[DeadAlive]

The Man Who Could Cheat Death - This is quite a rare Hammer and quite frankly a bit of a disappointment. Very few thrills and even less gore. Like most Hammer productions the eye for deail is there, but the story does not grip and this really could have done with a more charismatic lead than Anton Diffring in the lead role. Even Christopher Lee's performnce seems very subdued.

Hands Of The Ripper - My Hammer marathon continues with one of the better stand alone films of the seventies. Jack The Ripper's daughter grows up with a few little quirks of her own. A simple kiss to the cheek and bloody murder follows. The film is well acted by most of the cast and looks great. The blood flows pretty freely too, which is always a plus.


Evil Dead II: Dead By Dawn - The comedy is turned up to the max in Sam Raimi's sequel which is basically a remake of the first film with a much bigger budget with a few extra ideas thrown in for good measure. There are still some pretty horrific moments, but this is really the start of the cult of Bruce Campbell. His performance is brilliant and he gets to pretty much carry the film alone for the first half. The tooling up sequence is one of my favouite screen moments of all time. Groovy.

Pieces - Pretty awful early eighties slasher with some piss poor effects and gallons of gore. A chainsaw wielding serial killer obsessed with puzzles tries to build his own perfect woman from pieces taken from his victims. It raises a few unintentional chuckles for all its efforts. There is even an attempt to make this a credible whodunnit. The ending is one of those genuine WTF moments.

Army Of Darkness- The Evil Dead III - If ever there was a film that I have warmed to with viewings, this is one. The strangest of the Evil Dead films and really not a horror film at all, this one takes a turn into fantasy and slapstick, something I wasn't expecting back in the day. It really is a showcase for Bruce Campbell (Even more than the first half of Evil Dead II.) who gets large chunks of this film playing against himself. My first impression of this years ago was meh! Now.... well it may not be in the same league as the first two films but it is certainly a lot of fun with some great one liners.