up birds, bunnies, human beings and more.

And I'm glad I did. The movie takes a bit to get....rolling (Hee hee! Get it?! I'm hilarious) but once it goes, it is one of the funniest movies I have seen this year. I absolutely adore movies that take regular conventions (see Cabin in The Woods) and turns them on their head for comedic purposes and this movie does just that.

Good god that movie gave me a headache.