My wife had her Chrimbo work party of Friday night, so my mate came round and we watched some damn fine 80s schlock.
Xtro
This had been discussed on here the last week and my mate hadn't seen it, so I wanted to see what he thought and I'm chuffed to say he really enjoyed it.
It's my second view of it this year and the last time I watched it, it was part of my self imposed A-Z movie challenge where I watched 26 films (A-Z) in one go, so as you can imagine by the time I got to 'X' - the trippy and frankly baffling nature of
Xtro lent itself perfectly to my sleep deprived and slightly hallucinogenic state of mind.
This time I'd had a few beers and a fair bit of chin wagging was taking place, but I still really rate it as a low budget film. Owing a debt to the likes of Quatermaass and even the stories of John Wyndham, I felt that the ideas and creative effort put into the film were really apparent and the surreal black humour worked very well too.
And I'm still adamant that the score is an unheralded work of genius
Next up was
Stagefright
A first time for me and my mate. I've been reading a lot about Soavi in Alan Jones'
Profondo Argento and I know that this forum's Slippery Jack is a big fan of this flick.
As a rule I'm a bit
meh when it comes to slashers, but I really liked the set up of this and the owl head is a great piece of wtf costume design.
Boswell's manic score was hugely enjoyable and I loved the murder set pieces, but I felt that the last half hour dragged and the fact that we always knew who the killer was seemed to contribute to this.
However it's superbly shot with some bravura camerawork that owes more than a nod to Argento's oeuvre and the whole opening sequence is both hilarious and technically fantastic.
I'm guessing that Soavi has a very dark sense of humour, which lends itself well to a film where the killer offs people in an owl mask, and it's this lightness brilliantly that counterpoints the really gruesome deaths.
So, overall a good film, let down by a pretty weak plot.
My mate called it a night after
Stagefright, but I ploughed on with a VHS copy of
Zone Troopers.
Out of the Charles Band stable with the usual suspects (Tim Thomerson and Art LaFleur) this delightful b movie romp has US troops in World War II fighting the nazis and stumbling upon an alien craft and some of it's cargo - cue alien cliches and tropes that we've seen before, but this is done with tongue firmly in cheek as director Danny Bilson playfully parodies the camaraderie of Boys Own action comics with their archetypal characters and dialogue.
Everyone seems to be having a great time and the costumes and design of the film is surprisingly convincing for such a low budget flick.
There's a gags-a-plenty and the cast are solid and knowing in their roles, of particular note is Timothy Van Patten (
Class of 1984 and TV director (
The Wire, The Sopranos & Boardwalk Empire) who brings a delightful naivety to the role of the comics obsessed grunt who is in thrall of the aliens.
If your expectations are reasonably low and you have nostalgia for mid 80s Sci-fi B movies, this is manna from heaven.