My dad sometimes calls me Toto because my middle name is Salvatore (named after my Sicilian granddad) :lol:

The Quiet Earth (1985, Geoffrey Hughes)
Post apocalyptic pondering from Down Under. At first it's all Matheson ... then we get the Adam & Eve bit, which morphs into No Exit at the end. I love it. When 'Project Flashlight' goes a bit askew, a lone scientist sets out to find some answers ... with surprising results.

The Raven (1963, Roger Corman)

Price, Lorre, Karloff, Court (and a pubescent Nicholson ;)). Need I say more??
Okay then. Relate would have a field day here, as mourning magician Price falls for the rather labrythine machinations ( phew, must lie down :lol:) of fellow sorcerer Karloff. My vhs looks somewhat faded now ... which does add something to the tale.

The Raven (1935)

A surgeon (Bela Lugosi) with an infatuation for Poe, saves the life of a beautiful young woman. On realising she'll never give in to his rather dubious charms old Bela enlists the help of a brutal criminal (Boris Karloff) who he turns into a hideous creation and only vows to turn him back if he kidnaps the woman so she can be his 'Lenore'.

As with the previous years The Black Cat, The Raven is a sadistic film. Karloff looks terrifying after Lugosi's surgery with one eye practically popping out. There are many classic Poe influences in the film namely the pendulum torture device, the film boasting several memorable scenes throughout. Karloff is at his pitiful, tortured soul best and Lugosi... well he's always Lugosi isn't he. Whilst not as good as The Black Cat, this is still a fine film and a great horrific showcase for two legends of horror cinema.

Can I go for the echo gag?? :lol:

Sadly my 35 Raven "went walkies" a while back. Ho hum. Great film nonetheless.

I laughed when i saw your post as i was about to add mine. :lol:

Ended up watching Wind Chill last night by the way. A superior ghost story with a lot of snow and Emily Blunt who made things even colder.

Black Panther (2018)

**** out of *****

The Shape of Water (2017)

**** out of *****

Inconceivable (2017)
Nanny film. Cage film. He's nae the nanny (that would have been betterer :lol:). Is it ever a good idea to hire a complete stranger to look after your offspring?? Not as out there as The Guardian ... though it comes close at points :laugh:

Day Of The Dead: Bloodline (2017)
It must be the curse of films with this sub title :lol: ... liked the opening, but dearie me this is just witless.

Daddys Home Two 2017)
That's how it's written, don't blame me. If you do not care for the Ferrell then this will be worse than Mordum to sit through :laugh:. Mawkish sappy garbage though some may chuckle at Rockatansky overplaying his 'image' for laughs .... I thought it was pond scum. Back to the sleaze and gore methinks!!!

The first was mediocre, so I'm not surprised this is terrible. It's a shame because I think Ferrell and Marky Mark make for a great comic double act - The Other Guys is comedy gold.

I absolutely detested this film.

Worse than the Steve Miner remake?

Violence in a woman's prison.

Takeaway and movie night once more and my mate fancied something 'trashy'. Since the kiddies were out at the cinema and the puppy seems uninterested in sleazy garbage I decided to bring round some Bruno Mattei flicks.
Started with this one as I'd picked it up on Vipco disc for 10p at a cash converters. Can't resist the insanity that is the women in prison genre and with Mattei at the helm how could it fail?
The synopsis is pretty much the standard formula. An investigative reporter goes under cover at a women's prison to expose corruption and brutality behind bars. Naturally its got the usual covered, lesbianism, brutal dyke wardens, vendettas, randy male inmates at a neighbouring prison, corrupt governor. It mixes it in with Mattei's love of rat attacks where one inmates legs are savaged with the prison doctor insisting the inmate gets taken to hospital. The warden insisting they are 'self inflicted'.
Apparently it was shot back to back with Emannuel in prison. We get the traditional Euro sleaze casting with Laura Gemser and Lorraine De Selle as the governor. Its all 'seen it all before' stuff and if your not a Mattei fan you might struggle but for me it was all good sleazy fun.

Attachment 201878

The other hell

Bruno Mattei doing his take on The Devil's? Count me in. Sadly its a little...well, dull. If your a hardcore Mattei fan there's stuff to like and even a few scenes that actually manage to be creepy. Sadly though there's not enough masturbating nuns or other such general nuttiness to push it into the delirious garbage category of film-making. Its still worth a go though.


Last Hunter

Moving from Mattei to Antonio Margheriti and a bit of namspolitation. Here we get the low budget, grindhouse take on Deer hunter. This might be an improvement for some as we don't get an hour or so of people at a wedding. Instead the film throws us straight into the mix with David Warbeck as a jaded veteran in Saigon sent on 'one last mission' so far so Apocalypse now, another clear inspiration on the film. This takes our protagonist deep in country to meet up with a team that includes Tony King and Demons star Bobby Rhodes. They are accompanies by a journalist played by Tisa Farrow (who gets her tits out) and go in search of a vietcong radio station broadcasting propaganda to American troops. On the way they encounter a group of half crazed American troops led by Joh Steiner. The base has a lovely bar that plays disco music before it took off and became a craze (Last year of vietnam was about 1975, Disco started taking off 75 but gained popularity up to the early 80's, when this film was shot).
As nuts as it all is, and as derivative of other bigger pictures as it is. Last hunter is all kinds of fun. Margheriti really knows how to shoot action scenes and there's absolutely loads of it crammed into the 99 minute run-time. We also get plenty of claret and some unintentional humour along the way but frankly its a film that's hard to fault.

For me yes.

The Steve Miner remake has bugger all to do with Romero's day of the dead. If you took the title off and added a different one you would have difficulty telling it was intended as a remake at all. Its a terrible film but easy enough to write off as yet another bog-standard zombie flick.

The new one however clearly tries to remake the Romero film. They even have 'bub' but roll all the other scientist characters into one. So instead of Howard Sherman's genuinely brilliant performance as a ghoul who is slowly remembering who he once was we get a rapist who can track people by scent. Its stupid, in comics when they tried to make books more 'edgy' the really bad writers would add rape plots because it was an easy way to make the material dark without actually having to focus on deeper storytelling. To me thats whats happened here. Some idiot must have decided to add the rape plot into the film to try and make it edgy and contemporary. But Its bad writing and it just makes the film distasteful and not in a good way.

So while with the Miner film I could shut off the part of my brain that was aware it was supposed to be Day of the dead and watch the film on its own terms. This new one just made me appreciate how intelligent and nuanced the Romero film was. It's garbage and its key mistake is being garbage thats actively trying to be a much better film.

I didn't mind the Steve Miner film at first. As has been pointed out it's no relation whatsoever to the source film but i quite enjoyed it for a standard zombie film.

Then when i watched it again last year (third time) i absolutely hated it from about half way through. :lol:

The Slumber Party Massacre (1982)

***1/2 out of *****

I at least laughed during the first. True The Other Guys is a hoot (the night out montage :laugh:) but this? Crivvens as we say up north

Hope & Glory (1987, John Boorman)
Cor blimey it's the bleedin' jerries!! Taking one family to represent the spirit of the times is sometimes a bit of a stretch (Where The Heart Is ... cough) but this is just right. I highly recommend Queen & Country ... the sequel of sorts.

Undefeatable (Godfrey Hall, 1993)

Cynthia Rothrock is a troubled soul with a duty of care her driving force. Surmounting seemingly impossible odds, she triumphs over adversity on many fronts.
All whilst kicking folk about. Nasty taste with a repellent (and luckily hilarious) villain. Just as mad as the last one ....

Murder obsession.

Michael takes some time from shooting a horror movie to spend a weekend at the family home. A good thing though as he's showing signs of cracking, nearly strangling the lead actress for real. It seems Michael has a few bees loose in the bonnet as he relates to his missus how he stabbed his father to death in a psychotic rage as a child. Unperturbed, the director and some of the cast also make their way to the family mansion for a weekend away and surprising no one in the audience people start to get murdered one by one.
Ricardo Freda has not had the same attention from international critics as Mario Bava but there are those who feel his work is certainly worthy intention. This film is late in the game for him at 1981 perhaps but its still a lot of fun to watch. It feels a little old fashioned with its Gothic mansion setting, chamber music score and pacing however its a highly memorable and inventive Giallo that plays as you would expect before introducing some real weirdness into the mix including some psychedelic dream sequences featuring a huge spider, Satanism and a thoroughly messed up inversion of the Oedipus syndrome that leads into a genuinely strange end scene that feels ripped from someone's nightmares.

Slaughter hotel

Set in a rural villa modified into a sanatorium for wealthy female clients and run by the enigmatic Dr. Francis Clay played by Klaus Kinski. The film has the various 'troubled' guests including an incest driven nymphomaniac, a suicide case and a lesbian all of whom are being stalked by an axe wielding maniac who is terrorising the area.
From Fernando Di Leo, Slaughter hotel is a greasy, sleazy, thoroughly entertaining slice of mayhem with enough in it to recommend it to trash enthusiasts. Given the quality of his Poliziotteschi its hard at times to reconcile this as the same director as Calibre 9. It's fun but as its been edited from numerous different prints its incredibly choppy in terms of editing and soundtrack. However Euro trash enthusiasts will still have a good time.

Stunt Squad

A mafiosi is sending warnings to people not wiliing to pay protection money by setting off bombs in their place of business. Naturally the police are not happy with this so an inspector is given permission to set up a special team of bikers to kick organised crimes arse.
As trashy as it sounds, the actual experience of watching stunt squad is a good one. Its balls to the wall mental in terms of stunts, violence and revenge. Genuine fun.

Turbo Kid (2015)

**** out of *****

This is the 88 SH k aye? Am looking forward to that .... :nod:
Great reviews as always btw ...

It's the Raro release. Bought it ages back.

So you did. :behindsofa:

Jigsaw (2017, Spierig Bros)

Even more witless than DOTD: BL ... one of the characters resembles Gary Olsen ... so that didn't help either :lol:



Le Porno Killer (1980)

Look that's what it says on the disc :lol:. People give me the strangest things sometimes. Ostensibly smut with the shagging brutally shorn ... or it's like a poor Franco film. 2 bints outwit a variety of 'hunks' ... sure Harry Reems was one of them :lol: ...the ST is either outsider art or just disco tat :laugh: ... in a weird way it's quite refreshing :lol: :behindsofa:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/video/de...&pf_rd_t=12401


Noticed this on prime , any one seen it is it worth a watch?

The Villainess (2017, Byung-gil Jung)

I love Asian genre cinema me. Korean take on Nikita that it maybe, this still has many many highlights ... some eyewatering camerawork/editing just piling up the overall effect.

The Ghost Breakers (1940, George Marshall)

Scarier than The Cat & The Canary to my mind, Hope's 'cowardy custard' persona better intergrated into the (sliiightly) gothic atmosphere here for me. And it is chock full of casual racism .... ahem. From the chap at the helm of How The West Was Won etc ...

Watched Brian Yuxna's Society for the first time last night! Very impressed. it's gross as hell, but very entertaining.

Well it's now on my watch list.

Meet him and die

Ray Lovelock plays Massimo, an undercover cop who gets sent to jail in order to infiltrate a drugs gang. Inside he gets on friendly terms with boss Giulianelli played by Martin Balsam. In order to get further into the operation Massimo arranges a breakout taking Giulianelli and earns his trust further when he appears to save his life. However, though Massimo is a cop he may have a more personal justice in mind.
Directed by Franco Prosperi who also worked with Lovelock on the nasty as hell last house on the beach, Meet him and die is an entertaining poliziotteschi with plenty of twists. It also has Elke Sommer as the love interest which doesn't hurt either. Lovelock makes a great leading man in these cop thrillers and Balsam is obviously good as one would expect.

Killer cop

The film takes its main starting point as the Piazza Fontana bombing which happened in Milan in 1969. Inspector Luigi Balsamo is a witness to one of the suspects and the chief, Armando Di Federico played by veteran actor Arthur Kennedy orders him to be put into protection. Unfortunately this does no good and Balsamo is killed off. Federico believes the terrorists have some assistance from within the force and suspects Commissioner Matteo Rolandi played by Claudio Cassinelli, however it becomes apparent that the orders seem to be coming from the Attorney general himself.
Killer cop is a straight up, deadly serious poliziotteschi with a real political edge to it. It's got shootouts and is entertaining but its worth noting your not getting the usual car crashes and massacres that seem to punctuate a lot of the more commercially made cop thrillers of the time.

Shape of water

Reviewed it not long back but my Local cinema decided to screen it. I always try and support this sort of film theatrically so went to see it.
It definitely benefits from a huge screen, the set design, creature design and the overall production values are great and look wonderful on the big screen. God bless Vue and its £4.99 tickets.

Exactly that's why me and Sam go more often now because the price is affordable , and the more people get to know eventually more people will go more often instead of downloading or streaming crappy copies of the films .

Since out vue have dropped tickets to £4.99 We havent managed to get into anything. It's ten times busier there. We went to watch The Commuter with Liam Neeson. Sold out three weeks after release.

Comparing that to the Odeon in Liverpool where a Friday night ticket can cost you £14 and all the screens are booked up, it's insane. There is a cinema in the town where I work and I can see films for £6 which is great, but I rarely go because I just want to go home after a day at work :lol:

For me, even with a huge TV and expensive sound system it's impossible to replicate the theatrical experience. I'm hoping our vue does another 4k season like last year. Seeing HEAT, ROBOCOP, BREAKFAST CLUB, GRADUATE and TAXI DRIVER theatrically was wonderful.

The Seventh Veil (1945, Compton Bennett)

Yes, the one where James Mason beats a young girl :rolleyes:. Full of repressed passion and thwarted desire, this quintessentially British film is where it's at for me.

Have you got the Odeon dvd, Demoncrat?

It's got a great doc about Mason and Huddersfield.